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Published: November 10th 2006
Our first impression of Salzburg was that it is a very cute city surrounded by beautiful county side. The office at our campground was in a quintessential Alpine house and walking just minutes from our site were spectacular views of farm land, rolling hills, and mountains in the distance.
We bought Salzburg cards, which give you free public transportation and admission to many of the sights for a 48 hour period. We started our process of getting the most for our money by taking the funicular (sort of an elevator on rails that go up the side of a hill) up to the Festung Hohensalzburg the fortress that looks down on Salzburg. There were incredible views from the top. The fortress also houses a war museum and marionette museum (creepy!). On the way to lunch we walked through the cemetery from the sound of music (first of many sights from the movie). We ate lunch at a little outdoor cafeteria whose vegetarian selections ranged from buns to bread although Kyle was in heaven with his sausages.
In the afternoon we went to Hellbrunn Castle. This castle was built for Archbishop Markus Sittikus (1612 - 1619) purely for pleasure and
the highlights of the castle are the trick fountains that soak unsuspecting visitors (although the ground was wet in certain areas taking the surprise out of the fountains for most of us). It was quite refreshing on the +30 day that we were there. On the grounds there is also a huge park with ponds, the Salzburg Zoo (where we saw some very active and entertaining brown bears), and the gazebo from the Sound of Music!
In the evening we ventured out to two modern art galleries. I am quite a fan of modern art but I must say I am glad that these galleries were included with our Salzburg card because if they were not I would have been pretty pissed off at spending the money. They were terrible. Some of the exhibitions were just revolting in everyway - I am a very liberal person when it comes to art and what is considered art and for the first time in my life a couple of the exhibitions made me question the definition of art that a gallery uses.
The next day we started the morning off with a tour and taste testing at the Steigl brewery
- the breakfast of champions so I am told. I actually drank my first beer(-ish) in the form of a Shandy or “the cyclist liter” which is half beer and half lemon or raspberry soda (I tried both). Although I think my favorite part was the pretzels that we got with the beers.
In the afternoon we went on a boat cruise on the river - very hot cruising down the river on a boat more like a greenhouse then anything. After that needed air-conditioning so we went to the natural history museum which houses very cool saltwater aquariums, live reptiles, and an extraordinary number of stuffed dead animals.
The night that followed was not fun. We had a long and extremely aggressive thunderstorm with lots of rain, thunder, and lightening. We went to the bathroom at about midnight and there was another couple in the bathroom building with all of their belongings! They woke up and watched their shoes float by. We were lucky to be higher up although we were under a tree so the lightening freaked us out quite a bit. The next morning the only damage to our stuff was wet shoes, backpacks, and
Must Kill the Tourists
These guys were aiming at video of tourists a solid foot high coating of mud on our tent from the rain pounding on the ground.
Needless to say our last day in Salzburg consisted of clean-up and laundry. As well there was souvenir shopping and picture taking. We also visited the Abby from the Sound of Music. The next day we left for Vienna.
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