I hope everyone had an AMAZING Christmas week! Tim and I were able to have some much needed and fun family time and just enjoy the holiday together! My big present from him this year was a new MacBook Pro (including a rose gold case, since they don’t make the Pro in rose gold!! He knows me well!!). It’s pretty much a game changer to be able to have a functional laptop to be able to edit personal photos in a more relaxed setting while hanging out by the Christmas tree – which is exactly what I did over the holiday weekend, and finished up part two of editing our European Alps roadtrip from October! Today I’m so excited to share some of our favorites from the incredible Austria and southern Germany! After leaving Venice (see that post here!), we drove through the Italian Dolomites into picturesque Austria. We arrived at Hallstatt, Austria as our first stop and it was everything I had seen on Pinterest – it was SO beautiful! This town seriously looks fake, right?! I can’t even believe people live here! The best potato soup, hot chocolate, lager and sausages! After leaving Hallstatt (reluctantly!), we passed through Salzburg and met up with one of our awesome couples, Bonnie + Paul, as they were doing a similar trip at the same time as us with their friend! So fun wandering the streets of Salzburg at night, seeing all the famous spots from Sound of Music and eating enormous amounts of meat in a traditional Austrian brauhaus! This is the “Maria Fountain” from Sound of Music! After Salzburg, we headed to the incredible little mountain town of Innsbruck! We loved this town and definitely have plans to come back in the winter and snowboard! Sadly the cloud cover was so low that we couldn’t see the enormous mountains surrounding the town, but the clouds cleared up amazingly once we got to Switzerland and those were the biggest mountains we wanted to see! Every restaurant had these plush sheepskin blankets! I love these two photos that a nice stranger took for us in the town square!Once leaving Innsbruck, we started passing castles just on the side of the road, literally, and crossed the border into the very south part of Germany and the cute little town of Mittenwald! First, we went on a long hike through the woods to the absolutely incredible glacier gorge of Leutaschklamm. It started snowing and raining during the hike and it was SO COLD here! The funniest part was that the town was absolutely covered in blooming flowers in spite of the snow and cold temperatures. I’m not sure how their flowers survive so long, but I want the secret! Me, wearing every single layer I brought, haha! At least 5 shirts and sweaters on underneath my rain jacket! The town of Mittenwald! This was one of the best  meals I can remember! Bavarian pretzel cheese soup and tasty lagers! After a night in Mittenwald area, we headed to see Neuschwanstein Castle! This is the castle that the Disney World castle / Sleeping Beauty castle was modeled after, and was built by crazy King Ludwig. We stayed in the ski town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen for our final night in Germany and it was another one we definitely want to come back to in the winter! The clouds finally started clearing up as we left Germany and crossed into Switzerland, and then we REALLY started seeing the Alps! Up next post, Switzerland and the incredible mountains!