Salzburg

 


We arrived late in the evening in Salzburg after catching the train from Munich that afternoon. The area around our hotel and the train station was fairly quiet as the town centre (Altstadt) was located on the other side. After getting to the hotel we walked into town to find some dinner. There was a huge variety of places to choose from as it seemed like alot of places were already closed. We ended up eating at a random restaurant which served german cuisine. 

Salzburg is the fourth largest city in Austria and in 1997 became a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is located in an Alpine setting and buildings are baroque architecture. 18th century composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in this town (his old house is on the left located on the shopping street - Getreidegasse). The setting of much of the Sound of Music was also done around Salzburg.

The next morning we travelled out of Salzburg to a couple of lake districts by train. The tickets are fairly cheap if you choose to travel in large groups as one ticket covers up to 4 people. We caught the train from Salzburg station out to Hallstatt which was about 1 1/2 hours with a change required. Once we were at Halstatt we had to get on a boat to cross the river to get into the small town. The scenery here was extremely picturesque. You see all these colourful hours surrounded by a reflective lake around it. The weather was on our side and so this made the place even more picture perfect. 

  

 

The town wasn't very big but we took our time to explore the place and after a while finally found a nice little joint for lunch. Pretty much german cuisine as well...frankfurts and beef goulash was lunch for us. The served a non-alcoholic beer called Schlossgold which tasted ok.

After finishing exploring the town of Halstatt we went back on the ferry and caught the train to a town called Bad Ischl which is known as a spa town of Austria. We arrived pretty late in the afternoon so by the time we managed to walk into town most places were already closed. There were a couple of places we visited including the Kongresshaus (which is now a health resort). Of course we only managed to see the outside of it. We then quickly had dinner before running to catch the last train back to our connecting station for Salzburg. We made it on the train out of Bas Ischl but when we got to the connecting station we didn't end up getting on the next train. As it was a weekend and we had got specific type tickets we had to wait 2 hours for the next train....so what did we end up doing? We went to a coffee shop which closed 30 mins after we arrived and the rest of the town was deserted so there was nothing to do. We ended up running around in the rain back to the train station and sat in the waiting room for about 1.5 hours... boring!... we did eventually get back to Salzburg sometime before Midnight...

Of course when in Salzburg you do the Sound of Music Tour. Our tour guide was a lady called Trudy who sang and talked like Julie Andrews... actually should be more like talked like her... her singing wasn't bad but wasn't excellent. The sound of music tour took us to basically all the places which have some link to the Sound of Music movie. We visited the house and lake where they filmed the supposedly famous boat scene, the trees which the lil kids climbed up, the church where they got married, the dome where they had their 'love' scene and you get the drift.... it was a good tour if you are interested in the movie or know what the tour was talking about... the tour ended after about 3.5 hours back at the Mirabell Gardens and Palace (which was built by the then Prince for his mistress apparently).

 

After the Sound of Music Tour, we walked around the Mirabell Gardens and had a look around town before catching our train back to Munich for dinner at HB (see Munich post). 


Salzburg was a fascinating place to visit except when it poured down raining. You need at least 2 nights minimum to enjoy the town. We didn't get a chance to visit the fortress which sat above the old town but it was probably worth going to Halstatt instead for its lake views and relaxing feel.


Until our next trip, we will write again (think its Paris for Roland Garros 2010!).


Kat & Will.