The Hills Are Alive.... and all that!

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So, Salzburg, where 60%!c(MISSING)ome to see the Sound of Music, 40%!t(MISSING)o see Mozart! Some of our group had left about 7.30am to join the early Sound of Music Tour, but everyone else got the coach in. We had taken a vote on whether to all pay an extra couple of Euro and stay for another couple of hours - I think at the end of the day we would all have taken this, but we'd made our decision! Those who went on the tour thought it was worth the early start, the 40ish Euros for the tour and the 30-40 Euro they'd each paid towards the taxi, so it must have been good!

Meantime, I wanted some views of the city, so a small group of us (after the obligatory toilet stop - there's one near the Paris-Lodron Strasse where the coach left us, staffed - decisions on what to tip to be made again) headed off to Hohensalzburg Fortress (the castle), past some big golden sphere. We thought that we'd been told that it was 8 Euro for the funicular, then 7 Euro for entrance, so we decided to walk up - "it's only 3 turns, that doesn't look too bad"... but, yes, it was pretty steep, and we were sweating by the time we paid our 7 Euro to go in - and then there was another 2 steep turns! So, refreshments were the first stop and we must have sat there for about 1/2 hour, then decided to test our tickets. We ended up in "2" (the museum) before "1" because we weren't quite reading the map, but we were with it, checked out some ruins, lots of wartime paraphenalia and the state room (quite impressive) - we could see out the window where people were at the top of a tower so we headed for that (having been diverted by the Bull statue), but then found that number "1" was a half-hour guided tour and there was no other way to get up the tower. By this point, people were hungry and there was more of Salzburg to see, so we nipped round the other side for another view-point, not quite as high but pretty impressive!

Those who wanted to buy lunch took charge for the next bit, and avoiding the central square which was noisy from building work on the Cathedral, we nipped past Mozart's statue and plonked ourselves down in quite a posh place, K K Hotels on the Waagplatz (first documented in relation to culinary matters in 1181, so a long pedigree). Some iced coffees were ordered, I went for the strudel I'd promised myself, and munched on a sandwich. A good hour later, we nipped into the tourist office for some maps to replace the ones we'd used, then crossed what we had expected to be the Sound of Music bridge, but we don't think it was! We were heading for some of the Mozart elements of the city, but decided to duck down the Getreidegasse, then realised this was not only the home to many shops, but to Mozart's birthplace, so that was No 1. ticked off, now to head towards Mozart's Wohnhaus. On the way we passed the Sacher Hotel, home to the original Sacher Torte (mmm!) - no we didn't buy any - rather expensive! We did make it to Mozart's Wohnhaus, but decided we didn't have time to go round. A quick nip into the Mirabellgarten and it was time to get on the coach! As expected, everyone was tired in the evening, so after dinner/the meeting, people chilled/went to bed early!

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