The Hills are alive...with the Sound of Music

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August 28th- After a good sleep, we were refreshed this morning. The cooler temps made for lovely sleeping weather in Salzburg. There was a small wait this morning for the shared bath, but not too long. My mom kept checking the bathroom, and when it was finally opened she came back in and said "Punch it Chewy".The facilities are clean, so I can't really complain. Breakfast this morning was at a small place next to our hotel, and it definitely was the worst breakfast yet. Rather than a choice of your breakfast, we were served. The food tasted good, but with no choice, it has to be ranked the worst breakfast. The next stop was Mirabelle square to catch our Sound of Music Tour. Our tour guide, Christine, was very good. We were taken to most of the original filming sights from the movie including, the house they used for the outside of the Von Trapp Mansion, the lake the kids fell into, the Gazebo, the treed lined area where the kids were hanging from the trees, and many more. Christine gave us some background about the real Von Trapp family and contrasted the movie to the true story. The tour also took us out of town into the mountain and lake district which was absolutely breathtaking. We had a chance to take a toboggan ride.... which I had to talk my mom into. We had to carry our toboggan to a chute and then quickly climb on to be towed up the hill. The Austrian woman who was the ride attendant, did not realize my mom's fear of rides and quickly slammed us into our toboggan and we went whizzing up the hill. My mom was holding on for dear life during our ascent because the woman at the bottom had rushed her. I kept telling her to look around at the beautiful scenery, and by the time we reached the top, she had calmed down. We kindly asked a family from our tour group, to give us a few extra minutes to get on the toboggan at the top, and that seemed to calm her nerves. The ride down was fun. We also stopped in small lake town called Mondeese, which is where the church that Maria married Capt. VonTrapp in the movie. The  town was beautiful, and we were sad that we only had an hour here. We made our way back to Salzburg to finish up the tour with a sing along of the soundtrack to the movie. We headed for the train station, to get our train itinerary setup for tomorrow, and then hopped a bus to the Stiegl Brewery. The Stiegl brewery was a little outside of town, and we had a fabulous visit including a wonderful late lunch/early dinner. After the brewery, we hopped a bus and headed for the Salzburg Fortress/Castle. On the map, I worked out where I thought the cable car was and that is where we got off...but there was no cable car to be found. We finally found a nice Austrian woman to ask, she got off her bike and walked us to the path that we needed in order to climb up to the castle. This climb was not exactly on our itinerary, but we wanted to see the castle. The climb was pretty much straight uphill for about a mile, but the views were worth it. We wandered around the castle for a bit. I took some great Salzburg snaps, then we found a small place to have dessert with a fabulous view of the Bavarian Alps. Dessert was good and then we treated ourselves to a cable car ride down the hill, rather than a hike. Once at the bottom, we wandered around the streets of Salzburg and I took some great night photos of the city. Then back to the hotel to pack up our cases and get ready for our trip to Hallstat tomorrow. ( A side note.... on this trip mom's new nickname is "The Muscle". During this trip, we have been trying to be very aware of pickpockets, especially on public transportation. She has done a very good job at making sure to "protect" me and my backpack from intruders. She is somewhat intimidating, so I think the muscle is a good name for her.)

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