In between the June and July classes, the CLA has a week off.  This gave us Penn Staters a week off to go explore other places in Europe.  While some chose to travel around to other places in France, others went to countries like Portugal, Spain or the Netherlands.  Along with one other girl from Penn State, I decided to go to Munich, Germany and Salzburg, Austria.

We left for Paris on June 21, the day of the Fete de la Musique, a huge music festival that takes place all around France.  There we went to Gare de Lyon to take an overnight train to Munich.  In Munich we stayed in a hostel for two nights- my first time staying in a hostel.  Although it was rainy the whole time in Munich, we made the most of our time there.  We peeked inside the many churches and lost ourselves in the Rathaus (the German word for town hall).  Then the afternoon of the first day, we went to Dachau, a Nazi concentration camp, which was very emotional.

On the second day we took a train to Fussen and a bus to Hohenschwangau to see the Neuschwanstein Castle.  Although the route was complicated and we actually got sent in the wrong direction when our train split, we got there and it was incredibly beautiful. 

For the second half of our week we went to Salzburg, Austria.  However, we still could not avoid the rain until our very last day in Austria on Thursday when the sun finally made an appearance.  Despite the unfavorable weather, we got Salzburg Cards that gave us free access to many popular tourist attractions.  We got to see museums like the Salzburg Museum, churches like the Salzburg Cathedral (Dom) and castles like Hohensalzburg.  We ended up spending four days in Salzburg, most of it looking for the locations used in the Sound of Music movie.  I did not know much about Salzburg before I went but I left loving the city.

On Saturday I took a train back to Besancon via Zurich and rested for a little bit before going on a hike with my host mom on Sunday.  Classes began again on Tuesday where I got a whole new class with all new classmates!  I am a little upset that I have to go to class at 8:30 now with my new class but that means I will have an extra hour each day to explore Besancon!

Location: Salzburg, Austria