We started out the week celebrating Ryan’s 11th birthday and ended it with a mini, 3-day roadtrip to Salzburg, Austria and Lake Bled, Slovenia.
On Monday, Ryan turned 11. We woke Ryan up by surprising him with a huge pile of his favorite snacks; Pringles, popcorn, Cheeze-Its, and Fudge Stripe Cookies.
Because of our ongoing internet issues, or, lack thereof, I had to go in to work. Matt and Brooklyn filled in the gaps. Brooklyn made Ryan funfetti cupcakes and Matt took them both to the Sindelfingen pool. Matt always forgets to take pictures so please enjoy these two masterpieces he captured.
They picked me up from work and we headed in to Downtown Stuttgart. First stop was the Lego Store for some birthday shopping.
Ryan got to pick his dinner location and he picked Abacco’s. He had heard Matt and I talking about cooking our own steaks on hot stones and he wanted to try it out.
Ryan said it was the best meal he’d ever had and he wants to go back for all future birthdays. He even said that he was now a man since he had cooked his own steak (even though his Mommy still needed to cut it for him).
After dinner, we stopped for our daily ice cream and then headed home.
On Tuesday, the moving company finally came and got the remaining boxes and cardboard that Matt hadn’t taken to the Werstoffhof- Hallelujah! We also received another IKEA delivery of some pieces we need to help us with organization. That kept Matt busy for a little while.
On Thursday, Brooklyn went to another Club Beyond meeting to hang out with other middle schoolers and Ryan had his friend, Grant over to play video games.
Friday we set out on our roadtrip. The dogs came along with us this time. Everything we wanted to do was dog friendly, including our hotel and Airbnb. Our main destination was Lake Bled, Slovenia. We didn’t want to drive the whole seven hours in one day so we added Salzburg to the itinerary.
We got started a little later than planned and then got stuck in traffic. By the time we got to Salzburg, 4.5 hours later, we were all so tired. We took a short nap in the hotel and then headed out around 5pm.
When we arrived at the hotel in Salzburg, we could not find Daisy’s leash anywhere. We had stopped and given them a walk twice on the way to there so we knew it had been in the car. We tore apart the car and all of our suitcases and no luck so Matt and I walked to a pet store and bought a new one. We went back to the hotel, picked up the kids, got in the car to drive downtown and Matt immediately saw the leash in his rear view mirror, sitting on the back dash. Pet fail.
We parked downtown and walked to the base of Salzburg Castle. At this point, we knew we didn’t have time to go inside the castle, but we thought we would try to take the cable car up and check out the views of the city. However, the attendant told us that we couldn’t take the dogs without “mouth baskets,” AKA muzzles so we are going to leave that for next time.
We walked through the city and then down to the river. We crossed over the Chain Lock Bridge, where Matt and I had visited in 2017 and then walked down to Mirabell Palace, where parts of the Sound of Music were filmed. After our walk, we stopped in a Biergarten for some drinks and pretzels.
Ever since our failed attempt to find Ryan some Chinese food last weekend, we have been looking everywhere we go. After our biers, we walked back towards the car and passed a Japanese restaurant so we stopped there. The food was so good and cheap! After that, we went back to the hotel to watch the Sound of Music.
Saturday we continued on to Lake Bled. We left almost on time and with all of our belongings- which says a lot because we almost always leave something behind in a hotel. The drive to Lake Bled was supposed to take 3-3.5 hours but heading out, we already knew there was going to be construction traffic.
We stopped a few times in Austria for food, to walk the dogs, and to get a Slovenian vignette. What is a vignette? Pretty much its a really high toll to drive through a country for a set number of days. Only some countries in Europe require them; Austria and Slovenia are two of them. The Austrian one was only €12 for 10 days but the Slovenian was €25 for the same amount of days. It was only slightly more expensive for the annual pass. Anyways, you buy them at gas stations near the border. The Austrian one was really a scam because after we bought the vignette, we still had to pay €13 each way for a tunnel we had to pass through. This is literal highway robbery! But I digress….
We passed through beautiful Austrian countryside with little chalets everywhere, I can’t wait to go back (except the tolls may keep me away longer). As we got close to the Slovenian border, we had to drive up and over a mountain range. The road was 18% grade; the steepest road any of us had been on. Cars were having trouble making it up the mountain. We passed by three or four broken-down cars, and several cars were stopped at the top with their hoods popped open to cool down. Luckily, our car had no problems.
