Here are geotracking maps of where we went in Austria and Germany. Although they seem fairly coarse, zoom way in and you can see tremendous details.
I used my iPhone 15 Pro and myTracks app without any in-app purchases.
In myTracks, I set the Time Interval to 60 seconds. Then each morning before we would leave the hotel, I would "Start short time recording" for 16-20 hours. This would cause it to automatically stop recording and create a daily track file. I never had trouble with battery life but I would check it around dinner.
When we returned, I shared each track to OneDrive.
I used Google My Maps to create a new map. I imported each .gpx file to a new layer and tailored it setting labels and colors.
There is a limit of how many layers you can add to a map so I created a separate map for each segment of our travel.
Once I had added all the tracks to a map, I marked it for sharing so that anyone with the link could view.
On the way to Munich, we had lunch at Soul of Espresso (archive.org) in Chiemsee, Germany. This is on Lake Chiemsee. On Herrenchiemsee Island in the lake is Neues Schloss Herrenchiemsee (archive.org) which was built by King Ludwig II (more on him later). You have to take a ferry to get there so we didn't visit.
We stayed at the Platzl Hotel (archive.org). The hotel is very nice but seems to be a consolidation of several buildings. Even the bellman got lost going between our rooms.
One block away from our hotel was what could have passed for Bourbon Street - beer halls, gelato stands, sidewalk restaurants. We played it safe and ate at the Hard Rock Cafe (archive.org).
Saturday we walked the center city. We watched the Glockenspiel (archive.org) in Marienplatz. You need to be there about 10 minutes before the presentation at 11:00 or 12:00.
Nearby is the Viktualienmarkt (archive.org). This is a sprawling 200-year-old market with over 100 stalls selling goods from fruit to meat and flowers.
Our last day of sightseeing was a drive to Hohenschwangau Castle (archive.org) and Neuschwanstein Castle (archive.org). I don't think we could have made it without our great tour guide. Remember the King Ludwig II I mentioned earlier? He also built these 2 castles. The Neuschwanstein Castle is often described as the inspiration for the Disney castles (archive.org).
We had a long night returning the Sixt Ford Tourneo in a rain storm. It took visiting 3 locations and an Uber ride back to the hotel.
Monday we headed to the Munich airport where we again had to negotiate the EES system. The confusion in Schiphol caught up with us. One of us was asked "Where did you enter Europe?" When we explained that the Schiphol border control officer had told them they were OK, the Munich officer said "Well, he didn't do his job." We were finally allowed to pass and board our flight to Atlanta.
Global Entry continues to amaze me. With a 767-400 dumping 238 passengers into Immigration, I panicked when I realized that there was only 1 Global Entry kiosk. However, you just had to walk by the kiosk. It even recognized and approved 2 of us at the same time. Now, if we could only get Global Entry for our luggage!
While it was great to get back to the land of air conditioning and sweet tea, we had an amazing trip and made lifetime memories.
When we arrived at the Hotel Sacher (archive.org) in Salzburg the doorman was waiting for us (but that's another story!). Hotel Sacher overlooks the Salzach River. We had 3 connecting rooms with a shared living area.
We wanted to eat dinner in the hotel but the main restaurant was only taking reservations. We went to the bar where they had a good bar menu. But no pasta! We asked the waiter if he could get us pasta. His reply was "I'm not allowed to say No." He arranged to get pasta from the kids menu at the main restaurant. It really didn't matter that the noodles were shaped like teddy bears.
That "I'm not allowed to say No." attitude permeated the entire service staff. Some of us arrived back at the hotel one evening without a key. I stopped by the front desk and a desk clerk joined us. On the way up in the elevator she asked us what room we wanted to enter.
Tuesday we had a tour guide take us on a "The Sound of Music" tour. We visited Mirabell Gardens (archive.org) where several scenes were filmed, in nearby Mondsee the Basilika St. Michael (archive.org), and Hellbrunn where the gazebo is.
All over Salzburg we noticed these brass plates in sidewalks.
They are "stumbling stones" (archive.org) to remind us of the terrible individual fates endured by residents of Salzburg. They are placed into the sidewalks outside houses and apartment buildings where the people they memorialize once lived. There are hundreds of these all over Salzburg.
Wednesday we drove to the Berchtesgaden Salt Mine (archive.org). The parking is a little walk away. They put you in sturdy jump suits to keep you warm since the temperature is in the 50°s, The tour is deep underground (425 ft.) and it takes both a train ride and a long wooden slide to get down there. There is a tour guide who lectures in German but there's an audio guide for English speakers (that worked very well). There is a nice gift shop at the exit.
We stopped nearby at Pizza Paradiso Da Stefano (screenshot) (Rathauspl. 2, 83471 Berchtesgaden, Germany) for lunch. This was a little mom and pop place but the food and service were excellent.
That afternoon we tried to visit Eagle's Nest (archive.org) but it was pouring down rain. From the visitor center, you had to walk to the shuttle bus and then it was a 20 minute bus ride and another walk to the actual site. We headed back to Salzburg.
Thursday we drove to Hallstatt (archive.org) just over an hour away. Hallstatt is a UNESCO World Heritage site and pretty much made everyone's list as our favorite place. You park just on the edge of the village and walk in. It's like you've walked back in time. It sits on the edge of a beautiful lake with swans floating in it. The streets are narrow and are lined with houses and shops covered with flowers. There's a marketplace that's not too big, just right. There's a waterfall tumbling down from the mountain. We had lunch at Restaurant Grüner Baum (archive.org) on a pier with no guardrails. You don't see that in the U.S.!
