March 7th-9th-Austria

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Album I’m listening to-Greatest Hits of Foo Fighters and Red Hot Chilli Peppers (for some reason Itunes have meshed the two together but I tell you what it’s one of the best mixes ever!)

Things that I found out in Salzburg-
-If you ask for water you will get sparkling water.
-You can choose what notes you want when drawing money from the bank.
-The Alps are absolutely stunning
-The annual Austrian Carnival lasts from November 11th-March 8th!!
-Don’t forget your room key after taking a shower as you’ll end up at reception with only a towel
-Never buy a Fujifilm adaptor from Amazon! I just bought the damn thing and it didn’t work.

Salzburg-Home of Mozart, Sound of Music, and a massive salt mine. I’ll start off with a very brief history. Salzburg was formed because of the massive salt mine first discovered by the Celtics in 1000AD. It was white gold back then and most of the profits went to the Archbishop of Salzburg. All the fantastic buildings came about when half the city burned down one night in 1100 and with all the money he had decided to rebuild it so people could remember him. He never saw the completion of them though as he went to war with the Bavarians over the salt mine, lost, got thrown into jail at the fortress overlooking Salzburg, and died while in there.

Now that’s out of the way I had a fantastic time there. After arriving in the afternoon I dropped my bags of at YoHo hostel and had a stroll around the old city. Unfortunately I got there too late to see inside the fortress but got as close as possible. I have a feeling a lot of places will close early or will even be open as most only open from April when all the tourists start arriving. Either way the top of the hill had stunning views of the city. After walking around for 3 hours I tried to find an authentic Austrian restaurant but as it was quite late there were mostly Italian and Japanese restaurants that were open. Finally I settled on a Turkish restaurant where I had Ciziki? (yoghurt with cucumber and garlic) and a kebab. 100 times better than your typical 2am London kebab. I got back to the hostel where I was in a mixed dorm with 2 Finnish girls, 1 Japanese called Yoko (no joke!) 2 French blokes and a guy from England called Phil. He’s a copper from Southampton who likes to travel whenever he’s not arresting drunk people. Got a bit of a surprise one morning coming back from the shower when I got to the room and the only people there were the two Finns on the same bed giving back massages to each other (they told me it was because of the long train journey from Croatia….) The hostel was fantastic and cheap (a tennar) so if you’re ever in Salzburg go there. Awesome beds with comfy sheets and pillows, hot showers, clean, cool staff.

On Tuesday I was supposed to go to the ice caves in Hallstatt but again with a lot of things they don’t open until the end of April so I decided to go to the salt mine instead. It’s about an hours bus ride from Salzburg in a town called Hallein. I won’t go into too much detail but it was an awesome experience deep inside the mountain (it was so long we actually crossed into Germany while walking down one of the tunnels). They also had a village of how the Celtics lived back in the day. After going back to the hostel I ran into Phil and, being British, I assumed he wanted to watch the Champions League which he did. We had a couple of ½ litre 2 euro steins at the hostel and met Emma, who’s from Cambridge and working as an Au Pair in Italy. So the 3 of us went to the Shamrock, which was the only bar showing the football. It was packed as it was the last night of a 4 month Carnival the Austrians have every year. It was absolutely mental with people in fancy dress having the time of their lives. We definitely got into the groove of it all and were soon jumping around to an Austrian band mixing up the words to Green Day and Kings of Leon. We left around 1am and went back to the hostel (well I did as I had an early start and Phil and Emma went searching for a kebab). Waking up this morning feeling better than I should (Austrian beer leaves little hangover!) I got on the train to Ljubljana, Slovenia, where I am now. It’s another stunning day and since I’ve left London it has been clear skies every day! Right I think that pretty much sums up my time in Salzburg. I’ll let you know how I get on in Slovenia in the next couple of days!

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Comments

[Natalie Barnes]

Slovenia :)
Hey, Really enjoyed your blogs so far... and when I saw you're in Ljubljana I felt I must advise you to visit Lake Bled! It is a short train ride and your Interrail ticket covers it. It is an amazing place to visit, I was there in the summer- but I doubt you will be swimming in it now though (unless you're very brave!) Also- the best club in the city is club Top! Happy travelling Natalie

[Sam Kenning]

Hey Natalie glad you're enjoying the blogs! I did end up going to Beld for a few hours. Had such an amazing time there as well. The lake was partly frozen so no swimming for me :) nice hike up to the castle though!