Can YOU do a roadtrip in Austria in winter? - From Salzburg to Vienna with Christmas and New Year

I'm going to spend Christmas and New Year in Austria. And then you have this amazing view in winter. Starting with Christmas in the city of Salzburg, I will be working my way through villages, lakes and mountains and finishing with a great New Year's Eve party in Vienna. I don't know what's going on in Austria. While I have been to Austria before, this is the first time I'm visiting this in winter. And instead of winter sport, we will be doing a great road trip. From London, it was a short two-hour flight to Munich. Here we spent our time during Christmas Eve. So yeah, that's right. Christmas Eve in Munich means that everything is closed and it really looks closed at the moment. This is the main shopping street. Let's see what's going on here at 5 pm. After having some great German food in the Hofbrauhaus, Schweinehaxe was really, really good. And it seems, because this is one of the few restaurants in Munich that's still open, that all the tourists, as you can see, it's so busy, all the tourists from what we saw on the street are just coming in here, having their meal, enjoying Christmas Eve. It was time to take a train on Christmas to Salzburg, a city located on the border with Germany. During Christmas, at least in Salzburg, loads of things are open. And a good thing to move around to Salzburg is to buy a Salzburg card for 26 euros and you can visit loads of places for free. Buying the Salzburg card saved us in the end 26 euros per person. Salzburg is the place where Amadeus Mozart is born. And that is what you will see back in the city. The first confectionery started in 1884. It took him six years to make those famous Mozart kugels, named after Amadeus Mozart, of course, because he lived here. It's basically a dark chocolate ball quilled with valine nougat and some almond spice as well. By visiting Mozartgeburthaus and Mozartwohnhaus, you will learn a lot about the Mozart family. At the age of five, he was already able to play violin and piano, made his own music composition at the age of seven, played his own music composition at the age of 11. Well, I'm not even able to play a piano nowadays at the age of 27. While Salzburg has a lot of history in the city, from the fort up the hill, where you will have a good view over the city, to Mirabellgarten, you might even recognize this place from something more recent. So, I need a golden thread. La, I'm not too far, so... Before we leave the city, we finished our time by visiting great Christmas markets with delicious food. Nice and sweet, exactly what we need at the moment. And where most of it was affordable, not for everything that is the case. We're in Hotel Sacher for the original Sachertorte. It's the only place in Salzburg where you can get the original Sachertorte made by Frantusis Sacher. In Vienna, you also have several places where you can try. It's made from 34 different chocolates from four different countries to make sure it's the original one. It's like two layers of chocolate cake inside. And some little bit of apple... Can you call it apple apricot? Like apple jam layer of that. No, it's apple. It's not apricot, it's apple. Seven euros. A little bit expensive. Very expensive. Very fancy. But very good. After visiting Salzburg for two days, it was time to move on. We rented a car and started to explore Upper Austria with its lakes and villages. Unfortunately, you don't have everything in control during your trip. When we were driving around, it slowly moved into a more snowy looking area, which looks very pretty here on the background. It's still wet, it's still raining, but it looks way prettier. While not everything is open during Christmas and New Year, for a record, it's the 27th of December. Christmas is gone. It's 11.30 at the moment. And this town, like as you can see here, this shop here is closed. There the shops are closed. It's still very empty. Some places still provide enough things to do. This is what we discovered when we drove to Bad Isel. We're now in Bad Isel in Sauner, enjoying some cake, a sandwich, later on a banana milkshake. And the prices are really affordable here as well for such a luxury place as you can see. We stayed overnight in St. Wolfgang, but the moment we woke up, something magical happened. The nice thing is when you wake up and it's not rainy and wet, the view is just magnificent for today. It's very lovely and peaceful. The start of the day was promising, especially because we were going to visit the famous village Halstatt. A new adventure was waiting here for us. We're up. We just came out of the shaft of the salt mine. So let's have a look how it was during our tour of the salt mine. Let me welcome you here in Halstatt at the oldest salt mine in the world. My name is Lisa. How do I look like? I'm fashionable. Now we are all time travelers and we go back in time for 250 million years. All the minerals get saved by the dry mining, but it's really hard hard work every day. While the views are amazing and then you have this amazing view in winter, not only on the mountains, but also in the village itself, there is a problem going on with Halstatt. As you can see here, there's a lot of tourists and we're on another spot just on the other side of the town where loads of