Sipping Espresso

I did it!  I saw my first castle.  It was wonderful - so tender and caring.  And it lasted all morning!  A first I'll never forget! Hohenwerfen Fortress When we drove into Austria, the hardest part after visiting Innsbruck (read about it HERE ) was choosing which castle to visit.  We had already planned on visiting Salzburg  next, so I carefully chose among the four major castles near the city.  I settled on  Hohenwerfen Fortress about 40 km southeast of Salzburg.  The plan was simple - leave Innsbruck early and drive straight to the castle.  We would spend an hour or so at Hohenwerfen Fortress  and then head to our hotel in Salzburg.  My plan was solid - but I underestimated how much fun we'd have at the castle, and we ended up staying nearly four hours. The original fortification was started nearly 1,000 years ago and has withstood an interesting history full of war, civil unrest, fire and constant expans...

Strange… not only did they not say, "g'day mate" in Austria - they spoke German!  Oh well, what're you gonna do?! Innsbruck, Austria After we spent four wonderful days in the Dolomiti  mountains (which you can read about  HERE  and HERE ), we planned an impromptu trip to Austria .  The Dolomites span across the northern end of the Italy, just south of Austria.  A quick google search confirmed that we could arrive in Innsbruck in under three hours and the opportunity was too good to pass up.  Once we explained our plan to visit Innsbruck to Claudia's cousin, Angelo - he suggested we also stop by Salzburg .  Well, what's another couple hours drive and another day or two?  After all, we didn't think we'd be back in Austria anytime soon. I spent our last night in Canale D' Agordo (Italy) booking an Innsbruck hotel, researching tourist attractions and planning our itinerary.  I was up early, with breakfast in my belly and our luggage...