From Istanbul we took a short flight to Vienna where we spent three nights in the heart of the city. Our first impression was great as we experienced the ease of a working public transport system with the underground trains taking you just about anywhere. We wondered the city many times and stumbled across our first Christmas markets, the one we were recommended had an ice skating track that circled the markets, neither of us were keen for a broken leg so stuck to drinking some gluhwein (mulled wine) and watching the locals tackle the track.

We visited the summer palace which was stunning and well worth a look through. There were Christmas markets outside the palace and the sun had set (at 16:00), by the time we exited so all the Christmas lightswere on and people were everywhere, a really fun atmosphere.

On our final day in Vienna we made our way to the wine region on the outskirts of the city, taking the bus to the hills that overlook Vienna, although it was too foggy to see the city the view over the vineyards was great. We walked down the hill and made our way to the cellar doors to try some of the local wine. This was unfortunately not meant to be as they were all shut the day we went so instead we found a cosy restaurant and tried some wine there.

From Bratislava we came back through Austria and had a stopover in Graz a small town but a really pretty city centre covered in Christmas lights, we arrived at night and left early the next day making our way to Ljubljana, Slovenia.

We made our way from Ljubljana to Salzburg the home of Mozart and the Sound of Music. We opted out of a sound of music tour and instead found ourselves enjoying the hills of Salzburg with some other backpackers. That night we went out to the open air skate ring in town and bravely put some skates on, some of us were more naturally talented than others!

From the city we made our way down to Innsbruck in the heart of the Austrian Alps, the town is a massive tourist hub for Italians and they were everywhere. We had a really nice air bnb and spent some time wondering the streets and hills before retiring to the warmth of our apartment. Austria was great and we were off on our next adventure, Switzerland.