Do you suffer from After-Christmas-Syndrome as well as we do?
Well, let’s then bring back some of the Christmas atmosphere and tune us up again for the best time of a year. And what will tune you better than Austria?
It was a long time ago since we settled again for a while in the warmth home with our family and enjoyed Christmas together all.
During our travels we have been happy we can enjoy the freedom and have new experiences every day in the unknown places, discovering the culture and differences, learning, meeting new people and knowing each other in various situations.
Australasia is a wonderful place for wanderlust, but when it comes to Christmas it can never beat good old Europe.
Especially Central Europe.
Christmas for us is mostly about family, traditions, and atmosphere in the first place.
If you are ‘old fashioned Christmassy’ person, you will definitely love Austria during these holidays.
Hallstatt Welcomes You With The Mysterious Beauty
If you are visiting Austria by car, you should definitely have at least one-day stop at picturesque Hallstatt village, just about 100 km east of Salzburg.
This little historic village is more important from the cultural side than one might think. Hallstatt was probably one of the first places in the world where people started to mine the salt already in the Early Iron Age. Also, Some of the earliest archaeological evidence for the Celts was found here and therefore was listed in UNESCO World Heritage Site.
A little village built right on the Hallstätter See (Lake) in the valley among steep hills offers very impressive experience. It reminded to us Fiordland in New Zealand, except not so exotic, but traditionally chilly European.
Medieval Salzburg – Moves You Back In Time
This beautiful Austrian medieval city lies on the eastern border with Germany and is, in fact, the capital of the federal state of Salzburg.
Its old town ‘Altstadt’ is world renowned for baroque architecture as one of the most historically preserved cities north of the Alps and was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site as well.
Salzburg is a birthplace of a famous composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart but its history actually pointing back to first settlements in a Neolithic Age.
And if you still doubt that this city is bursting with the magic of a history, you should take a look at the pictures.
Our impressions from this city during Christmas time was terrific. Surrounded by the mountains, walking in the streets along the baroque and gothic buildings and churches, with the majestic roman castle above our heads.
When the sun goes down, castle looks even more majestic and mystic with the lighting and starry sky above.
Salzburg’s Hohensalzburg Castle is one of the largest medieval castles in Europe and its building is dated back to the 11th century.
Standing high on the top of a hill, it offers a spectacular view on the historic city center.
Christmas markets or ‘Chriskindlmarkt‘ in the heart of a Salzburg presents special topic for this time of a year.
Yeah, Austrians definitely know how to tune you up on Christmas!
Decorated Christmas trees on every corner, stalls full of seasonal treats, handcrafted goods and gifts, food, sweets, smell of the berry punch and huge almond pretzels.
Vienna – Heritage City With Ultimate Christmas Atmosphere
I and Radito used to visit Christmas markets in Vienna every year since we met each other. It was kind of our family tradition and it always reminds me of the most magical time of our relationship.
Viennese Christkindlmarkt is a must see during Christmas indeed.
Fascinating Vienna is very beautiful and pompous historic metropolis which breaths with culture and history. Along with splendid architecture, Vienna offers vast cultural heritage with the famous Albertina, Kunsthistorisches and Belvedere museums full of the masterpieces of world’s renowned artists.
This time, we are looking forward to the exhibition of Edward Munch in Albertina.
Vienna offers various places where Christmas villages lie but undeniably the one in front of City Hall and on the Maria-Theresien Platz are the best.
City Hall is a breath-taking Neo-Gothic building which offers spectacular composition to a Christmas village atmosphere.
All big trees around are decorated with super cute huge lightning decorations together with Christmas trees, statues and other traditional decorations.
Stalls are full of sweets like sugar apples, a hot chocolate fountain with strawberries, pretzels, pancakes with Nutella and other sinful desserts.
If you are after something savory you can try traditional ‘Langos‘ – delicious deep-fried flatbread served with sauerkraut – yummy!
For the shopaholics, there are an infinite number of stalls with Christmas gifts and crafts but the most amazing stalls are those ones with handcrafted decorations for Christmas trees – luster of these stalls will give you the impression that you are in a real Christmas fairytale.
Don’t miss out famous delicious berry punch with whole pieces of fruit in cute seasonal mugs which are every year different.
You can give a mug back to stall and get back the deposit, or you can take it home.
It’s a great idea even for a gift or makes yourself a collection of mugs as we do at home.
This year mugs have been designed in the shape of red hearts and pastel green and yellow boots.
Vienna is gorgeous for us, and we always love to visit this city any time of year.
If you think of a trip to the Austrian capital, we recommend visiting Vienna right during the Christmas holidays.
We promise you will be stunned.
© Independent Couple 2015
What a beautiful place. I still have Xmas ornaments I bought from Salzburg. I think about it every time I put up and take down my tree! Happy Travels!
Oh that is great, you have been in Salzburg too? Did you write about it? Thanks for reading my post, Happy New Year and happy travels to you as well!
HI there. I have been there but I haven’t written about it. It was probably about ten years ago and all my photos were on film then. One of these days I will get around to converting them to digital so I can post about some of my previous travels. I really liked it there. We stopped there traveling from Italy, through Austria, and then on to Germany. Thanks for bringing back happy memories.
Haha, you are welcome. Ok, looking forward for it, pictures will have sure the “magic of the past” if they have been taken so long ago. But certainly that place remain the same. 🙂
Your photos are exactly how I remember it so I don’t think it has changed much. But, then again sometimes when I look back in photos I forget things…
Awesome post. Sharing 🙂
My pleasure! And thank you for sharing 🙂
Awesome post! Sharing this. 🙂
I was to several of the Christmas markets in Vienna a few years ago and was a bit disappointed. It was way to much people and it was not possible to get to the stands to buy anything to drink. Well at least the decorations were amazing 🙂
The Christmas markets in Bratislava and Brno was much nicer and easier to get around even when there were a lot of people. 🙂
Well that’s probably the matter of taste and preference, I don’t mind crowds of people at one place, and did not have any problem to get to the stalls. Anyway, I’m glad you liked Christmas markets in my hometown 🙂
I like to go there someday! haaay… wish! 😉