Student Bloggers

The University of Edinburgh has a week long break from classes during February. Rather than staying in Scotland for the week, my friend and I packed our backpacks to the brim and headed to Germany and Austria. It was a great eleven days but I was exhausted after and glad to be back in Edinburgh!

Beginning in Germany, we visited three cities: Hamburg, Berlin, and Munich. Our first stop in Hamburg was great! I loved seeing the city- it was very different from any other city we visited. Hamburg has a prominent harbor, so it was very cool to see the huge harbor and also see how that has influenced the city and its history. Our first morning we went to St. Michaelis church, it has an amazing view of the city if you climb the 450 steps to its tower. We did. My legs were shaking when we got to the top but it was amazing! That evening we took the train from Hamburg to Berlin.

Berlin is a very cool and huge city. There was so much to do- we probably needed a week in Berlin rather than two and a half days. My favorite thing in Berlin was definitely Ritter Sport. Ritter Sport is a German chocolate manufacturer and at their Berlin store you can make your own chocolate! I picked out dark chocolate, lemon drops, and gummy bears! It was amazing! 

We took an overnight train from Berlin to Munich to avoid paying for a hostel for the night. This was a huge mistake. The chair was not suitable for sleeping and the constant stopping of the train, the snoring of other passengers- it wasn’t the best sleeping environment. We saw the famous glockenspiel on Munich’s Rathaus, ate a giant pretzel, and walked around the town a little bit. I had been feeling sick since Berlin but at this point I was really sick. I quickly lost all energy and basically laid in my hostel bed all day. I knew I had to go to the doctor- and finding a doctor in Germany was a stressful experience! Luckily I found an English speaking doctor, got some antibiotics, and passed out around 8pm.

The next day we woke up caught a train to Fussen, Germany. This tiny town is in the very south of Germany near Austria and is most famous for being the closest train station to Neuschwanstein Castle! It was a super foggy day, but the castle was still amazing. The Castle sits on top of the mountain and you had the option of a 30 minute hike up or pay for a carriage ride up, so we obviously walked. It was elaborately decorated and I’m sure the view would have been amazing except for the fog. This is why nobody travels in February. Bad weather was a constant on this trip. We missed our train, per usual, to get back to Munich and we had a six hour trip ahead of us to Vienna! We ended up getting into Vienna at 12:30 in the morning, waiting in the subway station to catch the train to our hostel, before a security guard told us the subway was closed for the night. Exhausted and sick, we ended up paying for a cab to the hostel and slept in the next day.

Vienna was probably my favorite stop of the trip. It was a gorgeous city with a lot of beautiful building and a compact design so you could walk everywhere. We went to the ballet, saw the amazing Schonbrunn Palace and Gardens, had Sachertorte, Apfelstrudel, and Wiener Schnitzel, saw Venus of Willendorf, and so much more. I would have loved to have more time in such a cool city.

Our last stop was Salzburg, Austria. It’s a small town situated in the Alps that is best known for being home to the Sound of Music and Mozart’s Birthplace. We went on a Sound of Music tour that took us to all the filming locations, toured Mozart’s birthplace, and took a cable car up the Untersberg. We were hoping to hike around the mountain a little bit or at least appreciate the view- but it was so foggy you could barely see in front of you!

It was weird coming back to Scotland. It’s funny- in Germany and Austria, I had a difficult time adjusting when trying to cross the street. I’m used to people driving on the left now, and it felt odd when people drove on the right! So when we landed in Edinburgh, it was confusing trying to cross the street! Our plane landed and it was raining, dark, and pretty windy- oh how I missed Scotland.