Salzburg and the beautiful, beautiful Alps

The Austrian (and German) Alps are one of the most beautiful places I've ever been to.

View of Salzburg from Nonnberg Abbey

We got to Salzburg on Friday (with some slight travel confusion on the way) and spent a lot of our time just exploring the city on our own--I love the old part of the city, it has so much character! We opted out of the touristy Sound of Music tour because 1) it was 37 euros and we're frugal, 2) Nikki isn't a big SoM enthusiast anyway, and 3) the tour looked too touristy for even me to handle. I just looked up all the major places online and found them on the map myself! That way it was free and Nikki didn't have to listen to the soundtrack being played over and over (I just kept that in my head). Although I have to say, it was a bit anti-climactic. "Well, there's the gazebo. It's...a gazebo." We couldn't even go inside to jump from bench to bench--it was locked. Lame.

Me (distantly) and the gazebo

On Sunday the 17th (which also happened to be my 21st birthday!!), we took a day trip back into Germany to Königsee. There was a bit of bus frustration (that's an under-exaggeration) because we kept missing things, but we eventually got there! Even if we hadn't found Königsee, the bus ride itself would have been worth it because it went right through the Alps. It was so breathtakingly beautiful for me that I can't put words to it. In fact, it was so beautiful that it made me want to cry (and that doesn't happen very often). Pictures truly don't do justice. I've always preferred mountains over beaches anyway, so this was such a treat for me. Königsee is a cute little town nestled in the mountains on a lake--and not just any lake. Lake Königsee is the cleanest, deepest lake in Germany. Apparently, the lake water is so pure that you could just drink it. Only electric boats are allowed on the lake in order not to get it polluted with motor oil. We went on the boat tour (although it was in German and we didn't understand any of it) and saw things like this:

It was almost unreal! Not bad for a birthday view, if I do say so myself. For the rest of the day, we continued to explore and kept riding the bus on an unplanned side trip to another town in the Alps (called Bad Reichenhall, I think), where we discovered a tour of a salt mine (of which there are many, apparently). It was really fun to see all the towns nestled in the Alps and the bus rides themselves were gorgeous. I could've just stayed on the bus all day!

For my birthday dinner, we found a little Indian place near our hostel that was delicious and cute and decently priced (!) and had the best radler we've had so far! A good birthday, indeed. We spent the last sunny morning just soaking in the views one last time and realizing that this is the calm before the storm of senior year. I wish we could just stay forever!

Oh, and I also found a beer that I REALLY like called Edelweiss, in a random little Irish pub in Salzburg. Unfortunately, it's only made near Salzburg. Figures.

Next: 13 hours of travel and finally Bath, England.