Final thoughts and take aways

We all agree that Untersee is a place we all would love to return to and would recommend this pension to others as well. It offers the basics needed for cooking (we baked a coffee cake while here, after all). Beautiful, restful setting.  Lovely scenic walk or bike to lake or bakery. Quaint village uncrowded by too many tourists yet close to tourist attractions (Salzburg is only an hour away).

Things we want to take back with us to the US:

Kaffe und Kuchen at 4pm

Apfel Schorle

Robot lawn mowers

Toilet brushing

Fun Facts (for Americans)

Germans separate their trash (müll) into up to 6 bins (eimer): Haus (landfill), plastic, paper, (recyclables), pfand (returnable plastics and some glass), glass (separated into brown, white and green and brought to a center) and bio (food waste). Bio, plastic, landfill and paper are all picked up.

Air conditioning for homes is non existent. Europeans use their screen-less windows to keep cool and don't bother much with the flies that come in. Mosquitos are kept out by shuttering the windows in early evening when lights are on in the house. Most windows have a single three position lever that allows one to open the window like a door or tilt the window in for air flow.

Restaurants charge for water and, unless you ask for 'still' water, you'll get carbonated water. Carbonation is pretty popular so don't be surprised to find even your order of apple juice to also be carbonated. There is no such thing as free refills here (frankly this is pretty new in the US too) even on coffee but a coffee refill comes with a fresh cup and cream. 

Tap water is rigidly controlled to be of high drinking quality so carrying a water bottle and refilling from a tap is an excellent way to stay hydrated at no cost.

Breakfast is continental (bread rolls, sliced meat, jam, cheese, butter, coffee and tea) and lunch is the largest meal (fish, meat, pasta) taken around noon followed by 'kaffe und kuchen' (coffee and cake) at 3 pm (15 uhr) and finally a very light meal of bread spread with a little something for dinner around 5 pm.

Through Germany and Austria we saw that people take their shoes off at the door rather than track stuff into the house, as many do in the US but we saw dedicated cubby holes in homes and in apartments the shoes are simply left outside in the hall, a level of dedication to cleanliness and trust that surprised me.

Discover Card is purportedly (by Discover Card) accepted where Diner's Club is accepted but I found this often not to be the case and frequently resorted to my MasterCard instead, which, sadly, charges a transaction fee for each purchase. In any case, the SIM interface is preferred over magnetic steep swipe and make sure you have a pin for your credit card though it is not always required. When no pin is required a signature is required instead and retails are not used to getting a signature. Cash is highly recommended for use in small towns where cards are not accepted. Check with your bank on ATM usage but free are charged for withdrawals.

Clothes dryers, if they exist, are rare as clothes are hung out to dry instead - inside in the winter.

Cars are predominantly stick shift transmission and deisel fuel and include sign reading technology that displays the present speed limit in the instrument panel. This is extremely handy especially on the Autobahn where speed limits change dramatically from 50 km/hr to no limit depending upon construction, traffic density and surrounding population.

The German equivalent of saying "Bless you" after someone sneezes is "Gesundheit" (good health) but hold off on saying this to random sneezers (as we often do in the States) as this is largely reserved for friends versus strangers.

Toilet brushes are a fixture (seriously, the holder is mounted to the wall) and expected to be used to leave the bowl clean for the next visitor. Toilets commonly have to flush buttons for your two, ehem, toilet needs, delivering different amounts of water to save on water usage.

In all the places we stayed, relatives and pensions, in Germany, Czechia, and Austria all the locks use what we would call, old style keys.

Salzburg - Sound of Music Tour

We planned to explore Salzburg a bit before taking the 4 hour Sound of Music tour at 2pm but we left the pension late and by the time we finished lunch it was time for the tour. The tour took us around Salzburg by bus showing us both the real Trapped family sites and those from the movie.

The real Trapps were married in the abbey which is still run by 17 nuns.

The movie used the cathedral in Mondsee.

The real Trapp villa is now a private hotel while the movie villa used one villa for the grounds and lake

and another for the building

(scenes where one actor has their back to the lake and another their back to the villa were actually filmed miles apart).

The boat scene was filmed in the lake, requiring 5 takes and in the final take the actress playing Gretal swallowed a lot of water, was sick and scared and had to be played with treats to go on filming.

The original gazebo used for the "I Am Sixteen" song was on the same villa grounds with the lake but has since been moved to another park for easier movie fan access (though 3 different sized gazebos were used in the movie).

