Team Sullivan's Adventures in Warsaw: Austria

Sunday, February 26, 2012

Austria

Tom and I spent last weekend outside of Salzburg, Austria celebrating our five year wedding anniversary. The weekend was the perfect combination of relaxing in the gorgeous mountains and sighteseeing. We stayed at a beautiful resort in the middle of the mountains on a lake. The views were incredible and there was a ton of fresh snow to add to the scenery. We spent our first day hiking to view an old castle which should have been quite an easy climb, but it was a bit difficult trying to find the path in two feet of snow. We knew we were in for trouble when we started the climb and a local guy watching us got a big grin on his face as he muttered something in German. He got a real kick out of us trekking in the deep snow. After our hike we relaxed in the hotel spa which featured a number of different saunas and even had a hot tub outside overlooking the mountains.

On our anniversary we went skiiing on the Hintersee mountain area. It was quite the adventure considering I had never been skiing before in my life and the last time Tom went skiiing was 20 years ago. Nothing like two novice skiers hitting the Austrian alps for the first time. : ) The moutains were absoliutely breathtaking. I took a ski lesson with a super helpful instructor. Tom joined in for the beginning of the lesson, but quickly realized that it was "coming back to him" quite easily so he decided to head up the mountain while I continued. Unfortunately, Tom got a bit confused and took the wrong slope and wound up heading down a black diamond level hill. He wiped out a few times but was fortunate to get some help from some other skiers. And, in typical Tom fashion he "figured it out" and made his way to the bottom. After my lesson finished we headed up the lift to try out the blue slopes. On the way up I saw the hill that Tom had accidentally come down...I could NOT believe how steep it was and was simply grateful he had made it to the bottom in one piece. We thoroughly enjoyed our afternoon skiing and hope to go again sometime soon....since we can both use some more practice.

We spent our final morning with a trip to the spa which was a great way to relax our post-skiing sore muscles. In the afternoon we made our way into Salzburg and walked around the charming city. We had a wonderful weekend filled with great memories. And, we fell in love with the beautiful mountains and the area. We are hoping to plan a return trip in the summer months!