Jun 2024 – Jun 2024

Meet the Fredriksson brothers. Nicholas’s great-great-grandfather Johannes on the left. His older brother Andreas on the right.

Yes, those are their prison intake documents. From Långholmen Central Prison in Stockholm, Sweden. Both brothers. Both convicted of fourth-time theft. Both served years.

Långholmen was Sweden’s largest prison. Over 500 cells. Built starting in 1874, it operated for a century before closing in 1975 and being converted into, of all things, a boutique hotel. You sleep in the cells. Real cells.

So naturally, we booked a room.

The Brothers Fredriksson

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Here’s the short version, because the long version sounds like a season of television that nobody would believe.

The brothers’ father was reportedly the family mastermind who sent his sons to steal so he wouldn’t take the blame. Both brothers got caught. Multiple times. Andreas served eight years at Långholmen. Johannes got ten. Their sentences overlapped by eleven months, so they were doing time together. In the same building.

After prison, Johannes got his marriage paperwork signed by the Långholmen prison chaplain, married a woman named Johanna Sofia on April 10, 1882, and left for America the next day. April 11. Prison chaplain to wedding to transatlantic voyage. The man did not waste time.

They spent five years in America. Two children were born there. Neither survived. They came back to Sweden. Their son Oskar, Nicholas’s great-grandfather, was born in 1888.

Then Johannes left the family and married his brother Andreas’s ex-wife.

Meanwhile, Andreas got mixed up in a brawl where someone died. He grabbed his new wife, who was also his much younger cousin, and vanished from Sweden entirely. Changed his name. Boarded a ship. Nobody has found him since. A Swedish cousin named Ann-Marie has been doing serious genealogy work for years trying to track him down. Nothing.

Johannes went back to America again in the early 1900s. The family thinks he was visiting Andreas, wherever he ended up. The brothers who stole together and served time together apparently couldn’t stay apart.

And Oskar? His mother died when he was ten. Her will said he was not to live with his father. He was placed with a farmer who treated him like cheap labor. As a teenager he was kicked by a horse, the wound went gangrene, and his lower leg was amputated. So he became a barber, because it was work he could do in one spot. In 1923 he sailed through Ellis Island, started cutting hair in Chicago, and changed the family name from Johansson to Johnson. Never talked about any of it.

His son Charley was Nicholas’s grandfather.

Nicholas’s mom changed the family name back to Johansson in 2003, before she even knew the full history. Ann-Marie found her on a genealogy website in 2020 and cracked a century of family secrets wide open.

That’s the short version.

Checking In

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The corridors are the real showstopper. The old cell block has been preserved with its full atrium, upper walkways, and rows of cell doors. They added leather chairs, rugs, and plants. It looks like a prison that hired an interior designer, which is exactly what it is.

Andreas entered this building in 1872, two years before it was even finished being built. He may have literally helped construct the prison he was locked in. And in 1879, his brother Johannes showed up. For eleven months, both brothers were here. Same corridors. Same walls. Same food hatches. Doing time as a team, like they did everything else.

Exploring the Grounds

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The next morning we walked the island. Långholmen is surprisingly nice for a place that held over 500 prisoners. Tall trees, gravel paths, the old stone walls covered in greenery.

Bunkmates

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The night before, Nicholas had claimed the top bunk. Which meant I got the shelf above the top bunk. The highest bunk. The bunk that doesn’t officially exist but absolutely should count.

The old upper walkways still have the original railings, the globe lights, the cell doors with their numbers. Room 215 behind us. The whole place feels like it could wake up and start being a prison again at any moment.

Prisoner 7208500

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Then we found the gift shop.

The gift shop at Långholmen sells striped prisoner outfits. Shirts, caps, the works. Printed with “LÅNGHOLMEN” and a prisoner number. Nicholas and Adam looked at each other. I looked at both of them. We all knew what was happening.

They bought the shirts. They got me a cap. And then we spent the next hour being the most committed method actors Långholmen has seen since it closed in 1975.

I did my own investigating. The cells have these small metal hatches in the walls. Food slots. Observation windows. The kind of thing that exists because someone decided prisoners didn’t deserve doors that open all the way.

Johannes served years behind bars like these. He ate through a hatch like that one. He slept in a cell like the ones we were posing in. Then he got his marriage paperwork from the prison chaplain, walked out, got married, and was on a boat to America before the ink dried.

Breaking Out

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We checked out of prison the next morning. Voluntarily, which is the main difference between us and the Fredriksson brothers.

Stockholm, One Last Time

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Free bears (and humans) loose in Stockholm. We walked through Södermalm, past red houses and church spires, down to the waterfront.

We checked into a proper hotel. One with full-sized windows and no bars on them.

The last evening in Stockholm. The last evening in Sweden. The last evening of the whole Europe trip. Nicholas walked up to Maria Hissen on Södermalm, where the old elevator connects the hilltop to the waterfront below, and the golden hour light turned everything warm.