We passed an old Cold War-Era (Ryan informed us of this) tank on the way down the mountain. He insisted we stop and take his picture next to it, which we could not deny because he normally hates having his picture taken. The tank had a sign for a bunker museum on it and queue the begging for us to take him there later.
next to that tank!”
We finally made it to the border of Slovenia five hours later. We did not mind as much because the scenery was so beautiful. Slovenia is in the “Julian Alps,” which are the parts of the Alps made of limestone (this is all per the Rick Steves episode we watched the night before leaving). The limestone makes the mountains look extra jagged and the makes the water so blue and clear. When Matt was reading about driving in Slovenia, it warned him that the biggest danger was distraction by the beautiful scenery.
Luckily, we couldn’t drive too fast through Slovenia due to the traffic so we were safe. We saw a pretty vantage point of the mountains, pulled off the road and ran through a field to get a shot of the kids. Since traffic was really stop and go, we stopped at a couple stops along the way to walk the dogs and take pictures.
Around 4pm, we finally made it to our AirBnb. I couldn’t even remember booking the place and it was the second place I booked after the first place cancelled on me. We were extra-pleasantly surprised by an almost new apartment, with cold A/C and fast internet. It had gorgeous views and you could walk to town. We were all so sad we didn’t get to stay longer.
After we unpacked the car, we headed to Lake Bled’s only beach “Castle Bathing Area,” which is actually only manicured grass and lots of swimming areas in the lake. The dogs weren’t allowed in so Matt got an ice cream and waited outside on a bench while the kids swam and did the obstacle course.
We were prepared to stay until closing at 8, but luckily the kids were done swimming by 7. They didn’t want to go out to dinner with us since I had packed ramen and there was a microwave in the AirBnb, so Matt and I were able to have a dinner alone.
Sunday morning, we got up and packed up the car again. We drove down to the Lake to take a boat ride on a Pletna. All motorized boats are banned on the Lake in order to keep it calm and quiet. Instead there are many of flat-bottomed boats, called Pletnas, that are steered by standing oarsmen. We got a ride out to the island in the middle of the lake which has a church on it.
When we had arrived at the Lake the day before, it was later in the day and overcast so we could not really see the true color of the Lake. I’m so glad we got to give it a second look because the color was unreal. Such a bright turquoise; pictures cannot do it justice.
When we got to the island, the boat oarsman gave us one hour. Matt and Ryan didn’t want to go in the church so they walked around with the dogs. Brooklyn and I each rang the wishing bell and then climbed to the top of the bell tower to see the medieval clock which times the bell chimes.
We got ice cream and then got our boat ride back to shore and headed back to the car. We left at about 11 and were expecting a 6-7 hour car ride. We made it to the Austrian border within an hour but the border was closed. We sat for about 30 minutes and were about to turn around when we were finally allowed through. We never did figure out why it was closed. When we were arrived, everyone was standing around outside their cars and then suddenly, everyone was jumping back in and we were moving.
Right after we got back into Austria, we passed the Bunker Museum again. Ryan asked to stop and we couldn’t say no. He’s always a good sport about doing the things we want to do and this really did make his year.
The Museum was actually a bunker from the Cold-War Era (hence the tank down the road). It is run by one of the Austrian soldiers who was stationed there while it was still active, before it was decommissioned in the 1990s. He met us at the gate and gave us the background of the bunker and an overview of what to see. Although Austria is now a neutral country, it was apparently the “alley” between NATO countries and Warsaw Pact countries during the Cold War. The bunker protected an important mountain pass but was luckily, never used. The guide told us that many Austrians in the area where not aware of its existence until they visited the museum because of its top-secret nature.
Ryan was enthralled with everything he had to say and the rest of us even thought it was interesting despite the topic not being so much up our alleys. We toured the bunker and then the grounds which was filled with tanks, cannons, and other military vehicles. The best part was that they have an active tank in their collection that they give rides on. Ryan’s year was definitely made.
After we left the museum, we really hit the road to get home. By now, traffic had piled up so we were still looking at 6-7 more hours. The GPS detoured us through more beautiful scenery. It really does make you not mind the drive so much- at the beginning. Two hours in and we were all begging for home.
We drove and drove and drove. Where we could, we were going over 100 on the autobahns but we were slowed down several times due to rain. Finally by 10pm we were home. I think this may be our last long car ride for the time being and we will stick to trips of 3 hours or less.
Looking forward to a week of catching up on sleep and getting internet!
Links:
Meininger Hotel Salzburg City Center: https://tinyurl.com/jyy94h48
Lake Bled AirBnb: https://tinyurl.com/z9t8cxp4
Gilcrests Abroad 