I can honestly say that Austria is probably my favorite stop that we had. Salzburg is breathtaking. The historical buildings, castle and the old town itself was amazing. We went on a tour (Bob's Big Tours) which was supposed to be a Sound of Music tour. In addition to the famous sites from the movie, our lovely tour guide Beatrice, also took us into the mountains and through the most amazing little villages. We stopped for lunch in Mondsee, Austria which has a beautiful lake and a charming little town. By far, this tour was the best money we have spent. We decided we liked Salzburg so much, we decided to add an extra day there.
Then, we were on our way to Italy. The drive from Salzburg to Italy is extremely beautiful. We went through the Alps (crazy elevations) and then you start heading south into northern Italy. They can grow grapes at any elevation and in any direction and in any space of land. There must have been a castle every 5 to 10 miles with a little village surrounding it. It was very picturesque. At least that's what my passenger told me. I was pretty busy white knuckle driving the whole way. I have never in my life experienced such terror as the driving is in Italy. The truck drivers are the most certifiably insane people I have ever seen. I know I am generalizing, but I can guarantee they are responsible for 99% of the accidents in Italy. They do not have turn signals installed and believe in tailgating at a maximum distance of 3 feet.
Our first night in Italy was supposed to be Verona. But, once we got there, we took a look around and it didn't really seem to be the place we had imagined it would, so we took off. No reservations really can make for the best trips. We turned west and ended up at Lake Garda.
Desanzano (Lake Garda) Italy was such a wonderful surprise. We found a beautiful little hotel (Hotel Giardinetto) within walking distance to the downtown/waterfront area. We had our first true Italian pasta that night in a really tiny restaurant - very cute and very Italian. And, I could park the car and not have to move it for a few hours anyway.
On Friday, feeling a new surge of bravery, we decided to head south to Florence. We found a hotel outside of the historic and were able to figure out the city bus system and rode that into the historic area. Florence is quite beautiful and has beautiful squares to sit in and enjoy a glass of wine and people watch.
Saturday we headed west to Pisa and then on to La Spezia. Pisa was so much fun. What an amazing experience to see the historic architecure. There was also some fun vendors set up and another great little restaurant for lunch. We then made our way north along the coast to La Spezia. Beautiful country and the Mediterranean Sea!! La Spezia was a really nice town and our hotel (My One Hotel) was really nice. The front desk clerk could not have been more helpful. We walked around town that night and enjoyed a fund raising function at their local park. They had singers, dancers and I'm guessing comedians. It was all in Italian (except for some of the songs) so it was a little hard to tell. It was fun just blending in and watching all of the people. The next day we took a train that we could get on and off at all of the towns of the Cinque Terre. What an amazing experience that was. These little cliff towns are literally built right into the rocks (including most of the walls in the buildings). When you have a moment, it is definitely worth a Google search to look at all of the pictures of these towns. They are spectacular.
We left La Spezia on Monday with the intent of heading north to Lake Como. We got about half-way there and decided we couldn't take the 'danger and stress' of the driving any more. We witnessed at least 3 very bad accidents and it didn't look like it was going to get any better. We took off the way we came in and decided to head back through Austria and back into Germany. Through our trip back that direction, there were some sections of the highway that literally run through the mountains. We started counting the tunnels and we figure we went through a minimum of 20 of them. Very small (narrow), very curvy and very long. In between these tunnels they have built these span of bridges/roads that go over the canyons between the mountains. It was probably best that I was only seeing the elevation of these bridges in meters rather than feet. However, when we got back, I was able to use the computer to do a quick conversion (sorry Jimmy Carter - never did catch on to the metric system). There were some bridges that stated the depth we were driving over was over 1900 meters. For those that are wondering, that is around 6400 feet. That would be a 4 lane highway (2 each direction) with nothing but a guard rail and with the average speed of 130 kph (80 mph).
By the time we crossed the Alps again and ended up in Germany, it was a good long 6 hours of driving. We decided to stay in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. We pulled right into town and found one parking spot available on the street. There was a hotel that looked promising and so we checked if they had a room available. They did, and it ended up being our favorite hotel on the trip. The hotel is the Garmisch Hotel Hoff. What a fantastic staff (especially Vanessa and Nicole). Their breakfast was a huge feast of German goodies and fresh baked bread. Again, we liked it so much we stayed 2 nights. It was two days of simple relaxation.
We've been back at Marcus and Naoual's since last Wednesday. We are supposed to go home tomorrow, but have been notified by US Airways that our flight is cancelled due to Hurricane Sandy. They now have us scheduled to come back on Sunday. Hopefully, they will start adding more flights and we can try to get home sooner. It's been fun, amazing, exciting, terrifying, frustrating and probably the most memorable trip I've ever been on. I hope to post a final trip blog in a couple of days. It's time to come home now.
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