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Old 1 Nov 17, 12:16 PM  
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Goldia
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The hills are alive - Salzburg October 2017 Pre travel day

Pre-trip Introductions

Before I get into the trip report writing I will give a brief introduction. There are four of us on this trip, me, DH, DS (13) and DD (10). We like a city break in October half term and have been to Prague, Bruges and Athens in recent years. In deciding where to go this year I had the longest shortlist in the history of shortlists ! I had narrowed it down to Rome, Reykjavik (to see the Northern Lights), Budapest, Crete, Barcelona, Bucharest, Stockholm, Venice...Then one day up popped Salzburg as an option.

I knew this was it, mainly as I wanted to be Maria Von Trapp

I wanted to sing 'I am 16 going on 17' in a gazebo, I wanted to sing 'Do, Re, Mi' while jumping up and down some steps in front of a fountain and I felt confident that DH, DS and DD would want to join me in wearing lederhosen, eating apple strudel and carrying brown paper packages .

Ok, so they were less keen on this part. When I informed them of our holiday plans I received the following responses

DH 'Ok then I can eat sausage and drink beer'
DS 'Humph, grunt'
DD 'Where is Salzburg?'

To which I recited my reasons for wanting to go to Salzburg (as outlined above).

DH and DS gave me lots of eyerolling
DD 'Why do you want to go there though?'

To which I replied 'Why are you all not more excited? THE. SOUND. OF. MUSIC.'

Well, generally speaking they are always happy to join me on adventures as long as they don't have to discuss the planning of it and can just turn up for the ride!

So, it was booked four nights at the Wyndham Grand Hotel in Salzburg. I bought the Salzburg card for all of us, which turned out to be really good value as it allowed entry to all the museums and gave us free transport around the city and to and from the airport.

Tuesday 24th October 2017 Pre travel day

Technically the day before pre travel day is a start to our holidays as DH and myself like to begin how we mean to carry on - with a cocktail. I have become slightly addicted to a mule following our trip this summer where we tried Moscow Mules and Montana Mules. I've even bought the special little tankards to serve them in. Here is our mule from the night before.



Rather annoyingly I woke up at 5am on the Tuesday with a stinking cold . I pootled around on the Dibb and then did the online check in for the flight. It looks like it will be a quiet flight, we had been allocated 4 seats together a 3 and then 1 across the aisle.

Mid morning we got together and packed. I say we packed when really I mean the kids and DH got out lots of clothes they wanted to take and laid them out on the bed. I then made them halve their selections (4 nights people ) so that we could fit everything into carry on bags only.

We managed to fit everything into 3 carry on bags. One of which had 4 pairs of walking boots and 2 umbrellas as the contents.







The kids and DH did have their personal bags too for gadgets and of course DD brought Minnie Mouse with her.

We left home at around 3pm and popped into Tesco for some last minute cold medication and paracetamol and then we were on the road.

I had booked up the sleep, park, fly option at the Premier Inn at Gatwick London Road South for the night before as our flight departure was 6.45am . Traffic was good and unusually for us so was the weather as we always seem to be travelling to the airport in a major thunderstorm.

We had a pretty standard family room. One small bonus was having two proper single beds as often there is a tiny little bed which is simply a mattress on the floor as the 4th bed.







As per usual I dragged a chair into the bathroom as I don't sleep well before a flight and I prefer to sit on a chair in the bathroom reading my kindle rather than on the floor .

We had our usual pre travel day 'We have arrived at the airport hotel' drink



We went to the Gatwick Manor Pub for our dinner. It is right next door to the hotel and is where we ate on the pre travel day of our first ever WDW holiday.

DD ordered a coke, DS a J2O, DH had a pint and I had a gin and tonic.





The kids both ordered lasagne with ciabatta garlic bread and salad.



DH had fish and chips with mushy peas.



I had sausages, mashed potato, spinnach and a red onion gravy.



It was all pretty tasty and came to £54.

We went back to the room to have our pudding. DS had made some millionaires shortbread the day before and we had brought the leftovers with us. We had a game of cards. DS won by a long way. I wrote up some notes he asked 'Are you writing down that I thrashed everyone?' Yes, I am .

We turned in at about 9pm and set the alarm for 4am. I hoped I would get some sleep.
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New pre trip report - Summer 2024

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2017: NYC and Orlando. Salzburg. Boston.
2018: Orlando. Berlin.
2019: DLP. Orlando. Washington DC.
2020: DLP.
2021: Jamaica. Rome.
2022: Orlando.
2023: Orlando. Niagara and Toronto.
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Old 1 Nov 17, 03:36 PM  
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Melbatb
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I like your reasoning for visiting

Dinner looks lovely- and who can say no to Millionaires' Shortbread!
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2016 Quebec - Kuala Lumpar - New York City 2017 Dubai - Eurocamps France - Ontario and Quebec - So-Cal 2018 Montreal - Bangkok - New England 2019 Argentina - Quebec City - Hong Kong - 2020 Switzerland 2022 Arizona - Costa Med Cruise - Oslo 2023 Hong Kong - Gothenburg
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Old 1 Nov 17, 06:03 PM  
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Goldia
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Originally Posted by Melbatb View Post
I like your reasoning for visiting

Dinner looks lovely- and who can say no to Millionaires' Shortbread!
Ha Ha, my grandmother told me many years ago, when she was waiting in hospital for a hip replacement, about visiting Salzburg with my Grandad before he died. She said that they had visited the gazebo and that she had made him dance inside it with her. I'm not 100% sure if this was an embellishment or not, but it was kind of a pilgrimage of sorts, at least following in their footsteps somewhat. He was a very reserved man and she was more vivacious, so she may have managed to convince him to do it.

