The hills are alive...

... with the sound of children crying in the airport.

Just kidding.

Sort of.

(I did fly with the two girls solo.  And Caroline did have a full-blown temper tantrum in the airport.  But the trip was worth it.)

As I mentioned, we got back from the States, we re-packed our suitcases and were gone again three days later.  This time for a trip to Austria and the Czech Republic.  I'm not going to lie... I was initially pretty resistant to back-to-back trips with our two little kids.  But Josh won me over.  And with the exception of a few minor hiccups, the kids were great.

Our first stop was Salzburg, Austria.  With the Alps as a backdrop and stately baroque architecture throughout, it's a fabulous destination for any tourist looking for a quaint spot in central Europe.  But those are not the reasons I've wanted to go there since I was six years old.  It's because one of my all-time favorite movies was set and filmed there:  The Sound of Music.


Josh had business to do in town, which left the girls and me with the better part of three days to explore.  So what did I do?  Embraced my inner-nerd and found as many Sound of Music locations as possible of course!  If you follow me on Instagram you'll already know this about me and this trip, since I posted pics like this:


According to Josh's coworkers, the film isn't all that popular with Austrians.  But the Americans tourists can actually book bus tours to see all the sights.  The girls and I didn't go that far, although I might have had the girls been older.  We actually met an American teenager who had made her own green damask dress and was hunting down the same locations as us.

Beyond my Sound of Music obsession, our days in Salzburg were glorious.  My extremely fond memories of that city are most likely colored by the fact that we experienced three sunny 65 degree days.  And that was coming off a trip to the snowy Midwest and a rainy few days in London.  No coats necessary during daylight hours!  The kids and I shopped, ate ice cream and pretzels, had lunch in outdoor cafes, and played in gutters.  Okay, that last one was just Caroline.  Salzburg does have a lot of pedestrian-only streets, which was great for letting her out of the stroller.  She needs nothing more than an empty water bottle/stick/pretzel and some space to explore, and she's a happy camper.

And then Josh would join us for dinner and some more strolling around town in the evenings.

It was a teensy tinesy shame we didn't get to see Salzburg in the summer.  All the fountains were covered up, and there was some significant construction going on prior to the beginning of the tourist season.  But I guess that's just a reason to go back!

Here are some pics and more fond memories of our time there: