As promised, another update! We're going to try and cram in a lot of information, which means a lot of pictures. After Switzerland, we traveled over to Munich. Since we
extended our stay in Gimmelwald we ended up with only one night in Munich, and
it was raining on us the entire time. So unfortunately we weren’t able to get a
good taste of Germany (besides a couple of pretzels…which were delicious).
From Munich we ventured over to Hallstatt,
Austria. Hallstatt is a little village that you have to get to via ferry. The
ferry ride provided a great view of Hallstatt and mountains in the background.
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Our first glimpse at Hallstatt |
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Beautiful town |
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Coming into the harbor |
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The valley behind our bed and breakfast |
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Haus Lidy, the bed and breakfast we stayed at |
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Quaint houses with a lot of beautiful flowers |
Great looking place to stay, right? However scenic it may
have been, our stay here was one of our lower points on the trip. We stayed at
a bed and breakfast, and I don’t really know what else to say other than it was
just a strange experience. It wasn’t like something weird happened, we just
never really felt comfortable while we were there. The owner, an older woman,
spoke next-to-no English and didn’t really try to communicate with us on what
to expect for our stay. So it left us to pretty much stay in our room for our entire
stay, as it rained on us the whole time. Mix in the fact that we were coming right off
of the high point of our trip (Switzerland) and we were ready to leave
Hallstatt.
Next, we moved across Austria to Vienna. We had got in
contact with another missionary couple while we stayed at the Hinton’s. Nate
and Bethany Johnson have been in Vienna for less than a year, so like the
Hinton’s, they are getting settled into the foreign mission field as well. They
were such a huge blessing to us for our three day stay! They had such a lovely
apartment and made us feel right at home. They made sure we got a good taste of
Austria by making us delicious food and mapping out a good site-seeing course
for the two of us. The Johnson’s did a great job at brightening up our Austrian
experience. For more information on the work they’re doing, check out their
blog,
http://nandbjohnson.blogspot.gr/
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This is Schönbrunn Palace, a former imperial summer residence in Vienna. It was spectacular! |
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The grounds and fountain behind Schönbrunn |
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Trying some classic apfelstrudel |
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On the hill behind Schönbrunn |
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This is St. Stephen's cathedral. It was an impressive site right out of the metro |
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More of St. Stephen's |
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The Rathaus, or city hall |
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Unfortunately, we didn't get any pictures of or with the Johnsons, but this was Milka, the dog they were babysitting |
As I type this out I realize I need to go off on a tangent,
so just bear with me – How good is God? Here we are worn out and downtrodden
and God gives us a place to stay. And not just any place to stay, but a great
place with fellow believers, who didn’t even know we existed a week and a half
before they opened up their home to two strangers. And the week that we stayed
with the Johnson’s was their week off of rigorous language school. It would
have been so easy for them to politely decline our request, but they showed us
true selflessness. I can’t say enough good things about this great couple, and
I can’t thank them enough for showing us just how good God truly is.
After leaving the Johnson’s we decided to take a jam-packed
travel day to explore more of Eastern Europe. We took a train over to
Bratislava, Slovakia and explored the town for a few hours. Since we were
basically only staying long enough to walk around the city, we decided to save
a few euros and carry our backpacks with us instead of putting them in lockers
at the train station. Hmm, not sure we were thinking very clearly on that one.
When you only have a small day-pack with you, sure go ahead and take it to hike
for a few hours. But when you’re packed down like this:
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Doesn't he look happy? I had the blessing of only having to carry my own backpack...what a good husband |
Maybe you should re-think your options. We successfully made
ourselves twice as tired and sore after hiking three hours and climbing up to a
castle on the edge of the city. However sore and tired we may have been,
Bratislava was still a really nice place to see. We found that we were able to
see everything there that we really cared to see with those few hours that we
were there. Once we were done, we got on a train to Prague, the capital of the
Czech Republic. Prague wasn’t originally in our plans, but we’re glad we added
it. I think this was when the wears and tears of travel first hit us. We still
saw all of the tourist locations that we wanted to see, but we had a harder time
actually getting around in the morning to go and see them. Tiredness or not,
Prague was such a great city, with history everywhere and a culture all its
own.
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Lots of interesting buildings in Bratislava |
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An old church where they used to do coronation |
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On top of the spire is a golden replica of the coronation crown |
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A government building...that's all we knew about it. |
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Bratislava Castle |
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View of the river from the castle |
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This is a museum in Prague. It's at the head of Wenceslas Square, and it was one of the first buildings we saw in Prague |
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A church in Prague |
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On a bridge over the Vltava River. The Prague Castle is up on a hill in the background |
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So many swans! |
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Naturally, Dani wanted to touch them...no such luck. |
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Since Czech uses a different currency and we were only there for two days, we didn't exchange any. But the coffee machine in our hostel only took Czech coins and Tyler wanted coffee, so...we went fountain diving. Someone's wish isn't going to come true! |
After Prague, we had another long travel day to get to
Croatia. We stayed at a hostel in Croatia’s capital, Zagreb, for two nights.
Croatia was a stop that we were really excited about. The main reason for that
was Plitvice Lakes National Park. This place was absolutely spectacular! Dani has wanted to see it for a long time, ever since she happened to see a picture of it online back in high school. It did not disappoint. It just never ended! Crystal clear, teal-blue water, pools and waterfalls everywhere. Like so:
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First glimpse! |
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The "trails" through the park consisted of a lot of rickety boardwalks actually across the pools. It was really cool. |
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Our last look at the park from above before we caught a bus back to Zagreb |
From Croatia, we had an eight hour train excursion to take
us to Italy. Our route went through the beautiful landscape of Slovenia, so it
made the long travel day well worth it. Here are some pictures from the train:
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Ain't she a cutie? |
I’ll leave you there for now and tell you all about our
Italian experience hopefully soon. Thanks for reading and thanks for keeping up
with our trip. Please keep the thoughts and prayers coming our way. Love you
guys!
PLITVICE LAKES NATIONAL PARK!!!!!
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad you guys got to see it. The pictures look amazing and it's definitely been added to my bucket list. Keep up the wonderful posts. I'm so glad you guys are enjoying your trip. God is soooo good and I'm so glad you guys have seen such great examples of His goodness during your trip!
-Sarah Ehlman