And then the sunset. A hot air balloon drifting over the skyline. Church spires going dark against the orange. The water catching the last of the light.

We flew home the next day. Back to Las Vegas. Back to the desert heat. Fleeing Sweden for the free country, just like the Fredrikssons before us.

But for two nights, we slept where Johannes and Andreas slept. We walked the corridors they walked. We stood behind the bars they stood behind. 144 years later, the family came back to Långholmen not in handcuffs, but in matching striped shirts from the gift shop.

Andreas is still missing, by the way. Changed his name, boarded a ship, and vanished. Ann-Marie has been looking for years. If you happen to have a great-great-grandfather who was suspiciously Swedish, suspiciously good with horses, and suspiciously vague about his past, we’d like to talk.

We have questions. And a striped shirt in his size.

The family was celebrating Midsommar. A whole day of activities planned. Apparently my bud didn’t think to pack me. So I got left behind while everyone else went off to see thousand-year-old dragon carvings and dance around a maypole.

I’m not bitter. I’m just documenting.

The Sigurd Carving

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First stop: a forest path leading to what Nicholas described as “Viking runes or something?” when he was trying to convince me it wasn’t a big deal he left me behind.

“Viking runes or something” turned out to be the Sigurdsristningen, one of Sweden’s most important Viking-age rock carvings. Carved around 1030 CE into a rock face at Ramsundsberget, near Sundbyholm. It tells the story of Sigurd the Dragon Slayer, the hero who killed the dragon Fafner, roasted its heart, and understood the language of birds afterward.

So not just “some runes.” A thousand-year-old comic strip about a guy who murdered a dragon and ate its heart. Which, honestly, is the most metal thing I’ve ever heard.

The red paint isn’t original. It’s a preservation technique to make the carvings visible. But the carvings themselves are nearly a millennium old. Sigurd, the dragon, the birds, the whole saga, all etched into this rock face in the middle of a quiet Swedish forest. The kind of thing you walk right past if nobody tells you it’s there.

On the walk back, Pokin found wild strawberries growing along the trail. As you do in Sweden.

These are smultron, Swedish wild strawberries. Tiny, bright red, and apparently the most Midsommar thing you can eat. Three berries in a palm. Sweden does portion control differently.

The Runestone

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A short drive south, they stopped at a runestone standing alone in an open field near Larsbo.

Södermanland, the region around Eskilstuna, has the densest concentration of runestones in Sweden. They’re everywhere, just standing in fields and forests like furniture someone forgot to move. This one has the classic serpent-band design with runic inscriptions, probably a memorial stone from the 11th century.

Midsommar at Sundbyholm Castle

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Then the main event. Cousin Karin brought everyone to Sundbyholms Slott, a castle from 1648 on the shores of Lake Mälaren, where the town puts on a proper Midsommar celebration.

The midsommarstång went up at 4 PM in the castle park. Families spread out on the lawn. Kids ran around. Flower crowns everywhere. The whole thing looked like a scene from a movie where someone says “let’s spend the summer in Sweden” and then everything is perfect.

I would have looked great in a flower crown, by the way.

The Family Picnic

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After the maypole, everyone went back to the family’s house for a home-cooked picnic on the deck. Classic falun-red Swedish house with white trim, climbing vines, flower beds, apple tree with a Swedish flag in the garden. The whole thing.

Cousin Karin organized the whole day, from the dragon carvings to the maypole to this.

I know all of this because I looked at the photos. Because I was at the hotel. Because Nicholas couldn’t be bothered to toss me in his backpack for what turned out to be the most Swedish day of the entire trip.

Next time, I’m going. Whether Nicholas remembers me or not.

This was the whole reason for the Sweden trip.

Nicholas’s mom’s dad, Papa, was born in Örebro. This was home base. Laxå, a small town nearby, was where Papa’s mom Stina grew up and where her family put down roots. The church. The cemetery. The barbershop Oskar ran after they married. Everything that connected Nicholas’s family to this country was within an hour’s drive of here.

But first, we had to arrive. And Örebro made a strong first impression.

Arrival: The Castle

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We pulled into town on an evening that looked like someone had turned the saturation up on purpose.

Örebro Castle is a medieval fortress that sits on an island in the river, surrounded by a moat, with round stone towers and dark domed roofs. It looks like the kind of thing a child would draw if you asked them to draw a castle, except it’s real and it’s in the middle of a regular Swedish city.

We walked around the park nearby, where Adam discovered a bench that was several sizes too large for a human being.

Back at the hotel, I found Nicholas’s headphones on the bed and did what anyone would do. I put them on.

Day Trip to Laxå

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The next morning, we drove to Laxå. This was the family pilgrimage part of the trip. Nicholas’s mom had been wanting to do this for years, tracing back to where her grandmother Stina grew up, where the family went to church, where they lived and worked.

Ramundaboda Church

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The church was beautiful. Dark wooden exterior, shingled walls, a tall copper-green spire rising above the birch trees. It looked like it had been standing there since before anyone thought to argue about architecture.

