Salzburg – the city everyone should visit :)

Getting off the train in Salzburg I had a moment of anxiety.  Would the Austrians be like the French and decide it would be impossible to transport us to the hotel?  Would they be like the Germans and decide the hotel was too close to bother with such a low fare? Would we have to walk across the city lugging our luggage once again?  Such relief to walk out of the station and see some taxi vans waiting in the taxi line!  Not that we got to use one….a little Mazda flew up, the driver jumped out, opened the back, laid down one rear seat and had the skis, bags and us into the car in less than 60 seconds!

€10 and 10 minutes later we walked into the magnificent lobby of the Mercure Kapuzinerberg.

The restaurant was closed for the weekend for dinners but the receptionist gave us directions to a cluster of restaurants only a few minutes walk away.  So after a quick unpack we headed off for a lovely Italian meal and then had the best shower of the trip so far (shower head the size of a dinner plate with various massage settings and steaming hot water!!) followed by the most wonderful nights sleep ever on the deluxe bed with light fluffy pillows and climate control that didn’t roar like a jet!

After a huge sleep in we wandered downstairs to the dining room for our first international breakfast buffet.  We had become a little bored with the continental breakfasts and having a traditional bacon, eggs, sausages and toast option was wonderful!  This became our routine during our stay here….sleep in, leisurely breakfast, explore a new place or two, late afternoon snack, more exploring, late dinner….this city is the perfect place to completely relax and just enjoy everything :)

We were originally booked for 3 nights and then planning to go to Vienna but there was so much to see and do and we loved this city so much that we extended our stay and stayed there until we were due to take the train to Croatia.

Nathan is doing a day by day Salzburg so I will just talk about my highlights….the Sound of Music tour was so much fun, singing along (even though most people in our part of the bus didn’t!), visiting all the places that look exactly the same as they did in the movie, the patter from the tour guide and bus driver that kept us laughing while also teaching us so much about the history of this place that underpinned the movie.

Mirabell Gardens!  The photos don’t do it justice at all.

The Hohensalzburg Fortress was worth the scary trip up the mountain to visit it, the preservation of the history of this place was excellent, unlike many places the Fortress did not feel commercialised at all.

Sitting by the river and watching the people go by, surrounded by churches and beautifully preserved old buildings, hearing all the church bells strike the hour….aaah bliss!

The Hellbrun Palace and Trick Fountains were amazing!  The work that went into creating the fountains and the water park were astounding for the time they were created.  I did get a little wet but that was to be expected when you visit a place that is famous for having trick fountains!!
Greaves!!  OMG this is the best food ever!  Basically just the fat and dripping from roast pork mixed with crackling...how can something taste so good!  Either stuffed into dumplings or spread on bread....I would come back just for greaves!

There was one strange moment when we went to the wrong Museum (there are so many!).  We found ourselves in the Museum of Modern Art and a room titled “Self Portraits”….I wish I had taken a picture as the room was filled with white pillars topped by different sized gherkins….we got out fast before the artist showed up….

On a side note we have had a couple of issues with alarms that we have forgotten to mention.  The first was on our train to Brussels.  We were getting ready to get off at our station and there was a persistent ringing bell, very loud and very urgent!  At first we assumed it was a “wake up” alarm as it was the terminating station and everyone had to get off but when we noticed a number of conductors rushing around searching for something we started to get a feeling that it had another reason and then had it confirmed when a conductor told us the emergency alarm above our seat had been triggered calling for help!  It seems that when Nathan got up, his ski box (fucking skis!) hit the alarm!!

The second time was when we were in the lift entering the Museum of Modern Art.  We were going up and suddenly there was a piercing alarm!  I was freaking out and the other people in the lift all looked worried!  It briefly stopped and then started up again!  I waited with dread for the lift to grind to a stop and trap us between floors so when the doors opened at our floor despite the alarm I was so relieved!  That was when one of the other passengers noticed that I was actually leaning on the emergency call button….oops!!

Anyway, back to Salzburg!

Every day we would find a different café to have a small afternoon snack and alternated between sweet and savoury….cake one day, wurst and bread the next, Nathan tried Sacher Torte for the first time….so many choices that if we had stayed for weeks we wouldn’t have had to eat the same thing twice :)

By the end of the stay we had also been to the other restaurants in the cluster and visited the Austrian pub twice, the food there was authentic and the Radler with lemon was the perfect beer to wash it all down with.

Planning the next leg of the journey, we decided to get a sleeper train to Zagreb then connect to Ocijek, the nearest town to Ernestinovo, where my cousins Nena, Petar and Vladimir lived and where I would be meeting my father for Easter.

The only downside to the sleeper train was it left Salzburg at 1.30am.  The hotel was happy to store our bags for the day at no charge so we spent the last day exploring before going back to the lovely Austrian pub we had found for a few leisurely hours of eating and drinking before heading to the station for our train.

The sleeper carriage was very basic but it was such a relief to be able to finally lay down and get some sleep.

And the next day I woke up in Slovenia…..