Day 5 Salzburg, Austria 10/18/11

We had originally planned to spend a couple of hours in Salzburg on our way to Hallstatt.  Instead, we decided to spend one less day touring Munich and take a daytrip to Salzburg.  This ended up being a great idea since there is no way we could have done it all in two hours.  We had breakfast at the hotel and then again used a Bavarian ticket and arrived in about 2 hours. (Yes, Salzburg is in Austria, but the Bavarian ticket covers travel there too.) 

In Salzburg we walked from the train station towards old town which took about 20 minutes.  Connie was going to mail her post cards until Sheila pointed out that they had German stamps and probably needed to be mailed from a German post box – not Austrian.  Duhhh.  On this walk, we actually passed a Sound of Music site but didn’t stop.  The Mirabell Gardens are where part of the do-re-mi song was filmed.  They looked quite lovely, and would have been worth a visit if we had more time or energy.

The old town is across the river.  Above the town is the Hohensalzburg Castle.  On the pedestrian bridge over the river into old town, there were padlocks and combination locks, hung on the bridge fence with the names of individuals and couples painted on them.  This was almost heart-warming enough to make up for the unattractive chain link fence lining the bridge. 

Once again, the old town was full of little shops and restaurants.  We shopped a bit as we walked toward the castle.  We took a funicular up to the castle. The entrance to the funicular wasn’t particularly obvious because you enter a building and buy your ticket and then board the funicular from inside.   It was nice getting to look out over Salzburg as you rode.

The castle is built right out of the stone in the mountain and was very impressive.  There were Roman portions of the castle still to be seen in parts.  The best part of the castle was the view overlooking Salzburg on one side and an incredible view of the Alps on the other side.  We enjoyed one particular lookout point where there were lots of ladybugs on the castle wall.  They flew around the tourists and landed on our hands, our clothes, and even on the back of Connie’s ears.  We toured the inside of the castle fairly quickly, mostly enjoying the view out of the windows.    We had a drink (Coke, of course) at the little café, visited the gift shop, and then headed back down the mountain via funicular.  On the exit from the funicular, you are led through a store that sells amber jewelry and candle holders, etc.  There was also a display about the aquaduct system and a water mill.  Sheila was enchanted by a display of polished spheres representing all the rocks and minerals of the region.  Meanwhile, Connie was entertained by a funny statue of a face that sticks its tongue out and rolls its eyes at you.

We wandered through a beautiful old cemetery of St. Peter’s but much to Sheila’s disappointment, the catacombs cut into the cliffs were closed. Alas, no bones.  The markers were elaborate metal work and the gardens on and around the graves were beautiful.  Mozart’s sister is buried in this cemetery, but we didn’t try to find her tomb.

We shopped only briefly as we headed out of old town but we found a great little souvenir shop and picked up a few things.  Enamel ornaments were very popular everywhere and this store had a number of small, more affordable pieces. 

We passed by Mozartplatz, with a statue of Mozart at the center. Then we decided to catch a city bus back to the train station.  We ended up confused about the cost of the bus and Connie didn’t have the right change.  The driver either took pity or was too irritated to care because he let us on.  After our two hour return trip to Munich, we ate Chinese food at a little fast food style place near our hotel.  When we got back to the hotel, Sheila took her shower and then realized she’d left her backpack at the restaurant.  We ran back and, believe it or not, it was still there on the floor right where she’d left it probably a half hour earlier.  Her camera had been in the bag and losing it and all the pictures would have been really disappointing. We each carried our passports and cash in small shoulder bags which we wore slung over our necks. Those never left our bodies outside our hotel.  No point wasting a day in the US Embassy over a lost passport.