This is Ramundaboda church, where Stina was baptized and where she and Oskar were married on a Christmas Day.

Inside, the church was far more ornate than the dark exterior suggested. Painted ceilings with angels, a gilded organ, carved crests, chandeliers. The kind of place where the art alone tells you people cared about this building for centuries.

The Cemetery

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From the church, we walked into the cemetery to find the family.

We found them. Leonard and Augusta Qvist. Stina’s parents. Their gravestone was right there, in a small Swedish cemetery, in a town most people have never heard of. This is why they’re buried here. This was their home.

Oskar’s Barbershop

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Then we went looking for the barbershop. Oskar had run a barbershop in Laxå. No sign remains, no plaque, nothing to mark it. Just a pale pink building with a recessed doorway and worn stone steps.

We stood there for a minute. Then we wandered the town.

Back in Örebro

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We drove back to Örebro in the afternoon. The sky was doing something dramatic.

Nicholas and Adam also found time to be ridiculous in the hotel gym, because apparently you can’t go twenty-four hours without flexing at something.

Day 2: The Castle

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The next morning, we explored the town properly. St. Nicolai Church was under restoration but still looked good in the sun.

Then we went back to the castle. From across the river in the morning light, it looked even better than the evening before.

The Dragon Exhibit

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Inside the castle, someone had put together a dragon exhibit. Scientific illustrations of fictional dragon species with Latin names and anatomical notes. My kind of content.

I feel a certain kinship with dragons. We both have wings. We both breathe fire (metaphorically, in my case, though I’m working on it). We both deserve castles.

The Creepy Art

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Then there was a contemporary art installation that was… unsettling.

The Throne

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Then, in a dark stone room, I found what I came for.

Red velvet. Stone walls. Exactly the right size for a bear of my stature and importance. I sat down and did not want to leave. Nicholas had to physically remove me, which I consider an act of treason.

The Dungeon

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The best part of the castle was technically for children. I don’t care.

The lower level was a vaulted stone dungeon converted into a play area with medieval toys. Wooden horses, shields, crossbows, targets. The kind of thing designed for kids under ten.

Nicholas and Adam were in there for probably a good hour.

Fika and Family

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After the castle, we did what Sweden taught us to do. We sat down, ordered pastries, and did nothing for a while.

That evening, we had dinner with long-lost Swedish relatives. Cousin Karin and a bunch of other family members gathered on a rooftop in the summer light.

It was a warm, slightly chaotic, very Swedish evening. People who hadn’t seen each other in years catching up over drinks, telling stories about people they had in common, filling in gaps in the family tree.

I sat on the table and observed. Nobody introduced me. Not once. I was literally right there.

Nothing.

What This Trip Was

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Laxå was quiet and small and not on any tourist map. The church was a church. The cemetery was a cemetery. The barbershop was just a building now.

But Nicholas’s mom stood in the church where Stina’s family worshipped, where Oskar and Stina were married. She knelt at her great-grandparents’ gravestone. And back in Örebro, she saw the church where her dad was baptized.

That’s what this trip was. Not sightseeing. Just connecting.

Also I claimed a throne. So the trip was a net positive for everyone.

Next stop: Eskilstuna and Midsommar. Apparently Sweden celebrates the solstice with flower crowns and dancing around a pole. This should be interesting.

Stockholm was a family thing.

Nicholas’s mom’s dad, Papa, was born in Sweden, and she’d always wanted to bring her kids here to see his country. So the whole crew assembled: Nicholas, Pokin, me, Nicholas’s mom, Anna, and Adam. First time all of them have been in the same country that wasn’t the United States.

The Food Tour

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We started day one with an organized food tour, because Pokin likes to experience cities through what they put in your mouth. Fair enough.

The tour took us to the Östermalm Market Hall, which is one of those grand old European food halls with iron beams, polished wood stalls, and the quiet implication that everything costs three times what you expected.

The first stop was B. Andersson, a game meat stall with taxidermied animals watching you eat their relatives. They had samples of dried reindeer, moose salami, and other Nordic meats displayed with tiny Swedish flags like that makes it festive.

And then.

They had bear.

Let me say that again. They served bear.

Nicholas ate it. He just stood there and ate bear meat while I watched. His own travel companion. His first investor. His ring-BEARer. And he ate bear.

I am told it was “interesting” and “gamey.” I am told it was “just a sample.” I do not care. This is a betrayal on a cellular level.

I reminded myself that it was probably one of those stupid bears that lives near water and eats salmon instead of cocoa. One of those big, dumb, wet bears that I don’t respect. That helped a little.

We moved on.

Swedish Bastards

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Next on the tour was a stop that I can only describe as Sweden’s revenge on tourists.

They gave everyone something called “Swedish Bastards,” which is licorice coated in salmiak powder. If you’ve never had salmiak, imagine someone took regular salty licorice and said, “this isn’t aggressive enough,” and then dusted it with ammonium chloride until it fights back.

