Writing from Salzburg

After a very long day of traveling, getting lost in Frankfurt, and of course, encountering a few things we didn't expect, we have arrived safely in Austria!!! This is the first time we have had wireless access since leaving the states.

Our flight from Philly to Frankfurt arrived early and we acquired the rental car - but it did not come with GPS as requested in our reservation. Fortunately Jacob had printed out specific step by step directions (per Google Maps) to each of our destinations! However, this was not enough so after getting lost for almost an hour, we bought a map at a gas station and turned around! Eventually we made it to Neckargemund-Dilsberg...a town in Southeast Germany where we stayed at a youth hostel. We had booked a private double room (expecting a double bed) and found a small but lovely little place with 2 bunk beds (4 single beds altogether!). It was fine as all we really did in N-D was sleep!

The Hostel

We left the hostel at 0730 this morning and arrived in Salzburg about 1330. What a beautiful area this is!!! Just in time for our 1400 Panarama Tour's original Sound of Music Tour this afternoon!!! WOW!!! Absolutely amazing!!! It was 4 hrs total... the bus took us throughout the city for history lessons and stops at important places either from the movie or the real Von Trapp story. We drove around through the hills (I think they really are alive ;) and up into the mountains... walked around the town of Mondsee for about an hour - this is where they catholic church is in which they filmed the wedding scene. We also ended with a stroll through the beautiful gardens behind Mirabell Palace where much of the Do-Re-Mi song was filmed!

 The Glass Gazebo where they filmed the love scenes

Now sits at Hellsbrunn

Inside St. Michael's Church in Mondsee

The Pegasus Fountain in the gardens

[The children ran around the ledge while singing]

Jacob in the Mirabell Gardens

Tomorrow we're off to Vienna (or Wien as Austrians call it). It has been interesting as neither Jacob nor I speak German at all so sometimes communication is a bit of a challenge. But the food has been great and our travels have been safe thus far! Thank you for your prayers! We praise Jesus that we did not get lost today and made it to our tour just in time!