The first day in Salzburg was probably the worst for me in terms of mood. It wasn't that we did anything particularly tiring or not fun but it felt like all of my tiredness and homesickness caught up with me and I was super cranky. Our train was nice and easy and got into Salzburg at 12:30 and we checked into our HOTEL (yes, hotel. Because of Euro all the hostels were booked the first night so we had to get a hotel instead. Oh darn). I think having our own room in a hotel eventually helped with my sour disposition. It is the little things that you dont really notice like baths (a bath!) and the ability to leave things lying around in the bathroom that make you happy. Next time I seriously travel, it will be in hotels. Anyway, we got into Salzburg and mostly just wandered around, following R.S.'s self-guided walking tour. Salzburg is insanely little and adorable, although there doesn't seem to be much to do. Good thing we were planning on doing the Sound of Music tour the next day was occupied our time, otherwise I don't know what we would have done for the day. But yes, super cute Austrian town. No wonder they filmed Sound of Music there. There are some annoyances, though. Euro 2008 was still going on there so there were too many people and "fanzones" hanging about and blocking pretty, old buildings.
The next day was a good day. Much better, mood-wise, than the day before. We had an amazing night sleep, which always helps. Even though I still woke up around 6:30 AM, I had fallen asleep as soon as my light was off and I slept like a rock in a dark, soundless room. When we got dressed we had a lovely, filling buffet breakfast that was delicious and more than just cornflakes and toast. Oh the joys of lush, posh living. We then packed ourselves up (so sad to see our private room go) and left the hotel, leaving our bags there for the day, which was super handy. We headed back into town mostly to do some souvenir shoping. I finally managed to find some things I had been looking for and I acquired my Austrian shot glass. I now have so many shotglasses, I look like a major alcoholic. Also when we were wandering around, Vicky and I returend to St. Peter's cemetary which was this beautiful old cemetary with wrought iron grave stones that we had been to the day before. This time, though, we went up into the mountain to some very old, kind of creepy, cave chapels that were used by hermitic monks back in the day. The whole thing was really cool and it offered some lovely views of the gorgeous city of Salzburg. However, it was a bit chilly (a first on our trip) so we soon crossed back over the river around 1 and waited in a warm cafe for our 2 PM Sound of Music tour. The tour was amusing and very easily killed a fair number of hours that we probably would have been bored out of our minds for, but I'm not sure it was really worth the ridiculous price. Almost, but not quite. Anyway, the tour started off driving along the old city of Salzburg, which was great actually, because we learned a lot about the history of the city which I wouldn't have otherwise known. Then the Sound of Music stuff began, starting with Mirabell Gardens (which Vicky and I had managed to hit the major SOM sightings without even trying to) and moving through to Nonneburg Abbey, the lake where the kids fell in, the house used for the exterior, the gazeebo, the scenery from the beginning of the movie and the church where Maria and the Captain were married. I found the most impressive part to be the scenery of the lake district. It was breathtaking, most definitely the most beautiful location of my travels. That alone was almost worth the ticket because we otherwise wouldn't have gone out there. The tour was over by 6, we grabbed a quick dinner, retrieved our bags from the hotel and, surprisingly, without too much trouble, found the hostel for the night. It did involve getting on a bus and not really knwoing where to get off, but we had written out directions and managed without too much trouble. And this hostel was much nicer than the other IHA hostel I've stayed in, the one in Montpellier. Everything beats that. It was an early night and an early morning off to the last stop, Munich!
Reflection on Salzburg: It would be wonderful to rent a room in a B&B for a week here and just lounge around. There isn't terribly much to do but everything is so peaceful. And the setting of Salzburg and views from the city are exquisite. Next time I want to do a tour of the salt mines and of the ice caves because we didn't have enough time (nor the funds) to do it this time around. Football, like in Vienna, got in the way of a lot of pretty things (and made minding a room damn near impossible) so next time there had better not be some huge, international football championship going on. But all in all, a lovely day and a half.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment