Vienna

Our last day on the bus we visited the Mauthausen Concentration Camp.  One huge bonus of having a tour guide is that we learned lots of history during the trip.

Our last stop was Vienna which felt like a huge museum.  There are so many amazing buildings that we didn't know where to look.  Every time I turned to look at something breathtaking on the right, Jonathon pointed out a beautiful structure on the left.  It is a beautiful city and we would like to return.

St. Stephen's Cathedral:

Library:

Opera House:

Hofburg Neue Burg:


Mozart lived in Vienna:

Maria-Theresien Platz:

Black Plague statue:

Fine Art Museum:

 

(This lion made me think of Sammy.  I couldn't find a witch or wardrobe though.)  We had a great trip and created lots of fun memories.  Happy anniversary Jay and Meghan.  Happy birthday Christina.

Salzburg and Hallstatt, Austria

Our bus fun continued into Austria.

Salzburg (birth town of Mozart and filming location for Sound of Music):

Touristy Sound of Music obligations (most Europeans have never heard of this movie):

Hallstatt:

Salt mining:

Happy birthday Megan and Mom!  Hope you have the best birthday ever because you are the greatest.

Swiss Alps (and Chocolate)

Just like a fairy tale, our Switzerland adventure took place up in the mountains at Murren.

I was most excited to experience the Swiss Alps, so I was a little bummed the first day when the peaks looked like this:

(This is now a little comical, because as I type this there isn't a single cloud in the Doha sky.)  I wasn't disappointed for too long since we decided to go to the base of the mountains for better views and chocolate.

On the second day, small glimpses of what seemed like mountains gave us hope.

We are far too sensical to let the weather stop us from enjoying the Alps, so we made the extremely wise decision to journey into the unknown mountain side with poor visibility.

After a long day of hiking, Jonathon keep us entertained with his alpine horn playing skills.

Then the third day was worth the wait.

We were sad to leave Switzerland, but excited to see Austria.

On Your Mark, Get Set, Germany

Thank you for all the birthday wishes.  In a wonderful turn of events, work deemed my birthday a holiday!  Okay, maybe it had something to do with Ramadan ending, but I want to believe that my birthday is somehow affiliated.  To fully appreciate the work holiday, we went gallivanting around Europe.  We were surrounded by nature and felt rain!  It was magical.

Since we enjoy going on magnificent vacations, but don't have a lot of spare time for planning (since I'm busy watching bachelorette and online shopping for unborn relatives) we signed up for a bus tour.  We weren't really sure if a bus tour would be our cup of tea. We envisioned the bus being full of slow senior citizens and annoying friendless people, but it wasn't and we loved the trip.  Our tour guide was fabulous and it was beyond fantastic to have someone else worry about what was happening tomorrow while we were enjoying today.

Our fabulous bus took us to Germany, Switzerland, and Austria.

not my map: see source for more details

Our journey started in Germany with lots of greenery and the exposure of knees:

The entire trip was just exploring new places:

Getting inspiration for new family names:

Acting like royalty and visiting castles:
Burg Metternich:

Burg Eltz:

Neuschwanstein:

Herrenchiemsee palace:

The occasional afternoon schnapps shot while wearing a traditional black forest hat:

Germany was just the beginning of our fun.  More posted later.  Happy birthday Courtney, Bobby, and Grandma Fran.  Hope you have a wonderful day.