The Romantic Road to Vienna

That's not me making up the title, there is actually a route called the Romantic Road which takes you from Salzburg to Vienna through many beautiful and quaint villages and towns.

We rented a car for the journey between Salzburg and Vienna and if you have time, this is the way to travel because you have a lot more freedom on where you can stop and what you can look at. Before leaving on our trip, we received a map of the Romantic Road which was mailed to us from Austria after requesting it over email. This map provides not only the driving route, but also points of interest along the way and this is how this part of the trip was determined.

From Salzburg we drove to Bad Ischl, a charming little town and our base for a couple days as we explored part of the Salzkammergut region. Here we took the Katrin cable car up the mountain, taking about 12 minutes, and did a short hike to Katrin Cross. I'd classify the hike as easy, but there were a few places with many stairs to climb. Reaching the summit at Katrin Cross was worth it. The view of the Salzkammergut region was incredibly breathtaking. The scenery was fantastic for as far as the eye could see; we saw views of many little towns, Wolfgangsee and Traunsee - a place we visited later on. It's really hard to describe by words the view from the top.

From our base here we also visited Hallstadt which is famous for its salt mine. We took a guided tour of Salzwelten, which is the world's oldest salt mine. The tour itself was really good, our guide did a good job of providing the information in both English and German. We also had lunch here at the Brauhaus (Brew House) which had its outdoor seating along the lake.

Some of the other towns/villages we stopped in around the region included Bad Goisern, where we found a grocery store where we found some great items for our future road trips; Traunsee was a very beautiful lake and had a neat little church perched up on a hill; Gmunden was a bigger town and here we visited the Seeschloss Ort (Sea Castle) which is apparently a popular wedding venue. We drove up the Danube River to Kerms. Along the way we found countless apricot orchards and vineyards. Kerms is also a bigger town and here we enjoyed some ice cream, espresso and wine from the Wachau wine region. We had wine at a wine bar situated along the main pedestrian street in Kerms and it was fantastic and incredibly well priced; we each enjoyed a glass of wine and the total bill was only $5.70 Euro. WOW!! Could never find such a deal back home.

We also stayed in a town called Melk, about an hour outside of Vienna. The main, and only, attraction in this town is the Abbey. This is one of the world's most famous monastic sites. It was founded in 1089 and is located above the town. It's a really short walk up the stairs to the entrance. We did an unguided tour of the abbey buildings which were quite spectacular. We also got to see the library, which houses over 100,000 historical books and manuscripts, and the church and garden grounds. A small market was set up the day we were leaving and we ended up buying some fresh apricots for the road. Boy did they ever taste great and we regretted not buying more.

Driving around Austria was relatively easy with the help of a GPS, which we were advised was a must have. The roadways are built for driving and at times I think Z wished he were on a motorcycle instead. Drivers stay in the right lane and only use the left when passing, what a concept?!?! Trucks also remain in the righter most lane, again what a concept!! The route we took was amazingly scenic and well worth it. We would have missed so many breathtaking views, scenic and quaint towns had we taken a train instead. This was definitely the way to travel to Vienna.