Salzburg Wednesday

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Arrived in Passau this morning and on the bus at 8am for the two hour ride to Salzburg. Now I remember how I loved the Austrian scenery 25 years ago. Love the way the farms have no fences, they appear to be rolling meadows. We stopped on the way into Salzburg at the beautiful Schloss Hellbrunn. A castle built by one of the archbishop princes for use as his day castle. Hense it has no bedrooms. But we had not come to see the castle infact we had come to sing a duet, boys with girls "You are sixteen going on....." You guessed it, we had found the famous gazebo from the sound of music. Turns out the people who bought the chateau where the film was made got sick of bus loads of people singing and dancing around their gazebo so they drop kicked it to the nearest castle. Funny how such an old movie is still providing strong tourist interest, with lots of SOM tours. As well as SOM, Austria is also famours for the Porche and Red Bull. Red Bull was invented in 1987 by a man who now lives in Salzburg and is reported to be worth US5 Billion.

Salzburg is one of my favourite places so far because I love the prettiness of the Baroque architecture. ( Thank goodness we've moved on from that medevil stuff to something much more elegant). We toured the town first visiting the pretty Meribell palace built by the archbishop for his mistress (who had the 16 children with) the original Baroque gardens are still a significant feature. We then moved through the city and over the bridge into the main merchant street. In the old days they didn't have numbers on the street becaseu nobody could read anyway. They had beautifull wrought iron signs with pictures depicting the business within. They are still all original. Today there is even one with a golden M. We walked through the beautiful catacombs that were used in the flight scene in SOM. In the daylight they are really beautiful and people are still being buried there today. We had lunch inside a Baroque hall complete with chandeliers.

In jour free time we went to Motzart house which has been a museam since the 1800's. It was so interesting we were only left with half an hour of free time. Hmm.... very dissappointing....the shops looked georgeous.........Clothes and shoes and jewellry so stylish......they obvoiusly haven't heard of China......not cheap.... consequently the budget is intact. We left the boat in Passau but returned to Linz a very unintesting looking industrial city.

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