• Bad Ischl
    Austria,  Budějovice,  Christmas,  TravelTips,  Winter

    An Austrian Alpine Holiday

    As it’s the last weekend of the holiday season, so a perfect opportunity to share a little bit about 2019’s holiday season and our Christmas spent in the Salzkammergut. Before we left, we had a nice relaxing weekend wrapping up the work year and taking in some tunes and last punches in our beautiful square. On our way home from doing some Saturday morning errands, I noticed a tree in the park near our house full of fruits and things tied on with a sign. (Below, with the message “Christmas tree for homeless people – Have a beautiful Christmas”) I love when whimsy and kindness intersect and to see this…

  • Summer

    atop the zwölferhorn

    the zwölferhorn, which means something like “the twelfth peak” in german, is a mountain of 1,522m in height that looms over tiny st. gilgen. the village is, in fact, where you go to take the cable car to the top. when i was first researching the area a few months ago i was thinking no way, no how am i ever getting on that cable car! for some reason, i’ve developed a crippling dislike of heights in the last three years or so (good thing i got some swiss travels out of the way before then….) and was thinking i would have to forgo this trip.and then, right before we left,…

  • Summer

    christmas in st. gilgen, austria

    why did i choose to spend christmas time at austria’s wolfgangsee? well, by the beginning of autumn, we hadn’t heard any talk of visitors so i thought it would be a great idea to experience an alpine christmas somewhere. austria, with its close proximity to southern czech republic fit the bill perfectly, especially the salzkammergut area (lake and alpine region near salzburg), which is closer to us than tirol or the other famous alpine regions of the country. we booked a sweet family-owned hotel and christmas was planned! it only took two and a half hours to get to st. gilgen from budějovice (mostly because our driver flew like a…