Zotter Factory!

Friday
Today we wandered Vienna. First we went to see the Lipizzaner horses train, it wasn’t particularly exciting, but it was worth seeing. It was just the horses walking around nicely to music, but the building they were in was beautiful, all made of marble with three big crystal chandeliers! After the horses we went to the House of Music which is the music museum. The first part was dedicated to the Vienna Philharmonic orchestra and just had some information about them and objects belonging to the conductors and famous members. The rest of the museum was about sound and music with displays explaining how sounds go from the air to your brain. The museum was very good, and finished with an interactive display where you got to ‘conduct’ the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.

Saturday

Today was one of the greatest days of my life! The day started out with us driving to Reigesburg, an hour’s south of Vienna, to the Zotter chocolate factory, but before that we went to a castle. The castle was situated on top of a hill, which had rocky cliff faces on its side. We took a funicular up to the castle and made our way inside. As with most medieval castles there was a moat, but this one was filled with about 40 rabbits! We were trying to convince Mia, who is 6, that these were rabbits like the one in Monty Python and the Holy Grail that could kill you, and that the rabbits were used to defend the castle! Sadly she did not believe us. The castle was very interesting, the first part had information about witches and how they punished people they believed to be witches. My favourite room in the castle was the ballroom which had a lovely marble floor, a grand staircase, high decorated white ceilings and a beautiful glass chandelier!

After the castle we headed to the Zotter chocolate factory. We were meeting people from my uncle, Simons work. My uncle is a diplomat so they were all people involved with the Australian Embassy in Vienna, and also the Ambassador himself, who didn’t really look like what you would expect an ambassador to look like. The tour was very interesting and we had Julia Zotter, the daughter of the founder of the factory, as our tour guide. Normally there aren’t tour guides there, but because we were Australian, she wanted to show us around, as Austria is often confused for as Australia. We got to sample so much chocolate during the tour and there were some interesting flavours such as cumin, Indian masala and fish! The chocolate factory was a definite success!

Day 29
I was pretty tired today after just getting back from our trip so I spent the morning in bed then just had a quiet day at home.

Day 30
Another new country today! Simon took Mum and me out to Budapest in Hungary for the day. It was a two and a half hour drive, so we got up pretty early and headed out. The first thing we did was go to the market there, It was very similar to the Victoria Markets in Melbourne, but a bit bigger. The bottom floor was full of food, with stores selling fruit and veges, and others selling meat. Almost all of them were selling paprikas (chilies) of all different types, such as cherry paprika! The top floor sold less edible items like lace tablecloths, hats and your typical touristy trinkets. The hats were all beautiful, they were made of leather and had real fur trims on them!

After the markets we headed to Buda castle. Just for a little background, Budapest used to be two cities, Buda and Pest, which were separated by a river, the Danube. Buda castle was the castle on the side of the river that used to be Buda. The castle was beautiful with lots of ornate stone carvings and an amazing church. Near the church were two men with an eagle and a hawk, I got to hold the hawk which was quite heavy. After the castle we drove to a park that had lots of communist statues in it, but first we quickly called in at parliament, which was decorated with beautiful stone carvings that looked like lace. The communist park was just a small area where all the communist statues were moved to after the fall of the Soviet Union. There were some interesting statues; my two favourites were one that looked like a communist version of John Howard, and one that was of Lenin’s feet!

I'm not quite sure where the photos of Budapest are, so I will have to upload them later!

Day 27
Today we spent the day in Munich, it was nice to spend the day in the one place. The first thing we did was catch the train into the city and look around, we saw the Rathaus (city hall) and walked along a few streets. Then we went to the Deutches museum and looked around. It was mainly about different modes of transport so there were ships, planes, rockets and other similar vehicles there. After spending a bit more time in the museum we had a look around the markets and wandered through a few churches. Mia and Charlie both enjoyed lighting the candles that were laid out and lit candles in three different churches.

Day 28
We’re all heading back to Vienna today to conclude our holiday within a holiday! On the way we stopped off at Herrenchiemsee castle, a beautiful castle built on an island in the middle of a large lake. The castle was similar to Neuschwanstein, as it was made by the same man, as everything was dedicated to someone. This castle was built after the style of King Louis the 14^th of France. The rooms were all dedicated to Louis or the kings following him. Then we headed towards Vienna and we were planning on calling in at a concentration camp, but the weather turned cold and started snowing heavily so we decided not to. Because we couldn’t go to the concentration camp we decided to go to Eagles Nest which was Hitler’s bunker during WWII. We walked through a small amount of the underground bunker system. Afterwards we all went outside and threw snowballs at eachother.

A statue at Herrenchiemsee castle

Day 25
Our last day in Switzerland today, we are heading off to Singen in Germany for the night. Another long day of driving, but to make it a bit more interesting we decided to call in at Liechtenstein. Sadly everything was closed in Liechtenstein as it was Saturday, so we filled up our car, bought a kit kat and left. We were in Liechtenstein for all of 10 minutes. We arrived at our hotel in Singen got dinner at a Turkish place, the people there were very friendly, but hardly spoke any English, it was interesting communicating with them.

Day 26
Drove to Munchen (Munich) today, but not before making a few stops, the zeppelin museum and Neuschwanstein Castle. The zeppelin museum was interesting, but couldn’t really hold my attention for long. Next we drove to Neuschwanstein castle, it was absolutely amazing, and it looked like it was pulled right out of a fairy tale. We caught a horse and cart up to the castle itself and waited around for a few hours until our tour began. The inside of the castle was beautiful; all the rooms were incredibly ornate and shiny. All of the rooms were dedicated to operas by Richard Wagner in some way, after a while it all got a bit creepy and obsessive.

Day 23
Off to the Matterhorn! We got up early this morning to leave for Zermatt, but with some very nice stops along the way. Our first stop was the Calier chocolate factory, a wonderful place where entry is free, and you get to eat all the samples you want! After the chocolate factory was the Gruyer cheese factory (I live a very tough life!) where we got to see how Gruyer cheese was made, and then sample some. A few hours later we arrived at castle Chillon by Lake Geneva. We did a tour of this amazing 12^th century castle, and I got some amazing picture. Later we arrived in Tasch and parked our cars then took the train to Zermatt, Zermatt is a car free town.

Day 24
Got up this morning very excited to go up the Matterhorn. We took a 15 minute walk to the cable car station then took 3 cable cars up to the Klein Matterhorn which is 3883m high! We went outside and threw a few snowballs around, I accidentally got my cousin Charlie in the face (whoops!) We then went into the Glacier tunnel, which was a beautiful tunnel about 3m in diameter that was drilled through solid ice! Inside it were some beautiful ice carvings. After the glacier tunnel we finally got to see the Matterhorn (4478m) from the viewing platform, of course there was a fluffy white cloud that stayed in front of the Matterhorn the entire time, so we didn’t get a good view of it. However I got some lovely photos of Breithorn (4164m) and of some groups of climbers making the difficult ascent to the top.