Salzburg

After eking out a few hours of sleep in our Vienna hostel, we got up to catch a train into Salzburg for the day. We both fell in love with the city right from the beginning with a great view of the Alps from the train station and then a beautiful walk along the river towards the city center.














Salzburg is a great old city, home to Mozart, one of the most intimidating castles in Europe (it was never defeated!), and of course, the Von Trapp family (Sound of Music). We started our tour with Rick Steve's guided walk through the city. It has a nice cathedral,















interesting old grave yard with a monastery hidden in the hillside above (picture from there), and streets with fun old shop signs...















complete with old fashioned door bells. You actually pull the wire to ring the bell on the floors above!

After finishing the walking tour (and a quick nap on a park bench) we checked out two Mozart museums. The first was his birth place, and was interesting, but a bit overdone by somebody that thought they had designed an artsy monument to Mozart... to us it came off more like a failed attempt at dramatic presentation. The second museum was in the flat that Mozart and his family lived in for most of their lives. They moved there after he started to become well known (at about age six!) and their living situation improved quite a bit). This museum was much more tasteful, more interesting, and more informative. We walked through the rooms of the house with an audio tour (with plenty of Mozart music), learning about his life and family. It was all quite nice.

After the Mozart museums we headed out for a hike up the hill to the Salzburg castle, Hohensalzburg. The day was coming to a close, so we didn't go inside any of the buildings - but we did get to go into the courtyard for free! From here we found some of the most beautiful vistas of our travels so far, and after stopping for a gelato we headed back out along the ridge for a nice stroll through the woods.















At the other end of the ridge we took an elevator down through a modern art museum, and headed into town for a bite to eat. We found a fun Italian place, with a very Italian owner/waiter, and had some great pizza and gnocchi. With our day coming to a close, we headed back out along the river to the train station to catch our respective trains onward. Dustin headed back to Aachen, and Julianna headed on to Bavaria.