Salzburg

This is the final installment of our trip to Austria, so make sure you've read the posts about Vienna and Munich first...

Monday, April 13th - Salzburg

We got up early Monday morning and hopped on a train from Munich to Salzburg, which is at the foot of the Alps on the Austrian side of the Austro-German border. It was a short (hour and a half) train, and because it was so early it was practically empty. We were able to have our own compartment for the ride, which was nice.

We went straight to the Marriott where we were staying and got checked in, and just as we finished the rest of our group was arriving from the alps where they'd been skiing. They had a great time, but came back very red, as it had been a bright day and nearly 19 degrees C (65F) on the mountain. They all got checked in and settled, and we started off for the city.

Salzburg is quite small, with only about 150,000 residents, but the old city center is very quaint. There is a large plaza with a nice fountain and cathedral (which, surprisingly, was holding an Easter Monday mass, thereby sealing our fate of not seeing the inside of any of the main Austrian churches). The main thing to see, though, is a fortress that towers above the city:

This area of the country was originally run by archbishop-princes, so essentially it was run by the Catholic church. This fortress was built bit by bit over several centuries by these various rulers. It is famous for being the only fortress in Europe to have never been conquered. I found it funny, though, that when we listened to an audio tour, we found out that when Napoleon showed up, they gave up the fortress without a fight. So, somehow giving up without fighting counts as not losing.

We took a tour of the fortress, which was somewhat interesting but totally beautiful. The tour ended with a view from atop the highest tower, which looked out over the city on one side and the mountains on the other, and the view was amazing.

We came down from the fortress and after grabbing a quick bite, went off to the main attraction of the city - The Sound of Music Bus Tour.

We had watched the movie in the week before the trip in order to prepare and get psyched up, so Jenna was really looking forward to this tour, and I was dreading it, imagining a bus full of crazies singing "Do-Re-Me". It turned out to be much better than expected. The tour was about 4 hours and really focused more on the city and surrounding countryside, mentioning the landmarks and a few random facts from the movie when we came upon them.

We saw all the main sites - the Von Trapp houses (there were different ones filmed for the front and the back in the movie), the gazebo, the abbey, and the main gardens where they did some dancing.

The best part, though, was that they took us up into the lake region, which is where you could see all the mountains, lakes, villages, and hills. The views from here were great:

After the tour ended, we headed back to the hotel to "freshen up" for dinner. We were meeting before dinner in one of the people's rooms and planned to go to another traditional Austrian beer garden. People got ready and showed up bit by bit, and people were just sitting around chatting, and nobody was really ready to go once we all were assembled. We ended sitting around chatting until there was no way we were going to get into the restaurant, which closed pretty early and wasn't exactly close to the hotel. Instead, we ended up running across the street to a little Italian spot that was pretty good, and actually a nice change from the past few days of local grub.

After dinner it was off to packing and bed. We were smart enough to schedule a flight where we didn't need to leave the hotel before 8:30, but not smart enough to schedule a flight where we got back to London after working hours. It was nice to sleep in a bit, but I basically had to run home from the airport, change clothes, and head into work, which was a huge pain (although it did save a vacation day!).

It was hard for us to get on that plane back to London. We had fallen in love with Salzburg and the beautiful scenery of the Alps on their doorstep. The weather was perfect, the country was amazing, and we had a really good time travelling with our friends.