The reviews were unanimous: awful. Objectively terrible. Like licking a battery that hates you.

Sweden invented meatballs, cinnamon buns, and ABBA, and then also invented this. Nobody’s perfect.

The Sampler

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The tour continued to another spot where they served a proper Swedish sampler plate. This was much better. Shrimp salad on toast with dill and roe. Smoked salmon. Herring on crispbread. A creamy fish soup. Västerbotten cheese pie.

Then the whole group crammed into a market lunch spot and ordered more food, because apparently the food tour wasn’t enough food.

Fika

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And then we discovered fika.

Fika is Sweden’s word for “coffee break,” except it’s not a break, it’s a religion. You sit down. You order coffee. You eat a cinnamon bun. You do this multiple times per day. It is, without exaggeration, the greatest cultural tradition I have ever encountered.

We stopped at a café in the old town that had the extremely on-the-nose name of “FIKA and Wine.”

The cinnamon bun was perfect. Golden, sticky, dusted with pearl sugar, served on a proper ceramic plate. Not a paper cup situation. Not a grab-and-go. A sit-down, shut-up, enjoy-this-properly situation.

Fika quickly became everyone’s favorite Swedish tradition. We did it every day for the rest of the trip. I regret nothing.

Also, fika does not involve bear meat. This is noted and appreciated.

Gamla Stan

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After fika, we walked into Gamla Stan, Stockholm’s old town, where the buildings look like someone painted a fairy tale and forgot to stop.

The facades are stacked in reds, oranges, and yellows with stepped gables and narrow windows, and the whole thing feels like it was designed specifically to sell postcards. Which it was. But it works.

Cemetery Stop

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Nicholas’s mom loves cemeteries. This is a thing. Every trip, she finds one. Stockholm delivered.

It was a quiet green space with old gravestones, wildflowers, and a red-brick building with castle turrets behind it. Peaceful and a little bit storybook. I’ll allow it.

Evening: More Meatballs

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We ended the day with another round of Swedish meatballs, because apparently you can’t go twelve hours in Sweden without a meatball.

These were better than the food-tour ones. Proper restaurant plate. Creamy gravy. The lingonberries did their thing.

I checked the menu. No bear. We’re safe.

Day 2: The Waterfront

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The next day was a waterfront day. Less organized, more wandering. Stockholm is built on islands, so you’re never far from water, and the harbor areas have that Scandinavian thing where everything is clean and elegant and makes you feel like your own city is deeply underperforming.

We walked along the quays past boat tour departure points and marina docks. Someone had put up a sign reading “The Best of Stockholm” which is bold advertising but, looking around, not entirely wrong.

The Ferry

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We took a ferry across the harbor, which turned out to be the best way to see the city. Just hop on, sit down, and watch Stockholm slide past the windows.

The ferry dropped us back near Gamla Stan, and that was Stockholm wrapped up. Two days of food tours, waterfront wandering, family time, and an unreasonable number of cinnamon buns.

Stockholm was good. Clean, calm, beautiful in that effortless Nordic way, and fun to explore with the whole crew. The food tour was a highlight, the fika tradition is something I intend to bring home permanently, and the waterfront is one of the best city walks we’ve done anywhere in Europe.

But I need to be clear about something.

I have traveled to over thirty countries with this man. I have been in his backpack through airports, mountains, deserts, icebergs, and oceans.

And he ate bear.

In front of me.

At a food tour.

In Sweden.

I’m not saying I’ll forget. I’m saying I’ll remember strategically.

Next stop: Örebro, deeper into Sweden. Where the food is hopefully less personal.

Salzburg promised us better pretzels in Munich. So we took the train over and arrived that evening.

Munich wasted absolutely no time being Munich.

Arrival Night: Beer Hall Energy

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For dinner, we ended up in one of those classic Bavarian restaurant situations with dark wood everywhere, huge plates of meat, giant beer glasses, and approximately seventeen times more people than felt necessary.

Nicholas had the beer. There was roast pork, sausage, sauerkraut, gravy, a dumpling, and enough calories to power a small farming village. It was good. Very German. Very committed to the assignment.

At this point, we thought Munich was just being lively.

This was adorable in hindsight.

The Crowd Situation

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The next morning we wandered into the old city and immediately started asking the obvious question: why is it so crowded?

Not normal crowded. Not “popular European city in June” crowded. Weird crowded. Rowdy crowded. Everybody looked like they were heading toward either a party or a fight.

Then we figured it out.

World Cup.

Of course.

Nicholas was not thrilled. He does not enjoy tourist chaos under the best of circumstances, and adding thousands of screaming soccer people to the equation did not improve his mood.

We kept going anyway.

The Churchy Thing With the Demon Stabbing

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One of the first stops was St. Michael’s Church, which has a giant dramatic bronze angel over the entrance stabbing a demon.

Now this is how you decorate a church.

