The Last Hurrah

We said farewell to our tiny Bologna apartment and the city we’ve called home for the last 4 months and decided to end our time abroad by visiting 2 neighboring countries: Austria and Switzerland. In Europe, it’s so easy to hop from country to country. However, we really wanted to dig into exploring all Italy had to offer for the majority of the time we were there and we’re so glad we did. But we were also happy to squeeze in these last international adventures before heading home!

We stayed in a small city called Innsbruck, Austria over Christmas. It ended up being the most magical place possible to spend the holiday. The city itself is nestled between the snowy Alps with adorable brightly colored buildings lining the river. They had the cutest Christmas markets going so we hit those up right away. The first night there, big fluffy snowflakes fell all night and it felt like we were in a Hallmark movie. We really enjoyed exploring this town for a few days. We ate some amazing Austrian cuisine, visited the “Alpenzoo” which is a zoo literally in the Alps with all kinds of local creatures, and spent Christmas day riding a cable car to the top of Innsbruck and basking in the sun at a ski resort drinking beer! It was certainly a Christmas to remember. Everyone we met was super friendly, including the owner of an Italian restaurant we happened upon when our Christmas Eve dinner plans fell through. He was so happy to learn that we spoke a bit of Italian and gave us hugs and kisses when we left which felt like the perfect little farewell to our time in Italy as well. On our last day in Austria, we headed to Salzburg where we stumbled upon the biggest Christmas market we’ve ever seen! We got to see some places where Sound of Music was filmed, visit Mozart’s birthplace, and see a lovely Christmas concert in the cathedral where the original Silent Night was composed. Pure Christmas magic.

We then got back on the train and headed to Switzerland. The first thing we did was ride the Glacier Express which is an 8-hour scenic train ride that takes you through the winding mountains and rivers. It was absolutely breathtaking and somehow didn’t feel as long as it was. We started in an Eastern city called Chur and made our way to Zermatt where the “Matterhorn” mountain is – one of the biggest Swiss mountains. We then got on another few trains (I think in total we rode 13 trains in 6 days!) and made our way to Interlaken. Apparently, there are 2 gorgeous lakes in this city. However, it was so foggy we never saw them! Apparently in the winter a thick blanket of fog sits on the city so if you want to see anything you have to go up. So yet again, we ascended the Alps in a cable car up to a mountain called Niederhorn. It was so beautiful once we rose out of the fog and could see it almost like a blanket of snow covering the town below. We watched lots of people ski and Matt even got to trying “sledging” which is…sledding! He may have wiped out once or twice but he had a blast.

Unfortunately, your girl caught THE FLU while we were in Switzerland, so we rearranged things and ended our trip a day early. We spend New Year’s Eve travelling for about 20 hours to get back to Pittsburgh. It felt tragically poetic that we started this whole adventure with Covid and ended it with the flu, but we made it and have been crashing with my parents ever since. As I try to recover in time for us to move into our new apartment, start new classes, jobs, etc, I wanted to make sure we reflected on this last little adventure of ours. It didn’t end how we planned, but we loved getting to see a bit more of Europe. It will take us a while to process this whole experience abroad, but we are so grateful to have had the experience and we’re super excited to be back home with our friends and family. Thanks for following along!