Traveling: August 2020

Sunday, 23 August 2020

Vienna Summer 2020

Vienna

Friday - August 21st to Sunday - August 23rd 2020

The last part of our week long holiday took us to Vienna. After the bike tour along the Alpe Adria Bike Trail and a visit to Bayern Park we decided to spend the rest of the week in Austria's capital city. Friday morning we hit the road towards Vienna, where we arrived around noon at our hotel. In Vienna we stayed the the 25Hours Hotel, which we already knew from our short honeymoon trip in 2014. Our room was really nice and themed after a circus. Our hotel was part of Vienna's initiative "Experience Your Capital City". Therefore we got a special rate for our room and a goodie bag with products from Viennese companies. This initiative was started to help the tourism industry to overcome the financial losses due the coronavirus. Claudia and I hadn't planned anything special for our trip to Vienna, we just went shopping, had many delicious meals and drinks and just enjoyed Vienna.

Our Room

Goodie Bag

Vienna

Swing Kitchen

Vegan Ice Cream

Vienna

25 Hours Hotel

Vienna

Dinner at Max & Benito

Friday, 21 August 2020

Bayern Park 2020

Bayern Park

Thursday - August 20th 2020

Claudia and I are big fans of themeparks and amusementparks, but unfortunately there aren't any parks like Disneyland or Europa Park near us, however there's a small family park in Bavaria about two hours by car from Salzburg. We had never been there, but since traveling is currently restricted in Europe due to Covid-19, we decided to give Bayern Park a try. The park opened at 10:00am and we arrived just on time. Currently Bayern Park is enforcing a limited entry, that means we had to buy the tickets, which coast 25 Euros per person, in advance so that they can regulate the visitor numbers per day. The entrance was rather unspectacular, but to our surprise the park offered some interesting rides. Once inside we headed straight to the park's major rollercoaster called Freischütz. The coaster was a bit rough, but still a lot of fun. Our next stop was Voltron, a huge free fall tower. Going up was so much more terrifying then falling down.

Bayern Park

Freischütz Rollercoaster

Voltron Free Fall Tower

After Voltron we took a break and ate some of our snacks we brought with us and then we queued for a small kiddie coaster. The wait times were okay for a weekday. In Bavaria and nearby Austria kids were still out of school and on holiday and so the park was crowded with families. After the kiddie coaster we just walked arounf the park and came across a cute boat ride themed to Bavaria's King Ludwig. Next was an Alpine coaster ride, which we had to pay seperately, but a lot of fun. Now it was time for another break and for ice cream.

Bayern Park

Alpine Coaster

Vegan Ice Cream

Bayern Park

After our small break we got in line for another exciting attraction. The waild water rafting ride was very popular among guests thanks to the warm weather and so we had to stand in line for about 30 minutes, the longest wait time during the whole day. Since it was already noon, we decided to get a beer and to eat our remaining rolls. Two ice cold beers later we queued for Eagle's Challenge, our last big ride of the day. Then we just walked around the park to check out the restaurants and the only souvenir shop, where we bought a magnet. Before we left the park we did a small dark ride, similar to Disney's Midway Mania. On the way out we saw that the park's main restaurant was offering a vegan vegetable patty with french fries. Of course we had to try it and to our surorise it was quite tasty. Then we left the park for good and two hours later we arrived in Salzburg. We had a fun day at Bayern Park and were able to ride all attractions we wanted to. The park was bigger than expected, with more attractions than expected, but of course far from Dsiney or even Europa Park. Still we had a lot of fun.

Bayern Park

Vegan Vegetable Patties with Fries

Thursday, 20 August 2020

Alpe Adria Bike Trail 2020 - Part 1

Alpe Adria Bike Trail

Saturday - August 15th 2020

Thanks to Covid-19 traveling in 2020 was not so easy and so Claudia and I decided to try something new. For the first time ever we wanted to go on a bike tour. We planned to try the Alpe Adria Bike Trail, which runs for about 400km from Salzburg to Grado, but instead of doing the whole trail to Italy, we only bicycled half way to Villach in Carinthia. Since it was our first tour of that kind, we planned our stages ahead and booked all the hotels in advance. Before our tour started we made our bicycle fit for the trail and finally the day was here and our bike tour started.

Today's stage took us from Salzburg via Hallein and Bischofshofen about 65km to St. Johann im Pongau. So Saturday morning we grabed our stuff and soon we were on our way along the Salzach river. The official starting point of the Alpe Adria Bike Trail was the statue of Salzburg's most famous composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, so that's where we officially started our tour. Unfortunately the weather wasn't that great, but we made it dry to our first stop in Hallein. There we stopped for a short break to get coffee and to check out a small festival. The weather started to get better and so we continued our tour to Golling, where we had lunch.

Our First Day

Mozart

Hydro Power Plant

Salzach River


Alpe Adria Bike Trail

My KTM Bike

Coffee in Hallein

Hallein

Along the Alpe Adria Bike Trail

Lunch Break

After luch the first challenge waited for us, because we had to climb our first mountain pass. Unfortunately it wasn't our last for the day, since just a couple of kilometers later we had to face our next ascent to Castle Hohenwerfen. Luckily afterwards the trail flattened out. In the afternoon we arrived in Bischofshofen, where we stopped for vegan ice cream to power up for the last remaining kilometers to St. Johann. There we arrived in the late afternoon. In St. Johann we stayd at the hotel "Das Martell", which was conveniently located next to the bike trail. After check in we had to get our reward in form of a refreshing cold beer. Later we showered and then we headed to the village for dinner. We decided to eat at an Italian restaurant, where we both ordered pasta and bruschetta for starter. A delicious dinner later Claudia and I just walked around the village until we returned to the hotel, because it started to rain heavily.