Above the entrance, the whole façade rises up in layers of arches, statues, and gold lettering, just to make sure nobody misses the point.

Inside, it was all soaring arches, side chapels, and that enormous pale nave that makes everyone look tiny and quiet whether they planned to be or not.

Munich, I will give you this: your churches know how to make an entrance.

Marienplatz, But Make It Overcrowded

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From there we drifted toward the center of town, where Munich starts doing the full postcard routine.

First the twin green domes of the Frauenkirche started looming over the rooftops.

Then we reached Marienplatz, which was packed.

The Neues Rathaus was out there being absurdly ornate, all Gothic spires and carved stone and flags, like it had personally decided to win the architecture competition.

The Mariensäule was surrounded by a crowd of people all staring upward, filming, waiting, cheering, or doing whatever it is soccer crowds do between chanting episodes.

It was one of those situations where the city itself was genuinely beautiful, but the atmosphere around it had the energy of a very loud group project.

The Good Part

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Thankfully, we eventually wandered far enough to escape some of the crowd surge.

We ended up near Odeonsplatz, with the yellow Theatine Church glowing in the sun and the Feldherrnhalle off to the side.

Much better.

From there, we drifted into the Hofgarten and the Residenz area, which was the first part of Munich that actually felt calm.

Nicholas walked through the park with me tucked into his backpack, which is still one of the better methods of transport available to me.

Then the whole place turned almost suspiciously elegant.

Formal gardens. Gravel paths. Flowerbeds lined up like they had been measured with lasers. A domed pavilion in the distance. The sort of place where everyone looks like they should either be painting watercolors or plotting something dynastic.

Calm, sunny, stately, and not yelling at us.

The Exit Through the Airport

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That evening, we headed to the airport to fly to Stockholm.

There was, naturally, another work call.

This photo does not capture what came next.

What came next was the worst airport experience we’ve ever had.

World Cup traffic had apparently broken the place. We ended up in a tiny terminal that was absolutely jammed with people. No lounge. No place to sit. Trash overflowing out of the cans and onto the floor. Hot, crowded, loud, understaffed, and full of sweaty drunk soccer energy.

It was vile.

By the time we finally got out, Nicholas had declared that he never wanted to come back to Munich again.

I assume this position will soften eventually, because the churches were dramatic, the gardens were civilized, and the food took its responsibilities seriously.

But as exits go, it was not a strong one.

Final Verdict

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Munich had some excellent architecture, one aggressively competent church façade, a very respectable park, and a serious beer-and-meat program.

It also had World Cup chaos, crowd density beyond reason, and an airport experience that felt like a punishment.

So my official review is this: Munich was good in parts and deeply annoying in others.

Which, honestly, is more memorable than just being nice.

Also, for the record, this was not my first Munich layover. I already dealt with that back in 2012. Even then, I was not given my own seat on the plane. Some things improve. Some do not.

Next stop: Stockholm. Hopefully with fewer soccer mobs.

Last day in Salzburg. Three days of mountains, and we still hadn’t properly done the castle. The Hohensalzburg Fortress — the massive thing that sits on top of the hill and stares down at the entire old town like it’s judging everyone’s life choices.

Time to storm it.

The View from the Top

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We got up early, which meant we basically had the place to ourselves. The morning light was perfect and the fortress delivered immediately.

The first room we found had a cannon aimed out the window. I approved of this immediately.

Inside the Fortress

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The courtyard was empty. Just us, some pigeons, and 900 years of history.

Murder Holes

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The ramparts had a view south toward the Untersberg — the same mountain that tried to kill us two days ago.

But the real discovery was inside. We found a murder hole. An actual, look-straight-down-at-where-the-attackers-would-be murder hole, with an iron grate over it.

Naturally, we had to look down it.

I have been obsessed with murder holes ever since I learned they existed. The concept is perfect. You build a little overhang, you leave gaps in the floor, and when someone tries to break down your door, you pour terrible things on them from above. It’s architecture with attitude. It’s defense with drama. Every castle should have them. And this one let us look straight down through it.

The Deep Fortress

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The corridors got narrower. The walls got thicker. The doors got heavier.

Then we found the horn room.

I don’t know how else to describe it. A corridor full of brass horns and trumpets mounted to the walls, connected by a tangle of piping that ran up the walls and across the ceiling. This is apparently related to the Salzburger Stier — a massive mechanical organ from 1502 that still “roars” daily. Salzburg, you are deeply weird and I respect that.

The Golden Hall

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Then the fortress stopped being a fortress and started being a palace.

The Golden Hall had a blue coffered ceiling studded with hundreds of gold bosses meant to look like a starry sky. Gothic wood paneling, heraldic crests, long white-linen tables. The Prince-Archbishops who lived here were supposedly men of God. They had very expensive taste in ceilings.

Next door, the Golden Room was even more ornate — a massive Gothic tiled stove sitting on ceramic lions, gold-leaf coffered ceiling, painted walls. All inside a fortress built for war. The contrast was absurd.

