Salzburg

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Em did not want to leave the sheep but we had to say goodbye and move on to Salzburg. A quick stop at the tourist bureau to confirm the rules for Austrian roads and we were on our way. Most websites were telling us that we needed snow tyres and had to carry chains (neither of which we had) up until 15^thof April and that we also needed a sticker to travel on the motorways. Apparently, the snow tyres thing is only for when the roads are actually snowy or icy so we should be fine and the sticker was easy to get at a petrol station – 10 days, 8.50 euro, all roads – better than individual road tolls which can really add up fast.

Before heading to Salzburg, we made a stop at Ehrenberg Castle. It has a working drawbridge and has been turned into a museum of the middle ages complete with armour that you can try on. The museum was pretty good and kept Em interested for about an hour (not bad for a three year old!) then we wandered around outside in the village and Em had a go on the small fort style playground.

It was an amazing drive along the edge of Planersee (Planer Lake) and I mean EDGE. Road of death style – winding and really narrow with no rails or kerbs… but we made it. Then it was up over the mountain pass through a much snowier landscape before heading back down to cut through Germany and back into Austria at Salzburg. It seems to be a bit of an ugly city at first pass but we will see tomorrow. We found a playground just down the road from our hotel on Google maps so we made a visit to that as it had been a bit of a drive for us and Em wanted to run around. There was also a pizza shop across the road from our hotel so with a few charades to figure out the ingredients, it was fresh pizza for dinner.

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