We did make it to the gazebo, but it is locked now so we weren't able to go inside.
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Abby
New pre trip report - Summer 2024

Link to all my completed trip reports
2017: NYC and Orlando. Salzburg. Boston.
2018: Orlando. Berlin.
2019: DLP. Orlando. Washington DC.
2020: DLP.
2021: Jamaica. Rome.
2022: Orlando.
2023: Orlando. Niagara and Toronto.

Edited at 06:04 PM.
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Old 3 Nov 17, 03:47 PM  
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collybird
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I want to be Maria too, my Barbies had a lovely four-poster bed and I pulled the curtains down to make dresses for her and her sisters.

That's a lovely story about your grandparents, I like that there's a hint of ambiguity to it.

I'm impressed with your packing skills, I'd love to travel hand luggage only sometime, anything that cuts down on the waiting is good by me.

The food looks really nice!
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Old 3 Nov 17, 07:49 PM  
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Goldia
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Originally Posted by collybird View Post
I want to be Maria too, my Barbies had a lovely four-poster bed and I pulled the curtains down to make dresses for her and her sisters.

That's a lovely story about your grandparents, I like that there's a hint of ambiguity to it.

I'm impressed with your packing skills, I'd love to travel hand luggage only sometime, anything that cuts down on the waiting is good by me.

The food looks really nice!
That's so funny you made dresses for your barbies out of the curtains.

I know I will never get to know what really happend now. As a teenager when my grandmother told me the story I believed her, so maybe it is true, but equally I was very naive and I can understand that it makes for a better story that they danced inside the gazebo rather than just visited it and it was locked so they stood outside like we did.

Either way, it was lovely to be at the gazebo and think of them being there...my grandmother was full of joie de vivre and I can imagine her being excited at being there, but my grandfather was far more reserved. I shared the story with my family when we were there, even though none of them met my grandfather and only my DH knew my grandmother, it was great to feel we have a shared experience albeit separated by a few decades. And only a little sad that she will never know that we retraced her footsteps.

I think if you can't do hand luggage only for 4 nights then there is something wrong !

Although, this is where my grandmother would absolutely disagree with me as she ALWAYS liked to dress up for dinner. My DD has inherited this from her even though they have never met. My holiday itinerary planning skills are a constant disappointment to my DD if we don't have an opportunity to return to our hotel and freshen up before dinner as she likes to put on a new dress . This is something that my grandmother would have 100% agreed with.

Anyway, that's enough of my reminiscences. I'm going all sentimental
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Abby
New pre trip report - Summer 2024

Link to all my completed trip reports
2017: NYC and Orlando. Salzburg. Boston.
2018: Orlando. Berlin.
2019: DLP. Orlando. Washington DC.
2020: DLP.
2021: Jamaica. Rome.
2022: Orlando.
2023: Orlando. Niagara and Toronto.
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Old 5 Nov 17, 09:06 AM  
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WileyCoyote
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Ah, fab, this is on my bucket list along with Vienna so looking forward to seeing the sights.
Bit pants that you have a cold though ! Hope you medicate that away with some cocktails ...
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Old 5 Nov 17, 09:30 AM  
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Goldia
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Originally Posted by WileyCoyote View Post
Ah, fab, this is on my bucket list along with Vienna so looking forward to seeing the sights.
Bit pants that you have a cold though ! Hope you medicate that away with some cocktails ...
I would like to see Vienna too and we could easily have included a day trip, but I decided not to in the end.

Fortunately, although I had all the symptoms of the cold it wasn't too bad. Apart from having a red nose through blowing it so frequently and the fact that it made me snore, although this didn't bother me so much as it bothered everyone else!
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Abby
New pre trip report - Summer 2024

Link to all my completed trip reports
2017: NYC and Orlando. Salzburg. Boston.
2018: Orlando. Berlin.
2019: DLP. Orlando. Washington DC.
2020: DLP.
2021: Jamaica. Rome.
2022: Orlando.
2023: Orlando. Niagara and Toronto.
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Old 13 Jan 18, 10:57 PM  
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Skittl1321
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Sounds like a good start to the trip!
I adore sound of music, as a child I never knew there were Nazi's in it, as I generally fell asleep before intermission.
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Old 14 Jan 18, 12:40 AM  
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Goldia
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Originally Posted by Skittl1321 View Post
Sounds like a good start to the trip!
I adore sound of music, as a child I never knew there were Nazi's in it, as I generally fell asleep before intermission.
That pub meal was very tasty. We've stayed at the same airport hotel before, most notably the night before our first Orlando wdw holiday. I remember that very well as we'd had a power cut and the electricity still hadn't come back on by the time we left for the airport so I was mildly worried about the freezer. Anyway, my mum popped over later in the evening and the power was back so the freezer hadn't defrosted into an ooey gooey mess and she phoned to let me know while we were having dinner.

I hope you enjoy the rest of Salzburg, It's a beautiful city.
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Abby
New pre trip report - Summer 2024

Link to all my completed trip reports
2017: NYC and Orlando. Salzburg. Boston.
2018: Orlando. Berlin.
2019: DLP. Orlando. Washington DC.
2020: DLP.
2021: Jamaica. Rome.
2022: Orlando.
2023: Orlando. Niagara and Toronto.
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Old 20 Jan 18, 12:43 AM  
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Ooh Salzburg! You've now got me thinking of going here when we potentially have a child free weekend in April. Now my OH has never seen The Sound of Music (I know right?!) so how do I convince him to get there? I don't think singing 'The Hills are Alive' is going to cut it
A nice smooth pre travel day, looking forward to reading more!
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