We got up at 5:30 am so that we'd have time to get to the bus station. We took the 6am underground. Lucky we'd left early as the walk to the bus station was further than we'd anticipated.
The ride on the bus went quickly as we both had a nap. We arrived outside the Salzburg train station just before 9am.
Jay and I stored our luggage in lockers, found the information centre to obtain a map and buy the Salzburg pass. (The lady at the information centre was particularly unhelpful offering no real advice.)
We caught the bus to the old town centre. The first attraction we came across was the Salzburg Museum. It had an interesting collection of history and stories about Salzburg.
After that we stopped by the Panorama Museum. It turned out to only consist of one large painting!
Next we walked to the funicular to get to the Hohensalzburg Fortress. The top offered great views over the city. Inside the fortress was a few museums explaining the history of the fortress.
We headed back to the old town and caught the bus to the Untersberg Cable Car. The bus ride took about 40 minutes. Once there we had to wait for the next trip up the mountain.
To our surprise when we arrived at the top it was covered in snow! We only stayed up there 10 minutes as our shoes weren't that suitable. It was beautiful though.
From there we caught the bus towards town to the Hellbrunn Palace and Trick Fountains. We booked our ticket for the fountain tour and went to see the palace while we waited. It was pretty good and the audioguide was mostly interesting (a first!)
The trick fountain tour was good. The lady spoke a lot in German and then the English version seemed short! A lot of the tour was designed to get us all quite wet. Luckily it was a very hot day.
After that we walked up the overly steep hill to the Folklore Museum. It was very small but it was interesting to see videos of the local dance and the costumes.
We caught the bus to the old town and hopped on the Salzburg Cruise. There were two hen parties on board so it was sometimes a little hard to hear the commentary. One bride to be was selling things. A chat with her friend confirmed that the money was for drinking later (as I'd suspected) and that it was a normal practice for Austria.
After that we quickly went to see Mozart's Residence. It was small and boring. The only interesting thing was that the Mozart brand is worth about $5 billion a year!
Then we had a quick peek in the church nearby.
We then caught the bus back to the train station, picked up our luggage and walked to the bus stop. Our host Rod was already waiting to pick us up and take us to the mountains.
Rod lived with his mother, younger brother, three cats and a huge dog. We were very lucky because they made us a delicious BBQ for dinner.
22nd April
Today we had a relaxing day in the mountains. I spent a good portion of the morning updating this blog and relaxing. Jay and I went for a walk and enjoyed the views. We stuck to the route with more shade as it was very hot in the sun.
For lunch Rod and his brother Andy made another BBQ! So good.
Jay and Rod went to take the dog for a walk while I chatted with Eva (their mother).
Jay cooked potato curry for dinner as we still had potatoes left over from Munich. He even cooked rotis. I made the raita.
It was a wonderful lazy day.
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