Salzburg!

Onto Austria!

 

On Sunday morning, we hopped on the first of 4 trains that took us to Austria.  It was a bit of a long trip, but the scenery was worth it.  It is amazing to watch how the landscape and architecture transforms as you leave Italy and get into Austria.  We passed miles and miles of vineyards, many high on steep mountainsides.  As we got into Austria, the mountains got much bigger and higher, some with snowy peaks.  The leaves are just starting to turn here.

 

We finally arrived in St. Johann around 8:30PM to be greeted at the train station by Kristin & Charlie.  It was so good to see them!  They had a wonderful time in England visiting friends before heading to Austria.  All a bit tired and hungry, we walked the 10 minute trek to the hotel from the train station and ate at the hotel’s Italian restaurant.  Afterwards, we made our plans for the next day and then headed to our rooms to get some much needed rest. 

 

Monday was our day in Salzburg.  It is a little more than an hour train ride from St. Johann to Salzburg, so we made a day of it.  We wanted to see the fortress and had heard there were a couple of street festivals in the city.  But, no one we talked to seemed to know anything about any festivals and they seemed to think that the festival season was over.  We also wanted to visit an abbey where the monks brewed beer and you could get a traditional beer stein ad enjoy a beer in the beer garden.  Although we saw something on the map that could have been it, it said nothing about beer or a beer garden.  So, we all agreed on what we thought was a  central part of the city and hopped a bus to begin our sightseeing. 

 

On the bus we saw there were lots  of tents along the river and realized it was one of the market festivals we had read about.  But the buss long passed them by the time we reached our stop, so we decided we’d walk around and make our way back to it.  We went down a side street and walked right into the street festival we had read about, too!  And looking up, we saw the fortress that we wanted to visit.  It was all coming together!  We all enjoyed some beers and pretzels and then walked a bit through the festival.  We were able to buy some nice artwork from a local artist and we slowly made our way over to the river market, which was lined with vendor tents. 

 

After strolling along for a while we decided to try and find the abbey, and looking on the map, we thought we saw the building up on a hill to our left.  We took a couple of turns, and after a couple of good guesses, we found it no problem!  It is well hidden and not at all advertised.  We thought it was an abbey, but not the one we were looking for – until we saw the beer steins and the wells and the beer garden!  We were so excited to have found this place and it was a really neat experience!

 

After a couple of rounds and some brats and kraut, we left the abbey, with intentions to head back towards the city center and make our way to the fortress.  We saw some nice walking paths up around the abbey and thought we’d check those out first.  We had amazing views and decided to keep walking.  As it turned out, it was a relatively unknown walking path to tourists and one Austrian woman who was trying to learn English told Jason and Charlie that if we kept on the path, we’d come to the fortress.  It was a great way to see the city below us as we walked to the enormous citadel. 

 

We got to the Festung Hohensalzburg (fortress over Salzburg) and had a beer and pretzel looking over the city.  It is a huge place with a few restaurants and conference facility.  The cannons were pointed through the wall at one place.  Took the tram down and went to the festival going on in the middle of the city and had another beer before heading back.  They were playing music (the 30+ person band played “It’s Raining Men” and everyone was up and dancing – totally hysterical) on stage and people were dancing on the tables.  It was fun.

 

We then went on a hunt for an Austrian restaurant to have some wiener schnitzel for dinner.  One problem, though…it seems that Indian-Italian restaurants were more popular and we couldn’t find a restaurant that had wiener schnitzel.  We walked for a while before a friendly and round Austrian man showed us a couple of good restaurants where the schnitzel was good.  We enjoyed a great meal and then headed back by bus and train to St. Johann.

 

We could not have planned the day more perfectly.  The weather, the flow of our day and everything in between worked out effortlessly.  By far, it has been one of the best days of our entire trip.

 

Coming up next:  recapping Oktoberfest!