And then, behind an ornate paneled door: a medieval toilet. Because even Prince-Archbishops needed to go, and apparently they needed to go in style.

The Pretzel Quest

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On the way out, we passed a food stall selling massive pretzels, bratwurst, and Bosna. The Red Bull fridge reminded us we were in the birthplace of the energy drink empire. We noted the pretzels. We filed this information away.

See, there was a specific pretzel place in town that Nicholas had been wanting to try. The problem: it was only open during certain hours, and every time we’d walked by, it was either closed or “getting ready.”

On our last pass through, it was open. And it had a line. A very, very long line.

Nicholas wanted that pretzel. Pokin looked at him, looked at the line, and said she’d handle it. She walked back and stood in the line while Nicholas waited with the luggage.

The verdict: the pretzel was massive. And it was… okay. Just okay. A for effort. Full marks for dedication. But the pretzel itself was aggressively average.

Sometimes the quest is better than the prize.

Onwards

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Four days in Salzburg. We came for the Sound of Music hills and couldn’t get to them. We hiked the Untersberg and got chased off by lightning. We scrambled up a mountain labeled “experienced only” just because the sign was there. We stormed a 900-year-old fortress and found murder holes, a golden ceiling, a mechanical horn organ, and a medieval toilet.

Salzburg was supposed to be a quick stop. It turned into one of the best stretches of the whole trip.

Next stop: Munich. I’ve been told there will be beer. I’ve been promised there will be pretzels. Better ones, hopefully.

Day 3 in the Salzburg region. We’d already hiked Kapuzinerberg, wandered the fortress walls, and gotten chased off the Untersberg by lightning. Naturally, the plan for today was: more hiking. A different mountain this time, out east of the city near the lakes.

The Approach

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The morning started with a walk through one of those immaculate Austrian villages where even the cows look like they’ve been briefed on presentation standards.

We passed by a lake on the way to the trailhead. I insisted on a photo. The water was calm, the mountains were doing their thing, and I looked fantastic. Standard.

The trail started gently. A wide gravel path through dense green forest, the kind of walk where you think “this is nice” and forget that you’re gaining elevation.

Then the trees opened up and we got our first real view: rolling meadows, a golf course (because Austria), scattered farmhouses, and a sliver of lake in the distance.

The Ruins

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About an hour up, we reached a castle ruin tucked into the forest. Moss-covered walls, old stone steps disappearing into the trees, and a memorial plaque set into the rock. The plaque was dedicated to one Nicolaus Gaertner, among others.

Nicholas photographed it immediately. Obviously.

From the lookout near the ruins, the valley opened up below. Farmland, villages, forests, and what looked like a lake glinting in the distance.

I took my position on the tower lookout and surveyed my lands. Everything the light touches, and so on.

The Split

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Then we reached the sign.

Two routes to the summit. One normal. One labeled SCHWER — difficult, for experienced hikers only. Nicholas looked at the sign, looked at Pokin, and they agreed to split up. He’d take the extreme route. She’d take the normal one. They’d meet at the top.

I was in his bag. I did not get a vote.

The Scramble

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The extreme route was not messing around. The easy forest path was gone. Instead: limestone walls, narrow ledges, exposed rock, and views straight down through the trees to a turquoise lake far below.

Nicholas did his usual mountain goat thing, scrambling up through the rock and reaching the summit area at about 1,378 meters. At the top, we found a weird little installation: handmade figures with hats and sunglasses sitting on the summit furniture. Very Austrian. Very charming. Very unexplained.

Then he ran back down the other side to find Pokin, who was working her way up the normal route. They met somewhere in the middle.

The Reunion at the Top

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Pokin’s route had its own finale. The last section involved fixed steel cables and metal footholds bolted into the limestone. She climbed it smiling, which says more about her than it does about the difficulty rating.

Together at the top, the views were huge. Summit cross, jagged limestone, and layer after layer of mountains fading into the distance.

The Descent

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We hiked back down through the forest, trading summit rock for tree cover and switchbacks.

The Conference Call

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Back in the village where we started, Nicholas’s phone rang. Work. He found a bench by the lake, put his headset on, and took a conference call with mountains behind him and a boathouse across the water. The people on the other end had absolutely no idea.

I sat next to him for the duration and offered no help whatsoever.

Three days in. Three mountains. Nicholas keeps finding things labeled “difficult” and treating them as suggestions. Pokin keeps climbing them anyway. And I keep ending up in the bag for the steep parts, which is honestly where I prefer to be.

One more day in Salzburg. Something about a castle, I’m told.

After yesterday’s failed Sound of Music pilgrimage, Nicholas decided that if the famous hills wouldn’t have him, he’d find his own mountain. Specifically, the Untersberg, which rises about 1,800 meters straight up from the Salzburg valley floor and has a cable car. Because Nicholas loves nature, but he loves efficiency more.

