Salzburg translates to “salt fortress,” and it’s also known as the city of Mozart, as in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. This dude rocks (more on that later).
After a wonderful stay in Vienna (if you haven’t read Jane’s brilliant post, please do so), we took the 11:30 train from Vienna to Salzburg. Much to our surprise, the train was packed. When we left the Vienna train station, we were standing in a jam-packed aisle. After 15 minutes, I was able to find a seat, which I gave to Jane. Twenty minutes later, I found another seat. Once we were both seated, the 2½-hour train ride was pleasant.
After arriving in Salzburg, we made our way to our hotel, the Passenger Hotel, a Tribute Portfolio Hotel that’s part of the Marriott brand. The hotel is three miles from the city center, but if you need something from IKEA, this is the place to stay since there’s one directly across the street. Fortunately, public transportation is conveniently located close to the hotel.
Late Sunday afternoon, we loaded up my backpack with our dirty clothes and headed to the laundromat. We were in and out of My Laundry in about 70 minutes. We then took the #12 bus into the center of Salzburg and, with our clean clothes in my backpack, walked around town. We had dinner at L’Osteria. Afterward, we headed back to the hotel to watch the Cleveland Browns embarrass themselves against the Pittsburgh Steelers.
We had a delicious breakfast at the hotel and then took the train into the city. As mentioned above, Salzburg is the city of Mozart. He was born here in 1756 and was a child prodigy who started composing music at the age of five. Mozart wrote 22 operas and spent a third of his life on the road performing his music. He died at the fairly young age of 35 in Vienna.
Our first stop on our Mozart tour was the Mozart Wohnhaus, the house his family moved to when he was 17 years old. There were several pianos and music compositions in his own handwriting. We then went to Mozarts Geburtshaus (his birthplace). This museum houses so many artifacts, including one of his violins, a harpsichord, and his clothes. While we walked through the museums, I played Mozart on Spotify as we each shared an AirPod.
Following our Mozart fix, we walked around the main street in Old Town. While sitting near a fountain, we met up with friends from DC, Robin and Steve, and the four of us headed over for our 2:00 p.m. walking tour of Salzburg.
After the walking tour, we went to the Hohensalzburg Fortress and thoroughly enjoyed the views from the top. We then walked to the Augustiner Brewery, where they only serve one type of beer, we each had a liter as well as brats for dinner. We had a great time at the brewery, and it was wonderful spending the day touring Salzburg with Robin and Steve.
This morning we took a tour to Hallstatt. On our 1.5 hour drive, we passed through the gorgeous Salzkammergut region, driving through the beautiful lake towns of Fuschl, St. Gilgen, Bad Ischl, and Bad Goisern. In Hallstatt, we walked through the picturesque town and stopped for apple strudel and Sacher chocolate cake.
Following our trip to Hallstatt, we came back to Salzburg for the Sound of Music portion of the tour. We stopped at several film locations—Leopoldskroner Weiher, Schloss Hellbrunn, and Mondsee—while hearing information about the making of the movie. We fully participated in the tour by singing on the bus (oh, what fun!).
We had dinner at Gabler Bräu, a restaurant established in 1429. I really enjoyed the Wiener schnitzel, and Jane had soup with a huge dumpling.
Our adventure continues tomorrow as we head for Innsbruck. I wonder if I’ll see Franz Klammer.
Traveling Walters 