The hills are alive

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After a busy day yesterday, we had a small lie-in getting up at just after eight. We finally had a hotel that provided a free breakfast, so we happily tucked into that before leaving the hotel at around 9am and making our way to Mirabel Gardens (which was quite near the hotel in the newer side of the city). It was another boiling hot day and we didn't have too much trouble finding the Gardens, as it was just a case of following all the tourists! I was already singing Sound of Music songs as we walked the streets (and driving John insane in the process) and the sight of Mirabel Gardens only made me all the worse. We entered right at the top of the stairs where 'Do-Re-Mi' ends and I immediately started squealing and running up and down in a very excited manner-it was so awesome! I made John take photos of me from every recognisable SOM angle of course, although this did take a while because the place was absolutely packed with huge tour groups, all of whom with exactly the same idea as me. It was a really pretty place and just totally in-fitting with the elegance and stateliness of Salzburg in general, even with the tourist masses filling every corner!

After a walk around, we headed to the bottom of the gardens to catch the number 25 bus to Mount Untersberg. I have to admit, we were very impressed with ourselves managing to catch a bus in the middle of a European city and it all being very easy...I'd been convinced we'd get on the wrong one or at least be heading in the opposite direction to where we needed to be, but it was all completely fine. As the bus was also heading to Hellbrunn Palace, it was completely packed, but it emptied out a lot once we were past there, with only about four of us staying all the way to Untersberg (John of course was convinced that we should have got off at Hellbrunn ourselves and that we were now going to end up on the bus for the rest of the day not knowing when to get off, but I managed to calm him down and convince him that we would be ok lol). As it turned out, the driver helpfully let us all know when to get off anyway, although it was pretty obvious by the sight of the huge mountain staring at us out of the bus windows! Almost immediately on getting off the bus, I spotted the tiny cable car charged with taking us to the mountain peak, and almost turned around right then and got straight back on. Considering I don't even deal with ferris wheels all that well, the idea of some tiny little container on a wire taking me 1800 meters up in the air just seemed completely mental and unrealistic at that point...and at 19 Euros a return, it was a really big rip-off just to be terrified! But John convinced me that I would regret it if I didn't go up, so I put my trust in him and let him lead me to the queue. We had a short wait and then all piled into the car, which was thankfully a bit bigger on the ground than it looked when it was halfway up the mountain! And I suppose it wasn't too bad...it was smooth until we got about three-quarters of the way up, at which point it all got very jerky and strained, and I closed my eyes and started praying ;o) Luckily there was no wind at all, so at least it was a lot more settled than it might have been on another day. Finally, with legs shaking, we climbed out to some amazing views. There was barely a cloud in the sky and we could see mountains, trees and blue skies for miles around-it was completely incredible. It was so incredible in fact, that I wasn't even scared at all being up there! We walked up to the Geiereck Peak (which, I admit, was a little scarier, because it was a smaller space and me being very clumsy, it wouldn't be beyond me to trip and fall off a mountain!) and just spent a good while up there taking photos and videos of every spot we could see, fully aware that we might never be up there again in our lifetime. We also got chatting to a German family up there and spent a fair bit of time taking photos for eachother-the dad was a proper photographer though, so our photos turned out a bit better than his, I think! Eventually, we figured that we'd better get down if we wanted to fit in everything else we wanted in the day, so it was back to the cable car for our descent. Going down was a lot scarier, mainly because the car stopped halfway down and the driver stood up and opened the window to look out at the wires (!?!)-I was gripping John rather tightly at that moment lol. Thankfully, we got going again soon later and the rest of the trip was quick and easy.

When we got to the bottom, there was a bus already waiting, so we jumped on and headed back towards the city, this time getting off at Hellbrunn Palace ourselves. I had one reason alone for visiting there-the Sound of Music gazebo! It's a really big tourist attraction, but we didn't have the time or the funds to enjoy it properly, so it was just a case of checking the map, wandering around the outskirts and then diving in the gate to see the gazebo. I'm fairly sure we didn't have to pay anything to get into that part of the grounds lol-at least no-one started chasing us out in a fit of rage-but we still made it quite a quick visit just in case! There's not much to see anyway-they closed the gazebo after an old lady managed to break her ankle copying the 'Sixteen Going on Seventeen' dance, so all we could do was take a few photos before continuing on. We were surprised to find that there were no other tourists in the area at all-apparently we were the only people to be conducting our own tour of the Sound of Music sights, whereas everyone else would probably be seeing it as part of one of the official tour groups. It made it a much nicer experience anyway though, not having to fight with loads of people for a good photo!

Right next to the gazebo was a turn in the road onto Helbrunner Allee....our next Sound of Music stop! This is the street that Maria walks down singing 'I Have Confidence' on her way to the Von Trapp house (cue lots of dancing down the street from me) and while it was a very long and insanely hot walk down, it was also a nice one (minus the sunburn which was starting to kick in, miles from any shops and with our sun cream left in the hotel). Because it's a residential area, it was just really relaxed with kids going by playing on their bikes and families out for walks, which made it all the nicer :o) After about half an hour, we finally reached what I wanted to see most-the Von Trapp house! John had been asking all the way down where the house was, only to be told that I didn't know and would just recognise it when I saw it, and I think he was starting to doubt me a bit...but I was completely right. I'd recognise that house anywhere! It's now a music college, I think, but the gates had been left open so we were able to get plenty of pictures. We had a rest nearby (really needing it at this point!) before then making an attempt to walk to Leopolskron Palace (used as the rear of the mansion)...which was a complete disaster all round really! Street signs in Salzburg have a bad habit of disappearing, tourist signs tell you one thing, then leave you completely alone for the next two miles to try and figure out the route yourself and it is really completely impossible. It's so useless, I actually wonder if the signs are put there to confuse people on purpose as some sort of sick joke. We ended up near a Spar in a random village on the outskirts of the city, so after stocking up on water, we decided to just give up and continue in the general direction of the Salzburg Fortress to get back into the main area of the old town. However, just ten minutes later, we spotted something that we were sure would lead us in the right direction-a Sound of Music tour bus, in the general area that we knew Leopolskron to be! We walked back towards that direction (which took another fifteen minutes) and found the lake used in the movie, but still no sign of the palace...it came to us that the palace must be around the opposite direction of the lake, and as that would take another hour (and my fingers were starting to swell up from the heat lol), we decided it was officially time to give up.

We walked back towards the city, and again a combination of our crappy map and the crappy street signs had us going a completely convuluted and nonsensical route, but eventually we made it back to a point near Nonnberg Abbey that we recognised. We were completely done in, but at least we'd managed to see a lot of the city surroundings and little Austrian villages, so it was worth doing it all on our own :o) We decided that we had to head back to the hotel for a rest, after four hours of walking in temperatures of over 30 degrees, and that took a good while but it felt very good to flop back down on the cool bed!

After an hour or so of lazing around playing Zelda, we went back out into the city for some tea. As we'd managed to miss it out the day before, we went to Getreidstrasse which was insanely beautiful (my new favourite street in the world!), and got ourselves a huge slice of pizza each. We sat down on a step near the bottom of the street to eat it, and were rather amused at the sight of some girls in a car driving by and waving at everyone in an excited manner. They were apparently famous for something, and were able to take their car down the pedestrian street to a shop halfway down, so we wandered down to see what was happening and came across a lot of TV cameras...however, no-one around us had any idea who they were! John and I had the excited idea that they might be America's Next Top Model contestants, but after a few minutes of looking around for any sign of Tyra or Mr Jay and seeing nothing, we gave up on that idea (although I am going to be terrified watching the next series that Tyra will utter the words 'You're going to Austria!' and there's a clip of us standing around in the background as Mr J talks to the girls, or something equally ridiculous!). Anyway, after all that excitement, we got ourselves an ice cream and spent another hour or so just walking around and exploring the nearby streets, before heading back to the hotel for the night...and just in the nick of time too, as almost the second we walked in, a thunderstorm began!

It's probably entirely obvious, but I loooooooooooved Salzburg more than I can possibly describe. It's the most beautiful, incredible, amazing place and that's even without all the Sound of Music memories that it holds for me. Not only was it my favourite city of the whole trip, it was John's too (and he doesn't like the SoM, so he didn't have that bias!) and we were incredibly sad about having to leave. It's just completely fabulous, and should be so much more famous as a tourist destination than it is (not that I would wish more tourists on the place, because that might completely ruin it). I love it.

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