European Vacation pt. 3

On to the next recap! Here we are, in Germany and we knew we wanted to take a day trip to Salzburg Austria! It's a relatively short train ride, 2-ish hours and how can we not visit Austria when you have a chance? Check out recaps 1 and 2 if you haven't yet!

We had breakfast at the hotel then we walked over to the train station.

We picked up this bit of perfection.

Soon we were pulling into Salzburg! As with everywhere we'd visited, the architecture was beautiful.

I couldn't get a good picture of the paintings on the side of the building, but, it was beautiful.

So pretty.

One of the big stops we wanted to make was Mozart's birthplace, which is also a museum. Kev being a musician, this was a big deal for him, just like me visiting the Louvre (next post!)

You weren't "supposed" to take pictures in the museum, but no one was watching most of the time. 

I loved this picture of all the Mozarts. Mostly because it included a picture of the 1984 movie Amadeus (Tom Hulce)

After spending quite a bit of time in the museum, we grabbed something to eat and looked in the shops and bought some souvenirs. 

Salzburg has a TON of Mozart themed things and Mozart chocolate. OMG. The Mozart chocolate balls are one of my favorite candies. It's chocolate and marzipan and so good. Lindt sells them in the states but they aren't nearly as good as the ones from Austria. 

I didn't know that they also made a chocolate liquor. Kev bought a bottle and he's still sad that we didn't come back with more. 

He didn't even share with me. Then again, chocolate liquor isn't my thing.

Soon it was time to head back to the train and get back to Munich. The city was beautiful at night. I wish I'd gotten more pictures.

The Christmas markets weren't set up in Germany quite yet but the decorations were up in Salzburg! There were plenty of little market stands full of adorable trinkets and food and pretty much everything.

Even Santa likes a nice pretzel.

Before I continue, I need to take a minute to talk about the Haribo overseas. Yes, you can get Haribo in the US. Gummy Bears, peach rings, you can get them all here, but you know what? They SUCK. The Haribo in Scotland was AMAZING and the Haribo in Germany was even better. I don't know what kind of glorious sugar crack they put in there, but sweet heaven it's good.

I enjoyed some peach gummies on the trip back from Austria.

We got back to the hotel and were a little hungry. I don't have a picture of it but we got gyro on a pita from a street vendor and OMG was it good. There's something about street meat in other countries, that's just amazing. One of the best meals I had in Scotland was kebab on a pita. (the Scots aren't known for their culinary delights)

We slept in, had breakfast at the hotel then we had some time to kill before catching the train to Paris. Yep, we were taking a high sped train from Germany to Paris, 6ish hours. So we spent the morning looking in some of the markets and we also were looking for a birthday present for me, since my birthday was the next day. :)

We stopped at a cafe and got a little something. This cake was amazing.

The day we were leaving they were starting to set up the Christmas market. :(

In case you were wondering, this was my b-day present. It was a special b-day since I turned another decade older. 

I don't have any pictures from the train, because we were on a train for 6 hours... But I did take this blurry picture of what might be the most German thing ever.

A pretzel and a tiny pretzel shaped sausage.

Before we knew it, we were in Paris! 

The tragedy in Paris occurred not even 2 weeks before we were supposed to arrive. We spent a lot of time debating if we should even go on the trip. France was, for all intents and purposes, closed for a good week after wards. We even looked at going to Germany then Prague, or spending the entire trip in Germany. We'd actually paid for Paris hotel in advance and we called to ask about the cancellation policy. They told us that we could come now, come in a year or lose our money. We weren't big fans of losing out money, and we'd already postponed the trip from April to November. Much to the dismay of our parents, we headed to Paris.

I have to say, there wasn't a time when we felt unsafe in Paris. There were plenty of police and military every where. The city was still reeling from the attacks but working on getting back to normal. I'm so glad we decided to go.

We stayed at the Champs Elysees Plaza Hotel and it was spectacular.

Even the box is so French.

Macarons! (so good)

Love the fur blanket

Heated towel bars

And the most amazing tub.

It was spectacular. We got in kinda late and after unpacking and getting settled. It was time for bed. The next day was my Birthday and we had BIG sightseeing plans!