The Day Our Kids Went to Austria Alone
Our home in Hohenschwangau is only 10 minutes by car from the Austrian border. So, obviously, we needed to take a couple of trips to Austria and check it out while we were in the area. We made two trips to Austria. One to enjoy nature/scenery and one to enjoy an Austrian city.
The first time we went hiking near the border of Germany and Austria. There was a gorgeous river with woods beside it. We parked on the Austrian side. As we were driving to the parking area, we saw this high-up wooden bridge that spanned quite a way. Of course, our adventurous littles wanted nothing more than to walk across that bridge first!
We made our way to the end of the bridge, which had a closed door. Weird, we thought, but a family was coming out through the door as we got there and we walked inside, not thinking much more about the door situation. We walked across, enjoying the gorgeous views from up here.
At the border between Austria and Germany, there were painted boards. The girls thought this was the greatest thing ever and enjoyed jumping from one country to another and standing in two countries at once.
Eventually, we kept walking, making it to the other end. Where we suddenly realized why there was a door at the other end of the bridge. Apparently, you were supposed to pay to come onto the bridge on the German side and walk to the Austrian side. Oops! We had no clue! We decided to turn around and head back to the Austrian end rather than get off the bridge and potentially have to pay for using it, since we had no clue how much it might cost.
On our way back, it gave the girls another opportunity to enjoy running ahead of us and crossing the border into Austria, where we all laughed at how irresponsible Jon and I were as parents for allowing our children to travel to another country without us! The girls found this to be the funniest concept ever, that we could be two feet apart but technically in different countries.
Once we got back to Austria, we headed into the woods to hike, enjoy the river views, and even found one area that was a bit of a playground of sorts with a swinging wood bridge and a slide. The girls really wanted to go down the slide, which was closed. We briefly turned our heads the other way while they ran up, climbed over the barrier, and slid down. We figured we were already rule-breaking rebels today, so why not allow them one more fun little illicit experience? They had a blast on that slide! Afterwards, we drove around Austria a bit, enjoying exploring the area, before heading back home.
Our second trip to Austria took us to Innsbruck for the day. Such a beautiful and historic city with mountains as a stunning backdrop as you walk through the town centre. It was hard to know where to look with the imposing mountains, the stunning architecture, and the adorable shops and stalls everywhere.
We stopped in a café and had some delicious treats. We also were amazed to have found a café where the girls’ babyccino drinks were free. Wow! And no, it was not an error where they forgot to charge us for them, it was listed in the menu with the price marked as free. Such a pleasant surprise. The pastries we got here were delicious, as well. Jon got a strudel while we three girls got homemade donuts (three different types).
We walked around, enjoying the sites and market stalls. We found some incense at one stall and couldn’t help but buy a couple of frankincense and myrrh along with the charcoal discs to burn them on.
We walked along the river for a while and found a lovely little market where there were various food vendors inside. We walked around and decided to stop at a little Italian spot where we saw some people eating. It looked fabulous. We didn’t really know what we were ordering due to the language barrier but figured it was Italian food, how could we go wrong? We communicated to him that there were four of us who wanted to eat and trusted the rest to work itself out. He waved us over to a table and we ended up with a couple of glasses of red wine and a charcuterie platter that was to die for. I haven’t had such a wide variety of veggies in a long time. Wow. Trust the locals indeed, it’s never led us astray yet!
After walking off our lunch and exploring more, we decided it was time to start making our way back home while there was still a little daylight. We were a bit surprised by just how different the climate was compared to Germany. On our side of the mountains, we were having glorious, warm weather with basically no snow in sight. On the Austrian side, it was significantly cooler and there was quite a bit of snow in many areas, with tons of skiers on the slopes. We definitely didn’t want to get caught in dark and snowy conditions on that windy, curvy, upsy-downsie mountain pass that just about made me lose my breakfast on the way into Austria! Our time in Austria was limited, but we definitely loved it!