The Untersbergbahn runs from Grödig, a small town just south of Salzburg, all the way up to the Geiereck summit station at 1,776 meters. That’s a 1,320-meter altitude gain in about eight minutes. Nicholas approved of this math immediately.

Up the Mountain

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We stepped off the cable car and into what looked like an entirely different country. The valley was a patchwork of green fields and tiny towns far below. The airport runway looked like a piece of tape someone left on the floor. And the sky was doing something dramatic.

The ridge trail was wide and pale, with gravel paths winding along the plateau and views dropping away on both sides. It felt very exposed. Very alpine. Very “this would be a great place to get struck by lightning.”

We found a scenic lookout with an information board and the whole valley spread out behind us. You could see rain falling somewhere in the distance, which was either very scenic or very concerning depending on how much you trust weather.

There was a summit cross. We had to pose with it. The sky behind it looked like the opening credits of a Viking movie.

The Weather Changes Its Mind

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And then, very quickly, it stopped approving.

The fog came in like someone pulled a curtain across the ridge. One minute we had views for fifty kilometers. The next, we could see about twenty feet. There was still snow on the ground in patches, which in June feels like the mountain is showing off.

The trail got rockier. Rooty. There were sections threading through dwarf pines with Austrian red-and-white trail markers, and then suddenly you’d be next to another lingering snowfield that nobody had warned you about. June. Snow. Sure.

Then the fog cleared for about thirty seconds and the valley appeared again, framed by a torn cloud ceiling. It looked completely fake. Like someone had Photoshopped the Alps into a gap in the clouds just to mess with us.

Time to Leave

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The weather was not improving. The fog was thickening, and Nicholas started hearing what might have been distant thunder. When you’re on an exposed alpine ridge at 1,850 meters and the sky starts making threats, you take the hint.

I was not sad about this. The lightning was admittedly cool (I’m part thunderbird, it’s in my DNA), but exposed ridges and rain are two of my least favorite things, and the mountain was delivering both with enthusiasm. We retreated to the cable car and rode back down to Grödig, where the weather was, naturally, perfect again.

Mountains.

Evening: The Other Side of Town

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Back in Salzburg, the sky was clear and the evening light was doing that golden thing it does. Since we’d explored the west side of the old town yesterday, Nicholas decided to wander the other direction and see what was over there.

What was over there, it turned out, was more fortress.

We ended up on a walking path that wound along the old fortification walls on the hillside above the city. Walls, towers, ramparts, meadows. Every few minutes the trees would part and there’d be another view of Salzburg that looked like it had been placed there by a tourism board.

The path kept going. More walls. More unexpected panoramas. At one point we walked through what looked like a medieval pasture with a tiny house and a turret, which felt less like a European city walk and more like accidentally loading into a different game.

We crossed over to the other side of town and found more viewpoints. Salzburg from the east side is a different city. Instead of the tight old town streets, you get rooftop panoramas and the full fortress-on-a-hill silhouette.

The Grand Finale (Before Dinner)

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We kept walking until we found the viewpoint. The one where the entire old town spreads out below you and Hohensalzburg sits on top of it glowing in the last light of the day. It was the kind of view that makes you stop talking for a minute.

We passed one more church on the way down. Golden light, copper steeple, quiet churchyard with wooden benches. One of those places that only exists in European cities and desktop wallpapers.

Dinner

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Austrian food. Braised beef in dark gravy, crispy fried onions, spätzle, green beans. The kind of plate that says “you climbed things today and now you deserve carbs.”

Day one, we came for the Sound of Music hills and got catacombs and rooftop sunsets instead. Day two, we took a cable car up a mountain and got chased off by fog and lightning, then spent the evening wandering fortress walls we didn’t know existed.

Salzburg keeps doing this thing where you don’t get what you planned for, and what you get instead is better.

We have two more days here. I’m starting to think we should just stop planning and let the city decide.

Let me explain how we ended up in Salzburg.

Nicholas wanted to run across a field yelling “THE HILLS ARE ALIIIIVE.” That was the whole reason. He’d seen The Sound of Music enough times, and Salzburg was on the way from Český Krumlov, so he said, and I quote, “we have to go.”

We got there. He Googled the hills. They were all on private land. You had to take a tour bus with a guide and a scheduled stop and a gift shop, and Nicholas would rather eat his own passport than do that.

So that was the end of the Sound of Music dream. Before it even started.

The thing is, once we stopped being disappointed about the hills, we realized Salzburg is kind of amazing.

Morning: The Hill Behind the Hotel

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We were staying at the Stein Hotel, which sits right on the Salzach River in the Old Town. That first morning, we noticed a path going up the hill behind the hotel. It looked like a casual walk.

It was not a casual walk.

The path turned into a proper hike up the Kapuzinerberg, which is basically a forested mountain rising straight out of the city on the east bank. Steep switchbacks, stone steps, the whole deal. The higher we got, the more ridiculous the views became.

At the top, the path wound through old fortress ruins hidden in the forest. Crumbling stone walls, overgrown archways, little windows looking out over the valley. The kind of place that makes you feel like you’ve accidentally found something you weren’t supposed to.

