2011 - Switzerland, Austria - Day 3 - Vaduz, Lichtenstein, and Salsburg, Austria

A few facts about Lichtenstein: - 140k average annual salary - 1% personal tax - no national debt - We left Switzerland this morning and drove to the small principality of Lichtenstein. We just had 40 minutes there, and we walked through shops. Then we continued our drive into Austria. Our drive today through Switzerland, Lichtenstein and Austria was gorgeous! Everything is so green with tall mountains all around. There are several small villages at the base of the mountain, with a church with a red steeple in the middle of the village. There are a lot of grassy fields, yet I didn’t see any sheep or cows on them. The houses are so pretty. All two story homes, usually brown and white with flower boxes along the 2nd story. There are ski resorts everywhere. Austria is famous for skiing in the winter. Kids start skiing when they are 2 or 3. Our lunch stop was on the outskirts of Innsbruck. We ate our snacks outside the restaurant by the river. The water was a pretty color, one I haven’t seen before with water, like a milky green. Then we drove into Salzburg. Salzburg is famous for its music, Mozart’s birthplace and hometown, and the Sound of Music story and movie scenes. My first impression of Salzburg was that I didn’t think was as clean and beautiful as Zurich. But when we got into the heart of the city, I liked it much better. We had a local guide walk us through the Mirabell gardens, which were so beautiful. I wish we could have spent a bit more time there. She took us to the University Square, the Market, and Salzburg Cathedral and the house Mozart was born in and the house he later lived in. We were given some free time but mom was exhausted from all the walking, so we found a place for her to sit near where the bus was to pick us up later. Then Amber and I left to go buy some hand made Mozart chocolate balls, which you can only buy in Salzburg. You can buy the store made ones all over Europe, but we wanted to try the original hand made ones. They were expensive, 1 Euro per ball, so we just got 3 so we could each try one. We also found a Sound of Music book for mom. We went back to sit with her and eat our chocolate. It was pretty good. Amber really liked it. I’m still partial to the Swiss chocolate. For dinner tonight we went to a farm on the outskirts of town. It’s also a brewery, making 20 different kinds of beer. They let everyone sample 4 kinds. When they asked what kind we wanted, Amber asked for Root beer. The guy had no idea what it was. It was quite funny. She said it was a dark beer, with no alcohol. He asked if it was made from malt or barley. I said neither. We ended up having Sprites. Dinner was a meatball soup, which we didn’t like very much, and a yummy salad, steamed veggies and pork ribs and potatoes. The ribs were a bit overcooked, but everything was really good. Dessert was a vanilla cake with strawberries and ice cream. We were eating in a made over barn, and the men serving were wearing lederhosen. It was very authentic and charming. I enjoyed it very much.