Breeze-through summary once again, as I have to get to bed for my adventures tomorrow! So I loved every minute of Florence, of course, and after waving goodbye, we headed on up to the incredible city of Venice!
Venice fulfilled every exquisite detail I had ever imagined in my mind of what that beautiful city of canals would be and more. Everything there seems to be forever suspended in a perfect state of preserved decay, as though the city had begun to wear away over time but was somehow stopped, and has remained frozen ever since.
Highlight of the day: I got to ride on a gondola! Also, it was Easter Sunday, and it was an absolute mob everywhere. We tried to get into the church for mass, but they wouldn't let anyone in unless they had a reservation, and by that point it was too late to make it into any of the other churches for the Easter mass, which was extremely disappointing. Still, we made up for our need for spiritual uplifting by listening to a few conference talks in the car the next morning.
(Crossing under the Bridge of Sighs - the bridge prisoners walked over as they were being taken into the prison to await their fate, and it was the last time the saw daylight until then)
After our last day in Venice, we drove up to Salzburg, Austria and went on a Sound of Music tour! Oh my goodness, can I just say that me, as well as my fellow nerds all around me were singing our hearts out on the bus to the soundtrack they were playing?
I got to see a bunch of the sights where the film was filmed, and I was especially excited when I got to visit the gazebo where the 16 Going on 17 scene happens (if anyone recalls, I played Leisl in my junior high's production of the musical).
We also visited the church where the wedding scene was filmed, where I got myself a bottle of holy water as a souvenir, haha.
Then last night we hiked up to the castle on the mountain and went to an amazing music concert up up up in the highest room. THAT was awesome. Afterward I couldn't resist running around to the other side of the mountain to take a peek at Nonnberg Abbey, just to say I had been to the abbey where the actual Maria Von Trapp was training to become a nun.
Today we got up and drove out to the quaint little town of Hallstatt. I LOVED this little village! This was exactly the sort of place I imagined the Germanic countryside to look like - like something straight out of a fairytale.
It was here that we went to visit the Bone Chapel. Back in the day, there wasn't a whole lot of room to bury the dead in the cemetery, so the practice was to bury someone in the cemetery, and then seven years later their bones were dug up, their names written on their skulls, and their bones were placed in this chapel so that the grave could be freed up for someone else to be buried there. I think the chapel is no longer really used, as most people decide to be cremated nowadays in Hallstatt, apparently.
After that we drove over into Germany to see the GORGEOUS castle, Herrenchiemsee. I was particularly tickled about this castle, because this was an important setting for the first book I ever wrote.
I seriously couldn't get enough of the hall of mirrors in this place! I wish I could have had a little more time to see it. However, I did get to stand in that hall totally alone for an entire minute, and that's more than I ever dreamed I would get to see in my lifetime - let alone get a tour of the entire castle!
And now it is very late, and I must get to bed, so here is my video for the day, and I'll hopefully get to update you with the lodging we're staying in for the next few days tomorrow!
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