tourists are taking pictures as well. Unfortunately, this overtourism really became a problem after a rumor that Halstatt has inspired Disney's Frozen. It even gets so problematic that the mayor is asking for tourists to stay away. Halstatt has over 1 million visitors per year in a village that only has one small shopping street. It's a pretty place, but there are some more villages next to the sea where you have a little bit of more like place for yourself. The next day it was time to drive to Vienna and return the car. Another three days left before our holiday was over. The capital of Austria has loads to offer. We started our exploration with visiting Schloss Schönbrunn, the summer palace of the Habsburg rulers. Schloss Schönbrunn, known for the place where Carl Joseph and Princess Elizabeth were living in the old time, also known as Princess Sissi. It costs you 34 euros for a Sissi ticket which gives you entrance to the big tour inside the house where you're not allowed to film. And if I need to give you one thing that I learned during the tour is that they were even so rich that they could afford a clock that had a mirrored version in the back so that when you look in the mirror, you still have the right time. Like then you definitely have too much money. While Schloss Schönbrunn is located a bit outside the city centre, the main palace is located in Vienna's city centre. Behind me is the Hofburg Palace which you can visit where Franz Joseph was working. This was basically his residence when it was not summertime. It looks very nice in the evening with the Christmas market in front. But be prepared, while it's included in the Sissi ticket, you'll get the silvery section, you will get the story about Sissi and you will get the apartments about the emperor. They're not regulating any flow of traffic there and the amount of people. It's so crowded. We spent there three hours inside, most of the time waiting to move to the next room because it was just too crowded to move. It gives a good story and it's included. But be prepared for the crowd. The Sissi ticket contains besides entry to Schloss Schönbrunn and Hofburg Palace also an entry to the Mobilitätsmuseum. So that is what we visited as well during our three-day visit. So when you buy a Sissi ticket you can also visit the Mobilitätsmuseum which gives you an overview about the furniture from the imperial time where they used in the palaces. And here on this floor from the Buchenmeier time you have all those different chairs what I'm going to test out now and see if those chairs are any comfortable. Yeah, as you can see I love to test out the furniture here. Apparently this time period didn't give me a lot of comfortable seats. Overall 80% is really bad. Enough about history in the city. We wanted to visit some other places as well. So besides churches, from pink churches to cathedrals we also had to eat the famous Wiener Schnitzel. And of course you have to eat it at Spiekermüller which existed since 1905 for the original Schnitzel. And the size is 34 centimeters wide. So it's very, very big. After having a full stomach it was time to enrich ourselves with classical music. But a warning, don't just buy a ticket on the street. I don't know what's going on in Austria but we're walking here through the city center and everywhere you see those people dressed up in the old style trying to sell you tickets for a concert. Way too expensive. Starting at cheapest price, I think 35 euros up till like 65 euros depending on which rank you're sitting. But if you need that many people and on this square I can count one, two, three there four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten at least 10 people here already. Plus at the opera house there are like 20 standing. If you need that many people to sell tickets there's something dutchy about the concert, I guess. Instead, just order online a ticket at Musikverein and enjoy your evening there. The trip is coming to an end. After exploring Vienna for the first two days it's now time to finish it with a bang and yes, a literal bang because it is New Year's Eve. There's the Wiener Silvesterpfad which means Silvester is New Year's Eve and there are stages everywhere and even at the opera house they're performing the opera of that evening live on the screen and everyone can watch in front of the screen which seems very nice. Apparently, it is not only about music and dancing some other things are happening on the Silvesterpfad as well. The Rathausplatz or City Hall Square this street, there are people here queuing behind me and there's like one, two, three, four, five, six, seven of those stands at least playing tarot or like cards or like fortune telling or like all different ways of fortune telling or just hop in a line, sit down and they will tell you your fortune for 2020 and I think it's all as a PSU1 basis if you give them some tip. I don't believe in any of those things but my fortune for 2020 is clear I will have a bright future. After enjoying this fortune telling phenomenon it was time to settle down in front of the stage and then it was time. Happy new year, welcome in a new decade we are ready for the 2020s. While the 2020s might not be that great at the moment I'm pretty sure that in the future we will have some more great trips to do. Thank you for watching.