Semmering Railway, Austria

Today we went to the world's first world heritage railway (out of 2 World heritage railways in the world), Semmering Railway. First we went to Semmering station, the main station of Semmering railway. The train would stop here only once every hour so it stopped at every stations along the route!  It sounded quite unpleasant trip but we had no choice so we took the train and leisurely rode to the last station, Mürzzuschlag station and continued our return trip on the same train back to our start point. The whole journey took about 2 hours. The view from the train was not quite different from the view we usual saw around here so I killed time practicing calculation with dad and mom!

Departed from this station!

World heritage!

Inside the train

Graz, Austria

Left our car at this P&R

Arriving by car last night to be ready for our trip today. This morning we had breakfast at the hotel and left the hotel at 10 am.  We parked our car at Ost Graz station, P & R station. The train would stop at this station only every hour so we took tram instead to Graz old town. The famous clock tower was up hill so we had to climb up the hill (with stairs) to the tower. The clock tower was a very large and very European style! We took a lot of pictures there and walked around before went down and headed to the cafe on the river which we could see from the hill. After that we went to strange shape building museum. In the evening, we went to the Christmas market at the City Hall, dad enjoyed hot wine as usual!  Then went to the department store in downtown, the view from the roof floor of the department store was very beautiful, nice place to enjoy view of Graz too!

Climbed this hill to
the clock tower

Clock tower

Interesting museum building

Tram

Cafe on the river

Christmas Market in Graz

Inside the church

Night view 

City hall at night

Interesting mark,
don't know what it is?!

Hallstatt, Austria

At 10am we left home for  the world most beautiful lake in Hallstatt, Austria. We arrived there around 12:30. It was a very beautiful place but most of the shops were closed because it was Sunday so we just walked around, enjoyed the nice view from everywhere. Without a plan, we walked to the church  on the hill and found a room full of of skeleton inside!!!  It seemed that there was not enough grave in the old time so they dug some up and put them inside this church. I felt so scared when I first saw them but dad told me that it was not a scary thing but just human body. Then, around 2pm, we took the boat trip around the lake which took us about 10minutes.  It was very quiet today, not many tourists. We stopped the coffee shop while we walked back to our car and had coffee and cake which mom said that this was the most delicious cake she had ever tasted while in Europe! After that we drove back home.  Our dinner today was frozen foie gras we bought from Kafer the other day and again mom was so happy with it! 

Hallstatt from boat 

Another view of Hallstatt

Very nice view but so cold!

Nice reflection

All skeleton 

My favorite view

Hallstatt downtown

Wachau Cultural Landscape, Austria

We went to Wachau Cultural Landscape today. First we toured Stift Melk Abbey.  The entrance was renovated to be quite new so dad was a bit disappointed but the library and the church were gorgeous. We drove along the Danube river then walked into the small town nearby, Weissen Partenkirchen. After visiting the church, we joined the harvest festival in the square near the church and had 2 sets of French fries while mom bought some small grape that used to make wine.  People there was so kind and everyone was so happy. Dad had wine tasting and bought back quite a lot of local wines from the store on the way to the parking lot. Mom had to drive back to Munich because dad had too much wine already!

Courtyard of the Stift Melk

Fantastic!

Harvest festival

Gorgeous Library

They called me princess!

I got free grape after this shot! 

Dad bought a lot of wine from here

Lovely town

The Belvedere Palace, Vienna, Austria

The Belvedere Palace！

We woke up so early this morning, had breakfast at the hotel at 7:30am and left the hotel at  8:30am! We parked our car at Liesing station for P & R. The parking fee for 24hrs was 3 euro and dad bought one day train ticket for himself and mom which costed only 5.7 euros total. First stop was the Belvedere Palace. We walked around the palace and got inside the museum to see the famous painting of Gustav Klimt. Then we took tram to the center of Vienna. There was a festival in front of City Hall, so we had light meals overe there and walked to the Houses of Parliament and then the Hofburg Imperial Palace. We were a bit disappointed about the palace because there was a sport events in the palace so we could not have a picture of the palace without tents  and people and advertising sign! But it turned out to be fun for me, I had tried a lot of sports like rock climbing,  bowling. Then we took tram again to Opera hall, had a coffee break at the original Sacher cafe. After that we visited St. Stephen's Cathedral Piazza, joint a tour to the underground of the Cathedral that was full of skeleton. Mom was a scared to see that unexpectedly! While we was in front of the Cathedral, deciding where to go next,  people dressed up like Mozart tried to sell dad a ticket for the concert tonight at Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and dad was trying to say no with an excuse that Julina was so sleepy already but I did say to him right away "No! I am not!" so dad had more talk with the guy and ended up bought a ticket for tonight concert. Concert time was from 8:15pm to 10:00pm so we had to wait around there for the concert time. I was sleepy finally and we moved to Starbucks which had a good couch in the basement for a 2 hours nap. The concert hall was so gorgeous with beautiful sound! I got bored a little but woke up again when somebody sang opera! or when there was a song liked. We arrived the hotel around 11:30pm and I was so sleepy along the way. It was a long fun day!

The garden inside the palace

Lunch in front of City hall

Very beautiful garden

A festival inside Hofburg
Palace

Sacher Cafe

The famous cafe of Vienna, Sacher

Parliament

Big bubble!

St. Stephen's Cathedral！

Main street nearby Cathedral

Mozart Concert at night

Palace and Gardens of Schönbrunn, Vienna, Austria

The entrance of  the palace

We went to Vienna today! 4 and a half hours drive and we arrived at Palace and Gardens of Schönbrunn at 12:30. It was so beautiful but I thought it looked similar to the Nymphenburg castle next to our apartment in Munich. We took the tour to the rooms inside the castle and then walked to the top of the hill, it was good view from over there too. In the park nearby the castle, there was a maze made ​​of wood, music on the floor that would play when you jumped on and a big bird to climb in. On the way walked back to our car, many people who walked by called me Sissy princess!! I was so pleased! The cost of car parking for today was 22 euros, quite expensive! We drove through the city and went to see the 120 years old Ferris Wheel that I did not want to ride. Today we met a lot of people dressed like October Fest dress in Germany, maybe there was a festival here too! Before we went back to our hotel, we stopped at Hundertwasser House for a while, it was interesting apartment, though there was people living inside so no tour inside the building!

Big bird in the park

Beautiful hill opposite of the palace

Very beautiful flower garden 

Beautiful palace

120 years old Ferris Wheel

Cheese!

One day trip to Salzburg, Austria

We drove to Salzburg for the second time this morning. We parked at the same place as last time so no suffer for the parking lot and walked to the old city but on the way I ran too fast and fell down and my knee got hurt so much!! Dad had to run to find the drug store for bandage. I had to walk slowly because of the pain but we made it to the Mirabell Garden finally. The garden was so much more beautiful than last time we visited with a lot of flowers all everywhere! After that we walked through the bazaar along the river. Mom and my aunt did some shopping and we had Thai food for lunch there. Then we went back to the old city and I got my paper cutouts which looked very cool! Then to the residence but then I realized that I had lost my paper cutouts so we had to go back to the place and paid for another cutouts of my face again and mom and dad also had another one with both of their face on the same paper too.

Paper cutouts professional!

A bit nervous!

How it looks？

Street performance, nice music

Mirabell

Edelweiss...

View from the sound of music

River view

Bless my homeland foever~

Close enough?