Amazing Salzburg & lake district + our arrival in Hungary

We've only been on holiday for a week now, but it feels like at least two. We've seen so many nice and beautiful things and it keeps going. Right now we are in Hungary, Bozsok and we feel very lucky to have picked exactly the perfect spot to stay. But first let's look back to Friday and Saturday.

The first morning in Mondsee Bogdán spotted, next to a squirrel, a big group of deer (Rothschild) passing by!! I thought they were goats...but super cool right?! Later we found out they were held on this land, but still a very special sight. That day Salzburg was on our to-do list and off we went. And talking about The Sound of Music in my former post; this area is were it was all filmed! On our way to Salzburg we passed one cute village after the other, surrounded by nice hills and mountains on the back. Salzburg itself felt a bit too touristic at first hand (and it still is), but we fell in love with it anyway. Especially when we climbed up to the Festung Hohensalzburg, a big fortress looking out over the city and the mountains with a splendid view. I really couldn't stop looking out of every window I saw. The weather was great and we strolled around the old city with little streets and beautiful buildings, lots of them with a reference to Mozart. And yes, of course we went for some Sound of Music locations; we saw the gardens where most of the Do-re-mi song was taken and the cemetry where the Von Trapp family hid themselves. We even saw some marionette puppets of the family. To top it off we ate THE local desert there, Salzburger Nockerl; fluffed up eggwhite with loads of sugar which is baked shortly in the oven. This is some heavy shizzle!! But...after arriving back in Mondsee we still went for some big plates with beef in the restaurant from the day before. It was so good and made with local products that we had to go back there again.

Yesterday morning we headed to Hungary, but not before seeing more of the Lake district and famous Halstatt (Unesco World Heritage site). And that was a very good choice! Although the wheather was not good at the start, we were blown away by the beauty of this area. The mountains both rocky and filled with big pine trees, the super smooth mirror-like surface of the clear lakes, the original houses built against the mountains above each other. There were low clouds hanging onto the mountain like blankets, a very special sight. As soon as we arrived to Halstatt it was raining a lot, noooo!! And we saw some big groups of Asians walking around there too, so we got a bit afraid this would not be the experience we hoped for. We saw some really nice houses already, but we wanted to have lunch anyway, so we decided to start with that. Among some pizzerias (why?!), we found the perfect restaurant full of old furniture, cosy cellar-like ceilings and local food. And of course, as soon as we left the restaurant, the rain had stopped and we could see the sun trying to get through the clouds. That turned this place from cute into lovely, magical and stunning. The old wooden houses (some even with wooden roofs) and the colourful painted once, together with some churches and the view at the lake and mountains form the perfect picture together. The pictures might not even show half of the beauty (especially not on this website, which makes them much less sharp/colourful). After walking around this little place for three hours we really needed to start driving to Hungary. Our experiences in Germany with driving were so bad, that we were precautious. But in Austria the roads are perfect and empty, but even more important; they barely change the speedlimit nor have disturbances for working on the road. So travelling to Hungary went super easy and the scenery and weather stayed beautiful the rest of the day. At 18h we arrived at Bozsok, just across the boarder of Hungary. Although it's a really small place (420 inhabitants), it took us 15 min to find our place! But when we arrived, we already knew this was exactly what we needed now. A big house with a huge garden, lots of cats walking around and some nice local restaurants. Our house is gigantic and looks like it's part of an open-air-museum, with an old stove and chairs from 1903. It's super cold on the inside, but with the temperatures outside that's a really nice feature. There is a really cosy veranda and instead of Bill there is now a cat which wants our attention constantly. He/she is following us everywhere. We don't allow her in the house though, but she just goes and sit in front of a window or door and meows very cute. And she is keeping an eye on us. When we went for a short toilet stop this morning to fall back in sleep again, she immediately made clear that she felt it was her time now. She was meowing so cutely, but we just kept quiet. We'd already been woken up by some very excited roosters at 4 o clock in the morning....so we needed our sleep. This is the real farm life experience!

Today we went for a morning run, which was super heavy. Not only because it was 24 degrees and close to noon, but we also went uphill. Some parts quite steep even. We thought we deserved some nice lunch and süti (cakes) after this tough morning and so we spoiled ourselves with nice bread and sausages and 4 pieces of cakes!! Bogdán said its actually a custom in Hungary to take 2 cakes per person and I sooo wanted to believe him, that I didn't ask questions. Germany and Austria have nice foods, but Hungarian is much better (they use more spices and there is more to choose from) and the cakes are really something here. They look beautiful, taste great and in every Cukrászda there are at least 20 kinds to choose from. Love it!! Why don't we have that in Holland or other countries?! After petting the cat a lot and relaxing a bit after all our travelling, we went for a nearby town, Kőszeg, which was looking cute. There was some bad weather coming up and we already heard from our neighbour, that there is a really nice restaurant with huge portions (other great feature of Hungarian cuisine btw) close by, so we went for that. While there was a thunder storm going on outside with big rains and even hail, we had the perfect spot to stay warm and cosy tonight. And of course some good food with lots of meat. I have the feeling we ate half a cow today.... Well, tomorrow we are going to walk around a lot again; this time in nice old medieval city Sopron, so it must be ok by then. Week 2 of our Roadtrip: here we come!!