Central Europe trip, Post 6: Schladming and Slovenia

On December 27th, we farewelled Peter, Rosi, Kat, Trev, Sharon, Matt and Dan, and set off for Lake Bled, Slovenia, where we would be spending the night en route to Zagreb, the capital of Croatia.

Before leaving Austria, however, we stopped for lunch in the town of Schladming, which is a special place for us... as it's where Ben proposed to me! (He proposed during our trip to Europe with his family and our friends for Matt and Kat's wedding in mid 2006. The scenic mountainous region of Austria where their wedding was held is a couple of hours from Peter's house.)

Once we arrived in Schladming (which was much more of a ski resort town than the romantic little mountain village of my memories!), of course we tried to re-trace our steps from that memorable day 7.5 years ago. :)

First, Ben went to the booth where he thought he had purchased the newspaper from that day. They were all sold out of die Kleine Zeitung (the "Little Newspaper") though!

Then, we headed to the bench seat where the actual proposal had taken place. Alas, the seat was gone... and on that street corner there was now some sort of bar or nightclub!! Again, it was more romantic in my memories...

This was the spot...

...but there was definitely no club behind us back then!

7.5 years later, and now we are three! :D

Then we went and ate lunch in the restaurant where we'd eaten lunch that day (pre-proposal) with all the guests that had arrived so far for the next day's wedding. The restaurant was completely different inside to the layout we vaguely recalled - I guess it had been renovated. However, the waitresses still wore the traditional Austrian dress like we remembered. And the meal was yummy!

Schladming pedestrian zone

Outside the restaurant

My lunch

After a bit of wandering through the shops and streets of Schladming, it was time to carry on towards Slovenia.

Hours later, after darkness had fallen and as we approached our destination, we were wondering if the GPS was leading us up the garden path! We were driving on little residential roads on the side of a mountain, with no lights of a township in sight. Luckily, I already knew that Bled was a small town and that our B&B was a little way outside it, so we carried on. And thankfully our GPS was right on the mark!

The next morning, after eating breakfast and packing up, we went outside and finally saw the stunning setting of our B&B. It was surrounded by green fields and quaint houses, with a sizeable snow-covered mountain rising up in the distance and peeking through a layer of cloud in the bright blue sky. Slovenia looked to be a very beautiful country indeed!

B&B

There's a huge mountain there somewhere...

Down in the town, we drove slowly around the edge of famous Lake Bled, gaping in awe at the spectacular view. Across the lake, an island monastery rose out of the still water above its shimmering reflection. Off to the side, we could see a massive château perched atop a rocky cliff, with an imposing snow-capped mountain in the background.

We had time to stop and take a few quick photos, but wanted to make the most of Finley's nap time to cover some ground towards Zagreb... so we couldn't stay and take a horse and carriage ride around the lake, or a boat ride out to the island, like a handful of other tourists were doing. But WOW - what a gorgeous place!

Photos taken by Ben from the edge of the lake...

Phone snaps taken by me from the back seat as we drove...

After leaving Bled, we crossed the border from Slovenia into Croatia, and broke up the drive by spending a couple of hours in a random but unremarkable Croatian town.

In the late afternoon, we arrived in the capital city, Zagreb, where our hotel in the city centre would be home for the next 3 nights. To be continued...

Central Europe trip, Post 5: Christmas in Austria (Part 2 of 2)

After celebrating Christmas on Christmas Eve (see previous post), our Christmas Day in Austria was spent in quite an unusual way... we went to a resort with an indoor water park and spent the day splashing in heated pools and whooshing down water slides! (No photos, unfortunately.)

The Eurothermen Resort in the town of Bad Schallerbach has three main sections: Tropicana (pools, deck chairs, cave pool with aquarium, etc), Relaxium (saunas and hot/cold tubs), and Aquapulco die piraten-velt (Pirate's World).

We spent most of our time in Pirate's World, a water park extravaganza with a large wave pool, overhead rope bridges and platforms, and five impressive water slides. These included Kamikaze (a short, very steep ride), Twister (a 109m tube ride), Snaky (a long, winding ride), and Starlight Express (a ride in the dark with thumping music and flashing lights, ending up in a heated pool outside in the frosty air!).

Finley rode both the Twister and Snaky with Ben, and took it all in stride. I rode all of the slides at least once - even the scary Kamikaze! There was a camera that took a photo of the rider during an almost-free-falling plummet on the Kamikaze... but both times I rode it, the camera missed me completely. Not sure if I was ahead of it or behind! My favourite ride was the Twister, which was broken up by pools where riders would bob around in their tubes for a while, bumping into each other, until eventually tipping over the edge onto the next stretch of slide.

