Almost time for Austria. Can't forget Hluboka though. This was my absolute favorite castle of the trip. The most gorgeous building I've seen. Many, many movies have been shot here simply because of the beauty of the castle. A few of my favorite shots:

Ok. Now onto Austria. First stop Linz. It was a nice enough town, but it was strange to not understand anything again. I was just starting to figure out Czech and now I was surrounded by German.

We only spent one day in Linz, so not many pictures. From Linz we moved on to Vienna for 3 days. We were lucky enough to get to see the King Tut exhibit while there (and most of it was in English!). The highlight was a trip to Prater, which is basically a big Austrian amusement park. Various recognizable attractions, like the swings and sky coaster. Others, not so much. There was a merry go round that used live horses. Wonder what PETA would say about that. Here are some of the ride highlights:

Now the catch with all these rides is that they are all post lunch. And lunch at Prater is a thing of beauty. Behold, lunch:

Thats a pork knuckle, a Budjovice Budvar, two different types of mustard, fresh horseradish, and a side of cabbage. Yum. But none of us were feeling that great after the swings.

Our last few days in Europe were spent doing typical tourist stuff in Vienna. We hit a few coffee shops, more castles and royal homes, and a few museums. Generally intersting, but I think we were a little burned out and a lot of the information was the same, so it got a little monotonous. A few highlights:

All in all, we had a great time. There were some rough patches for all of us, but we all still like each other, which is helpful considering we live so close together, and I think we would do it again. Perhaps some things would be different, but it was such a great experience, I don't know how you could not want to do it again.

Hope you all enjoyed!