Salzburg by Day; Beer Tour by Night

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I got up early to catch a 7:30 train to Salzburg. Staying right across the street from the train station is great! It was cold and rainy; staying in bed sounded so good, but this was the “scheduled” day for Salzburg. It took about 90 minutes to get there, since it was a regional train that makes several stops, instead of a high-speed express. I had studied the Rick Steves book and the internet, so I knew which city bus to take to get to the heart of town. It's always such a thrill to arrive someplace new and actually realize your plan is going to work! I exited the bus at Mirabell Plaza just in time to be the first and only customer on the Hop-On, Hop-Off tourist bus around town. It was still cold and rainy, so I decided not to take advantage of the “Hop-Off” option; I “Hopped-On” and stayed there for the complete one hour circle past all of the tourist hot spots. These buses have jacks for earbuds, and then you turn to the language channel of your choice. In order to compete with the “Sound of Music” tours, this tourist bus had the option of the historical perspective or the “SOM” perspective in its English and Spanish narrations. Of course I took the “SOM” spiel, because I felt obligated. There would be about 2 seconds of an instrumental version of one of the songs, and then a little narration about a passing alley being where the cartwheel scene was filmed. This nonsense went for a while, and I decided to switch to the historic version. I have had countless people tell me that Salzburg is their favorite city, and I truly wanted to love it. However, the cold and rain ruined it for me, and I longed for my little closet-sized hotel room, a cup of hot tea, CNN International, and the internet. My return train ticket wasn't for 4 more hours! My umbrella and I wandered around the Mirabel Gardens and a farmers' market in front of the really old church for a while. It was interesting to see what kinds of things they were selling. Every produce stand had some little berry things that looked kind of like cranberries. I think they had something to do with beer (as do most things in Munich). I need to research hops; do they have a berry? They had several different kinds of weird mushrooms. I'm guessing they must grow them locally. I caught a bus to the train station, and paid extra to return to Munich. I had not given Salzburg the effort it deserves, but I had reached my limit for cold and rain. After a few hours in my room, it was time to meet up with the Beer and Food Tour group, which conveniently met at the train station! There was a group of 15 English-speaking tourists ready for a night out. I had chosen to take this tour because I didn't want to go out at night alone, and I thought a group like this would surely be fun! I was the only single, but most of the people were Americans, and very friendly. Our guide was a short, stocky beer-drinking guy from Texas! He really knew his info and he was funny, so it was a good evening! We started with a beer and a little history of beer making in Munich. Then we took a combination of subways and trams to several different beer landmarks around the city. First, we went to the Munich Beer Museum (I didn't make that up; they actually have a beer museum, and it's pretty cool!) We learned about the three basic types of beer that are made in Munich. One is a light-colored beer, one is dark, and one is made with wheat and it's kind of cloudy. We tried a little of each. Since I'm not really a beer drinker, I liked the light one best. Then we climbed around in this very old house that has been converted into a museum and learned about the importance of beer in Munich's history and how/why the Oktoberfest began. It starts in about a week, and our guide was appalled that we were in Munich now instead of during the Oktoberfest. Next, we headed to the oldest beer garden in the city. Since it was still cold and misty, the outdoor garden was not in use. We had tables reserved in the restaurant of the beer hall. We were served a beer, of course, and platters of OMG...sausages! We also had cheese, Black Forest ham, dill pickles, soft pretzels, rye bread, locally made butter, strange mustards, radishes, and tomatoes. It was some good stuff! They have a sweet mustard that is really good! After an hour there, we hopped another tram and ended up in the high end district of the city. We went past a school for the gifted that is housed in some beautiful old buildings. It's for the city's brightest 18 and 19 year olds. Of the accepted students, a lottery is held once a year for the one lucky student who gets to live for free in this grand residence on campus. What a deal! We ended our evening at the original Hofbrahaus. What a place! It's huge and packed with tourists and locals drinking liter-sized mugs of beer. There are several different sections to this place, but we parked ourselves in the large hall, right in front of the Oom-pah band. It was loud and rowdy; just what you would expect! One of the couples in the group were staying at the same hotel as I, so we stuck together. I didn't really want to take the subway at night by myself. I did it several times in Paris, but it's kind of stressful. After walking the wrong direction for a couple of blocks (not my fault this time), we asked for directions and made it to a subway station and back to our hotel. It was a fun night, and it was extra-nice to have an evening of English. Side note: Our Texas guide is certified to teach music! He went to Munich 3 years ago for an audition with some big-time vocal performance group. Something caused him to arrive one day late for the auditions, so he took this job to support himself for a while. He's still there, although he's moving to Australia soon. He has friends there, and thinks he'll find some work for a while. What a life!

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Photos

Mirabel Gardens
Salzburg, Austria

Vase in Gardens
I got a chuckle out of the strange animal clinging to the edge of this thing.

Huge train of VW Jettas
I have seen a couple of these very long trains which are carrying nothing but new cars!

Beer Garden Food
This tray was part of the food sampling we did on our tour.