First day in Salzburg

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Our first full day in Salzburg. After Mum raving on about Salzburg and how wonderful it was for years, it was good to see that it lived up to all expectations. The town is absolutely beautiful, with a medieval fortress on a hill and churches built hundreds of years ago and all sorts of lovely squares and monuments and houses etc etc.
We decided to have a bit of a walk around the old town, most of which is pedestrianised (although cars can drive in there to drop people off, however that is only when the pedestrians actually choose to get out of their way). We got an audio tour from the information centre, which had us wandering around the town all afternoon and finding all sorts of interesting places and sights. This town is the birthplace of Mozart, and so there are statues and museums of him everywhere, and you cant pass two stores without coming across a big stand of Mozartkugeln (Mozart balls, nougat and marzipan in chocolate) for sale.
We purchased a Salzburg card from the information centre, which gave us free public transport and entry into museums etc for 48 hours, and we received an excellent tip from them about a Christmas market a few minutes out of town on the bus. We went out there to find what seemed like zillions of people (the market was only open on weekends) at a lovely market in the grounds of an old hunting lodge. The whole setting was magical, and we even gave into the local customs and bought a nativity scene (although i think ours might be a little blasphemous cos they are more like cartoon characters than anything else, but never mind). Apparently its a big family thing over here and the nativity set is added to every year and pieces are handed painted etc.

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