Munich --> Salzburg

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I woke up too early for my only stop this morning that I spent an hour to hang around the area near Alte Pinakothek, and came back to the art museum five minutes before it opened.

The Alte Pinakothek houses one of the world´s most important collections and is also one of the oldest galleries in the world. On display are more than 800 paintings, among them numerous well-known masterpieces of the 14th to the 18th Century German, Dutch, Flemish, Italian, French and Spanish paintings, including works of Rubens, Rembrandt and Frans Hals. The Rubens Collection was probably the most famous in this museum and I was really impressed by this artist, who reproduced works of other painters like “Adam and Eva” with his own ideas. I stayed there until 11:15am.

After getting out of the arts museum, I went back to Karlsplatz and did some window shopping for about an hour, then went back to the hostel to take my luggage and took a RE to Salzburg. Munich Hauptbahnhof was so large that I spent ten mins in finding the platform, which was actually on the exit to my hostel. Maybe because Austria is another German-speaking country, I couldn’t tell when the train crossed the German border even though I didn’t fall asleep on the train. Two hours later, the train arrived at the terminus-- Salzburg station.

I looked for tourist information centre immediately to get everything I needed—a free map of Salzburg, Salzburg Card and directions to my hostel, which was only 10 or 15 mins away from the station.

I spent 30 mins to settle down before beginning my Salzburg sightseeing tour by walking to Mozarthaus. I went along Franz-Josef-Straße, turned into Linzer Gasse, then turned right to Schwarzstr. and kept walking until I came to a corner. Situated at Makartplatz 8, Mozart wrote symphonies, divertimenti, serenades, piano and violin concerti and a bassoon concerto, arias, masses and other sacred music from 1773 - 1780 in this residence. The house had various owners after Leopold Mozart (father of Wolfgang Mozart) died and two-thirds of the building was destroyed by a bomb and reconstructed later. It was opened to public in 1996, displaying original copies of some works and letters.

I left the museum at around 5pm and went to tourist information centre at Mozartplatz to buy the tickets of the Sound of Music Tour. After that I checked out some pubs at Rudolfskai, but none of them were offering dinner. I kept going straight until I found a small restaurant which featured dinner set with homemade pasta. I got myself a glass of beer, some salad and super cheesy macaroni. Man I was so full when I left the restaurant.

I went back to hostel immediately after dinner to get a good rest and get prepared for the Sound of Music Tour tomorrow.

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