After lunch, Ben and Trev took Matt and Dan while Sharon, Kat, Finley and I went to the Relaxium. I settled in to feed Finley while the other two went and tried out some saunas, which operated on a strict red-light-green-light policy for when people were allowed to go in or out. From my chair I could see one sauna entrance and about four hot/cold tubs with other patrons coming and going from all of them.

This being Europe, the saunas and hot tubs were enjoyed completely in the nude, with the relaxed Europeans not bothered if they took a while getting their robes back on afterwards, so it was quite an experience for me! The most amusing part is that Sharon and Kat, wearing their swimsuits, eventually got kicked out by a staff member for NOT being naked!!

At 6pm we left and headed back to Peter's house for dinner. It was a very unusual but fun way to spend Christmas Day!

The next day, Thursday (Boxing Day), was our last full day in Austria with our friends. We decided to drive to the town of Steyr, about 45 minutes away, to check out some Christmas markets that Kat had heard were quite good.

Ben, Finley and I, having by now established that we needed twice as long as the others to drive anywhere, set off about an hour before the other carload. Upon arriving in Steyr, we discovered that the Christmas markets were all packed up! Once Kat, Trev, Sharon and their boys arrived, Kat discovered that there was a "Christmas House" nearby (a Christmas museum, we later established) that we could visit instead, so off we went.

Some photos of picturesque Steyr on the way...

The Christmas museum turned out to be a very unique and interesting attraction! Located in a house in a pretty residential street overlooking the river, room after room was filled with antique/vintage Christmas ornaments, decorations and dolls, all collected by one lady (Elfriede Kreuzberger) and comprising the world's largest private collection of Christmas paraphernalia! According to the Steyr tourism website, there are over 18000 items on display. It was quite mind-boggling to think of one woman collecting all of that herself!

I took a LOT of photos, so here's a glimpse into the history of Christmas decorations for you...

Above the front door

Trev, Dan and Matt

Just one of many cupboards like this!

View from a window

Katharina

Stairs in the Christmas house

A hallway in the house

After we had been through all the rooms, next came something even better... a "train ride" INSIDE the house! This seemed like a staircase transportation system for disabled/elderly people that had been creatively adapted into a "Christkindl train", but it was truly impressive that they had managed to make ANY sort of train ride through a cosy multi-storey house, along hallways, and up and down multiple staircases!

The train took us past more Christmas scenes (even "Christmas in Australia"!), all the way up a few flights of stairs to the attic - where it stopped for a couple of minutes to let us appreciate the "angel workshop" - and back down again. The seats would clunkily tip into a truly alarming angle before ascending or descending each flight of stairs. This involved lots of laughter and screaming from us, and was a definite highlight of the day!

Kat

Kat, Ben and Finley

Australia

Note the tilt and imagine doing this face-first on the way back down!

L-R: Dan, Trev, Matt, Sharon

"Angel workshop" in the attic

Angels hard at work

After leaving the Christmas museum, we walked across the river to find a restaurant the museum staff recommended to us. The view on the way was gorgeous...

The Christmas museum

Gingerbread constructions in a shop window

We arrived at the restaurant just as it was closing up around 2pm. The staff called around and found another restaurant that was open for us, so we walked back to the cars as the new one was some distance away. The others gave us the address and set off, while we stayed behind for a couple of minutes to feed Finley.

Unfortunately, when we reached the destination the GPS led us to, there was no restaurant in sight! We didn't even know the name of the restaurant to ask anyone, even if they could have spoken English or understood our pidgin German. Fast forward through 45 minutes of driving around trying to find the restaurant, two hungry parents and a now-awake-and-annoyed-to-be-still-in-his-car-seat baby, and we gave up! We texted the others to say we were heading for home (their texted repetition of the incorrect address didn't help us find them at all!), and stopped for a lengthy de-stressing feast at a nice roadside services on the way.

We ended up getting back a while after the others, who were by then quite worried about us. And we discovered that, while the address we'd been given was indeed incorrect, the restaurant was one we had driven past a couple of times during our searching! We'd even done a circuit of one of the parking lots looking for their car, but they had been parked in a different lot. Sharon and Kat had also spent time waiting outside in case we drove by - although clearly not at the same times as we had actually driven by! In hindsight, we should have immediately called them in spite of our expensive roaming charges, and asked them to confirm the address with the staff... then everyone's afternoon would have been much better. Oh well... hindsight, eh?!

The next morning would see us farewell the others and leave Austria, bound for Slovenia. To be continued...