Hotel Room in SalzburgThis is our room, with a generous bathroom off to the left. We stayed in a small hotel - Hotel Liilienhof about 10-15mins by bus from the city centre. Highly recommended!
Last night we arrived in Salzburg after 10pm and caught a taxi straight to our hotel. We picked the key up from the hotel restaurant and went straight up to our room - wow! The room is huge - larger than our apartment in Paris and more roomy than our NY apartment! We crashed immediately.
We woke this morning to spectacular weather and a snow-capped alpine vista out our window. The only problem was the fact that I had great difficulty walking to the bathroom some 10 feet from the bed. Not a good sign.
I hobbled downstairs to breakfast and we looked over the tour brochures in the lobby. The most economical option was the Sound Of Music tour, which included part of the city as well as the mountain lakes. We booked the 2pm tour and discussed our options for the morning.
By now my foot was loosening up a bit and I could walk relatively painlessly, albeit extremely slowly. The plan was to catch a bus into the city, check out one or other of the Mozart museums, then I'd sit by the river until it was time for the tour bus.
As it
turned out, there was a combined admission for both Mozart's museums - his Birthplace and his Place of Residence - and both within hobbling distance. By the time we'd visited the former, time was getting on and we had to high-tail it to his residence, grabbing a quick sandwich on the way. Unfortunately, we had to rush through the museum somewhat, interrupting a very interesting film on his life. Both museums had interesting content, although a lot of it were replicas and both, we felt, used somewhat peripheral content (like paintings of royalty that had commissioned his work and miniature sets from his operas) to pad the exhibitions.
Onto the bus at 2pm for the tour. Full house, and the tour guide was very camp but entertaining and was obviously a big fan of the musical. The city component was rather limited and soon we headed out of Salzburg to the mountain lakes. The weather was glorious and, although we were seemingly just below the snow line, it was definitely shorts-and-T-shirt weather. We drove past plenty of Bavarian country-side homes and though a few sleepy lakeside towns, one spot in particular offering a breathtaking view of the lake and
Mozart's BirthplaceKarina standing nonchalantly outside the museum of Mozart's Birthplace. Unfortunately, there was no photography allowed inside the museum.
town below from a high vantage point.
Karina was quite thrilled to visit some of the sites from the movie and had fun with the camera on some of the more famous scenes, like skipping around the fountain and up the steps of the garden in the Do-Re-Me scene. We also saw the church and the abbey and front of the Von Trapp family home and its back garden by the lake (which is in a completely different location).
By now it was getting dark and, in stark contrast to Paris, Salzburg seemed to be shutting down. We found a Chinese all-you-can-eat buffet which was good value if not a little limited in selection. We've found Salzburg to be surprisingly expensive!
Back on the bus to the hotel and a relatively early night once again. I soaked in the bath for the best part of an hour trying to improve my heel to no avail. Tomorrow I've got no choice but to rest it or I'll spend the rest of our trip incapacitated.
Salzbug CityA view across the Isar? River with Hohensalzburg Fortress in the backround. The fortress is visible from all over the city.
Another Alpine VistaLooking across the lake towards the alps. To the left of the image is the palace they used for the back-garden shots of the Von Trapp family home. This is the lake into which they all fell in the rowb
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