A Memorable Few Days (Innsbruck, Sargans and Vaduz)

This post is about a trip I took one long weekend in November, which I think was probably the trip I enjoyed the most during my time as a British Council Teaching Assistant in Austria. As I mentioned in my post about my trip to Vienna and Bratislava, I have a "bucket list" plan to visit all the countries in Europe as well as all the continents in the world. I visited Slovakia for the first time that weekend, and in November I was able to also tick off Switzerland and Liechtenstein. Three new countries in two months is not bad, in my opinion!

Because Switzerland and Liechtenstein are actually quite a distance away from Kärnten, I broke up the journey with a stop in Innsbruck on the way there and the way back. It was a really charming city, and it started snowing while I was there which was exciting! (Although it basically didn't stop snowing in Austria ever since, so I got used to it eventually. :D)

Here are my best pictures:

A couple of views from my hotel room in Innsbruck. I loved how mountainous it was.

A church that caught my eye on my way into the city centre

The most famous sight in Innsbruck: Goldenes Dachl

The Christmas market!

Stadtturm

Heibling House

Das Neue Rathaus

Triumphpforte



Landestheater

A couple of pictures from the Hofgarten. I had never seen a red squirrel in real life before, so it was amazing to get so close to one!

Hofkirche

Dom St. Jakob, the main cathedral in Innsbruck.

A view of the colourful houses by the river


After my first stop in Innsbruck, I took the train to a small Swiss town called Sargans near the border with Liechtenstein. It seemed very different from Austria - the accent was unusual and some of the vocabulary on signs, etc. was new to me. And maybe this is weird, but I was also excited at getting to use a new currency!

Sargans is not big but it does have some beautiful mountains and a castle, which I went to see on the evening I arrived.

This is a nice church on the way up the mountain towards the castle...

The castle. There were some incredible views from up there...

The following morning I took the bus into Vaduz, the capital of Liechtenstein. I expected it to be a big busy city with lots of offices and things going on, but it was actually very small and really really quiet. Which I liked, as it was nice to be able to explore the city without having to fight through crowds of people! While I was there I visited the art gallery, which had paintings by many famous artists, and the museum, where I learned a lot about the history of Liechtenstein and what life is like there.

Here are my pictures:

Vaduz Castle

Rathaus

The Parliament Buildings

The Cathedral


I really enjoyed these few days of travelling and sightseeing, and it felt like a real adventure to travel such long distances by train. In the future, I would definitely like to go to Switzerland again in particular, perhaps to a big city like Geneva or Zürich. We'll see, maybe during the final part of my Year Abroad!

Florence

The next stop on my travels was Italy again, this time to Florence. I had wanted to visit this beautiful city for a long time and living in Austria gave me the perfect opportunity to do so, as it was only a few train journeys away.

It was great to explore the city on foot seeing all the different sites. The one thing that wasn't so good was that the Uffizi gallery was far too crowded for my liking. However, I loved my weekend there, and I had lots of opportunities to take photos.

Here are some pictures from the main cathedral in Florence. Unfortunately there was some work being done on the building so it wasn't as photogenic as it normally is, but it was still a very impressive sight!

This is a photo of the Ponte Vecchio, taken from a window of the Uffizi gallery. I had an amazing view from there!

Palazzo Vecchio

The walled garden in the Palazzo Medici Riccardi. This was a really tranquil and beautiful place.

Florence is a very unique city with so much culture and beauty. I'm happy that I had the chance to see it at least once in my lifetime!

Vienna and Bratislava

Back in October, all the British Council English language assistants in Austria were invited to Vienna for a tea party at the British Embassy. I took advantage of this great opportunity to spend a few days in the city and also to take a day trip to Bratislava.

Vienna was really grand and magnificent with beautiful architecture and so many things to see. The highlight of my trip was the Belvedere Palace, where you can find numerous great works of art including "The Kiss" by Gustav Klimt.

I also went to the Schönbrunn Palace, another grand palace in Vienna where the Austrian royal family used to live. Inside you can look around some of the rooms and listen to information about the members of the family.

Other amazing sights included Stephansdom...

...the Hofburg Palace...

...plus many other interesting places around the city.

Bratislava was also a great capital city to visit. It is worth mentioning that I have a bucket list goal to visit every single country in Europe as well as every continent in the world. As of today, I have been to 18 of the 47 European sovereign states (19 if you count going to Portugal inside my mum's tummy a few months before I was born!) and 2 of the 6 inhabitable continents (Europe obviously and North America). I hadn't been to Slovakia before so I was excited to find out that it was just an hour away from Vienna on the train. Bratislava was a very pretty city and it was cool to tick another country off my list!

In the centre of the old town, you can find Hlavné Námestie, a very picturesque square.

The other famous square in the city is Hviezdoslavovo Námestie, which contains the Slovak National Theatre.

My favourite part of Bratislava was definitely the castle, which is like something out of a fairytale. It is also up quite a steep hill, so you have great views over the city from up there.

I had an amazing time exploring both of these capital cities which happen to be so close. If you ever visit one of them, it's very much worth the while taking a trip to the other one!