Midday: Town Wandering

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Back down in the city, we wandered through the streets on the way to Mirabell Gardens.

We found two things Nicholas wanted to photograph for his sisters. First: a café called “From Julia: Origin of Life” with the most plant-based, crystal-energy, hippy menu you’ve ever seen. Very much Julia’s vibe.

Mirabell Gardens

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Mirabell Gardens is the famous garden that shows up in The Sound of Music during the “Do-Re-Mi” sequence. So even though Nicholas couldn’t run across the actual hills, he got his Sound of Music moment here. Sort of.

Afternoon: Old Town, St. Peter’s, and the Catacombs

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We crossed back to the Old Town side and worked our way through the narrow streets toward St. Peter’s Abbey and its cemetery.

St. Peter’s Cemetery is tucked against the base of the Festungsberg cliff, and it’s one of the oldest and most beautiful cemeteries in Europe. Wrought-iron crosses, carved stone tombs, flowers everywhere. The graves date back to the 1200s.

The graves here go back to the 1200s and they’re still immaculate. Salzburg takes care of its dead.

We also found a tombstone that said “Anna Scherpf.” Close enough that Nicholas photographed it immediately and sent it to his sister Anna.

But the real find was the catacombs. Carved directly into the cliff face above the cemetery, these are rock-cut chambers that may date back to early Christian times. You climb up through narrow stone stairways cut into the mountain, through tiny tunnels, past old tomb chambers, and then you pop out at these small windows with views over the entire abbey and Old Town below.

After emerging from the catacombs, we hit the Salzburg Cathedral and wandered through the main squares.

And then, in a courtyard café, I found my soulmate.

Evening: Rooftop Dinner

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We ended the day on the rooftop terrace of the Stein Hotel, watching the sun set over the fortress and the river. Burgers. Drinks. The whole skyline turning gold and then pink.

Nicholas came to Salzburg for one thing and didn’t get it. Instead he got a forest hike through ruins, Mozart’s memorial, a Sound of Music garden (close enough), catacombs carved into a cliff, a topiary bear, and a rooftop sunset that went on for an hour.

Sometimes the backup plan is the whole plan.

On the way from Prague to Salzburg, everyone told us we had to stop at Český Krumlov. “It’s a fairy tale town.” “You’ll love it.” “There’s a castle.”

Sure. Fine. We hired a driver to take us through on the way.

Then we got there.

Český Krumlov is a medieval town built inside a bend of the Vltava River, with a massive castle complex perched on the cliffs above it. The whole thing looks like someone asked an artist to draw a fairy tale and they just drew this place from memory.

The town is tiny. You can walk the whole thing in maybe an hour. But every corner has another view that makes you stop and stare at the river wrapping around these centuries-old buildings like it’s protecting them.

The Castle

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Český Krumlov Castle is the second largest castle complex in the Czech Republic, right after Prague Castle. It dates back to the 1240s and has been through the hands of the Rosenbergs, the Habsburgs, and the Schwarzenbergs. The whole compound has 40 buildings, five courtyards, and a baroque theater that still has its original stage machinery from the 1600s.

Also, it has a bear moat. But I’ll get to that.

The castle gardens are immaculate. Formal hedges, stone staircases, statues. The kind of place where you feel underdressed no matter what you’re wearing.

The Tower

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There was a tower. We climbed it. The stairs were narrow, steep, and made of wood that has been absorbing tourist footsteps for hundreds of years. Every step creaked like it was filing a complaint.

At the top: bells. Big ones. And views over the entire town that made the creaky death stairs worth it.

Czech Lunch

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We stopped for a proper Czech lunch. Dumplings, ham, roast meat, sauerkraut, potatoes. Heavy in every direction. Exactly right.

THE BEAR MOAT

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OK. The real reason this post exists.

Český Krumlov Castle has a moat. In that moat, there are bears. Real, actual, living bears.

They’ve been keeping bears in this moat since the 1500s. The Rosenberg family, who owned the castle, claimed descent from the Italian Orsini family (whose name comes from “orso,” the Italian word for bear), so they kept bears as a living symbol of their lineage. The tradition has continued on and off for over 400 years. The current bears are brown bears, and they live in a landscaped enclosure in the castle’s first courtyard.

I need to be very clear about something: this is the greatest castle feature in human history. Every castle should have a bear moat. I don’t understand why this isn’t standard.

I stood at the edge and looked down at those bears and felt a deep kinship. They live in a castle. They’re bears. They don’t have to pay rent. This is the dream.

Český Krumlov was supposed to be a quick stop between Prague and Salzburg. Instead it turned out to be a medieval fairy tale town with food that could knock you unconscious, a bell tower with views for days, and the single greatest castle moat arrangement I have ever encountered.

If I ever get a castle, and I will, it’s getting a bear moat. Non-negotiable.

Onwards to Salzburg!