Mirabell park was the scene for the "Do-Re-Me" song with much of the park shown including the trellis arch path, stairs, fountain and dwarves. All of the interior scenes were filmed in soundstages in Hollywood.

Slow Down Sunday

Sunday brought church and a general slow down in our activities. We had hoped to have lunch in Hallestatt but parking was impossible to find after dropping the others off to look for a cafe.
Instead Christopher and I picked everyone up and drove to Gosau for lunch.

After lunch we went swimming in the Hallestatt lake

and then played D&D until late.

Five Fingers

Charlotte had enough of hiking so she and Caroline returned to the mountain top cafe for eis (ice cream) while Claire, Christopher and I hiked down to the five fingers, a platform jutting out over the lake valley with five options for picturing the view.

On our walk back to the cafe we enjoyed watching four people parasailing on the mountain updraft, two of which are pictured behind Claire here.

If you're brave enough you can look down from a finger.

The hike back offered stunning views.

But ice cream from the cafe was picturesque as well.

Welterbespirale

A second cable car ride took us to the mountain top but not yet to the summit - that would require more hiking - but included the chance to explore a mini glacier on the way.

We all made it to the Welterbespirale, an artistic, metal platform spiral which offered a 360 degree view of the surrounding mountains, valleys and lake. The spiral stairs also included signs pointing to world heritage landmarks such as Machu Picchu and the Grand Canyon with the distance to each.

Ice Cave

Our second day in Austria was dominated by cold and heights. We'd purchased the lower and middle cable car rides to take us to the ice cave and summit of the mountains above the lake. The ice cave required a steep climb from the end of the first cable car ride to the cave entrance.

We were added to a large Hungarian tour group (seen exiting the cave here),

as we mistakenly skipped the tour group assignment off the cable car but it was interesting to hear German and English spoken by the cave guide and Hungarian spoken by their party's guide.

The ice forms in the cave because of the cold air in winter chilling the cave rocks and the melting water in Spring pouring into the cave and freezing to the cold rocks.

The highlight and symbol of the cave is this ice tower which was only 5 meters tall when first discovered.

The view from the cave exit (higher than the entrance but the original entrance when discovered) is beautiful.

Our first dinner in Austria

Having established that cable car tickets cannot be purchased in advance, we returned to the house, picked up the rest of the family and drove to nearby Steeg to enjoy a dinner at the Welterbewirtshaus Steegwirt. Here we noticed that many in this town wear the traditional lederhosen for men and drindl for women (not pictured).

Selfies in Hallestatt

While the others tested their full stomachs Caroline and I stole away to check on the ice cave tour times. Returning, we made a stop in Hallestatt, across the lake and around the mountain from our rental. I admired the falls,

and Caroline admired the art (we would later but one of these chickens),

but we both adored the city.

Morning Gold

 For our first morning in Untersee we decided to explore and hunt for breakfast.

A short walk took us into the town of Au,

where we struck gold finding a backerie and shamelessly enjoyed dessert after breakfast sandwiches.

The mountains are accented by flowers in bloom everywhere and a quiet electric train that serve this idyllic valley.

Austria - Untersee

The remainder of our day was spent driving to Austria. Our airbnb was off the Hallestater See (Lake) but across from the popular town of Hallestatt itself which is about an hour Southeast of famous Salzburg. As we approached our destination the mountains were a sight to see and we worried a bit that the brochure exaggerated our view. We were not disappointed.

Sedmpány

Vladimír very kindly led us to the birthplace and childhood home of Caroline's paternal grandmother

 where the present owners generously showed us the interior and all the renovations they have made.

Before we left, they gave us some 12 cups of plums, half of which we baked into a pie.

We also met a very sweet half cousin of Vladimir's and Caroline's who lives next door.

Additionally we stopped at the grave site of Caroline's great grand parents, the parents of Mary Kovarik nee Bílkovà.

And Vladimír's relative:

Vladimir, Jane and Adam

We followed Vladimir to his home to meet Jane and found Adam, Vladimir Jr's youngest son, swimming in the pool.

We enjoyed homemade lemon, mint sparkling water and snacks while Vladimir told us about his bee keeping. He has four hives at home and more at his cottage.

He collects honey and also offers bee hive inhalation therapy, something he studied extensively.

We learned, too, that Vladimir was part of the delegation that came to Ames, IA after the revolution to study agriculture techniques. As we left, we were given a wonderful gift of honey, which, by this this writing is a quarter gone as we've all enjoyed it in our tea.