From the City of Lights, we flew to neighboring Vienna, Austria. D left earlier and we followed in the afternoon. We thought we were fortunate to escape the high 30 temperature (around 95 to 100 degrees Fahrenheit) but was told by our cab driver that they just hit 41 degrees (105 degrees Fahrenheit) the day before.
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Salzburg from above[/caption]
We used Vienna as our base and spent Day 1 settling into our individual studio apartments. We couldn’t find an apartment to fit all of us so we had to book individual apartments. Fortunately, the apartments were all in one building. The apartment may have been a dorm room in the past since the apartments were arranged in groups of 4 with a secured door after the main entrance. We only saw the doors of the other apartments within but not the other occupants. Day 2 was spent at the Pandorf Shopping Outlet which I’ll write about in another post.
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Train Schedule[/caption]
Day 3 was spent traveling to and from Salzburg. We, in this instance, I didn’t do my research well and we ended up taking the OBB where it cost us EUR98 per person return. The other option was taking the WESBAHN or something similar to that which had cleaner train (and had free WIFI!) at a considerably cheaper price. We only found that out when we got on the train going back to Vienna and was informed by the inspector. We were given the option of paying an additional amount (I think it was Euro 25 each) to continue on with the journey or to get off at the next stop and wait for the right train. While WESBAHN was great, at that time, they had limited train services whereas the OBB had more services and shared the service with REX.
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Fortress from below[/caption]
Anyway, Salzburg was where we had an overdose of everything related to Mozart. We saw his bust at the square. We saw touristy kitsch touting everything about Mozart. I think there were even chocolates honoring the great musician.
We saw a fortress at the top of the hill, the Hohensalzburg Castle, and I declared that we must absolutely go. Actually, I wanted the vantage point so I could search for the cemetery. The cemetery surrounded the church. Find the church, find the cemetery.
We had our photos taken in one of the stalls where they dress up the clients in costumes and the photos come up looking like photos from the early 1900s or even 1800s. There were so many activities happening but because we didn’t want to miss our train back, we had to skip on a Mozart concert at the square.
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Tin soldiers in the War Museum inside the Castle[/caption]
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Torture implements to punish criminals or possibly deserters[/caption]
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Metal works in place of headstones[/caption]
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The love for the deceased loved ones were apparent at the flowers on the graves[/caption]
