Travel and Tweets

One of our most action-packed days in the Salzburgerland region was our time with our friend Samo Rovan (my favorite photographer in all of Europe). The first thing that we did when we got to the rural and beautiful Gosau valley area was have an enormous and super fun snowball fight near the lake. At one point, I pretended to aim at my mom, but switched my aim and hit my dad in the face while mom was shelled-up and covering her body with her arms. As soon as we got done with the snowball fight, we went over to a nearby field and took some pictures in an alpine meadow. The meadow that we went over to had some beautiful cows in it that Samo decided to take our photos with… one of the larger ones got closer. Dad pulled me away before it got there, but Mom decided to stay directly in the grass patch where the cow’s trajectory was quite clearly pointing straight at and the cow ousted her using its huge horns, then proceeded to graze exactly where she was standing moments before! Come on, mom, moooooove over.

We also went up the huge mountains around Gosau on a gondola. Once we got up the mountains, we went up a smaller peak to get some pictures with the lake and the valley far below as the background. On the way up, Samo asked me to throw a snowball at him, but I screwed up my aim and accidentally hit his butt with it instead of his back. Up on the peaks, Samo showed us some edible flowers (my favorite being the tasty trumpet) and gave us one of each to try. By the end of the day, I was picking tons of tasty trumpets and slurping up their nectar. The tasty trumpets were small yellow flowers with very sweet nectar inside of them. Speaking of cool flowers, Samo also showed us these awesome flowers that could have their stems tied in loops and could then shoot their buds as projectiles. Near the end of our alpine adventure, we got lunch at an alpine lodge. The Käsekrainer (cheese-filled bratwurst) I ate was super delicious and quite rich. On the way back down to the gondola, Samo decided to slide down a small hill on some snow, but when I tried to do it, my butt went kaput and I slid most of the way down on my rear end. Overall, going to Gosau was a very good choice for our photo shoot.

After Gosau, we decided to continue our photo shoot adventure in Hallstatt. Hallstatt is a relatively small town on the shore of Lake Hallstatt. This amazing town was veiled by lake mist because of the rain when we saw it and had a very mystical feel because of its ancient church and wooden houses. I should also point out that it is one of the oldest settlements in Europe that is still inhabited today and that it is a UNESCO World Heritage site. As soon as we got to Hallstatt, it started raining so hard that Samo had to pass out his umbrellas and we stayed under awnings for as much of the exploration process as possible. I was actually tempted to not go into the town, but I am glad that my mom and dad persuaded me to keep going because this was actually my favorite part of our photoshoot. Everything in Hallstatt was awesome except for the part when I tried to dodge a car near a small opening, and I accidentally bumped into a stinging nettle and boy was it irritating, although even that couldn’t ruin the photoshoot. After the nettle, I decided to go down to the shore and look at the incredible swans gliding across the water with their feathers still wet from the rain and shimmering in the light. By that time, it had briefly stopped raining and we were down on the boat docks with the swans in the water. At the end of our experience, one of the swans actually had the nerve to oust us from the dock by hissing at us and coming ashore. Right before we left the town, we decided to get an ice cream and a cream roll to eat. My ice cream had hot fudge, Kit-Kats, Neapolitan wafers, chocolate orbs, and chocolate-filled straws, and it was amazingly scrumptious. When Mom tried Dad’s cream roll, he accidentally smudged cream all over her nose and she had to lick it off. When we left Hallstatt, we were only a few minutes into the drive when it started down-pouring again. Overall, Hallstatt was extremely beautiful and well worth going to. This photoshoot may have been the best one that we ever had, even though the other two adventures that we had with Samo were also amazing.

My Fürst recommendation for when you go to the Salzburg region is to go to Cafe Fürst and try some original Mozartkugel. 125 years after their creation, Paul Fürst’s original Mozartkugel (a delicious chocolate orb with a pistachio marzipan core) is still famous today. A true Cafe Fürst Mozartkugel is wrapped in an only blue and silver wrapper, however the imitation brand’s wrapper is red with a color image of Mozart’s head instead of the silver silhouette on a true Cafe Fürst Mozartkugel. When my mom went into a store and got a package of the non-original ones, she took one bite and threw the whole thing in the trash, and said “the ones at Cafe Fürst are much better.” The Mozartkugel that I got were bought by my family at the original Cafe Fürst. The Cafe Fürst Mozartkugel may be more expensive, but they are the perfect symphony of flavors and textures. Overall, Cafe Fürst’s Mozartkugel may have been the best treat on my trip to Austria and the Czech Republic.

Schloss Hellbrunn is a summer palace from 1615, meant for Prince-Archbishop Markus Sittikus. He used this palace for the entertainment of the people in his kingdom. The coolest thing about this palace is its trick fountains, marvels of ancient engineering that blast water out of strange positions at unexpected times. One of the fountains is actually a table and chairs. When activated, this fountain sprays water up the pants of unexpecting guests. The only chair that doesn’t spray water is the one that Markus Sittikus ate at located at the head of the table, which meant that all of his guests were left soaked after a meal, but he remained dry. Another extremely cool fountain is not so much of a trick, but it really puts on a show. This fountain launches a golden cap into the air before bringing it back down gently. This fountain was actually made to represent the rise and fall of the monarchy. Another extremely cool fountain is in a very unexpected position. Two deer head statues located on the walls of a palace building shot water from every point on their antlers as well as blasting water in all directions from their mouths. The palace was originally used to entertain Markus Sittikus’ subjects and the systems that he used to entertain them still work on people today. Overall, while not the most grand of palaces, this one has quite a few tricks up its sleeve and this makes it awesome in a different way than other palaces. I recommend that you go on a warm day because the fountains will probably spray you from all sorts of odd positions (I had an unassuming gargoyle head shoot me in the butt).