Salzburg

Thursday morning, we headed to Salzburg. Valorie looked forward to taking the "Sound of Music" tour there. After barely making the noon train, we made it to Salzburg about 20 minutes before the last tour of the day. With the help of the information desk folks, we were signed up and trucked over to the beginning of the bus tour in downtown Salzburg.

The bus was full of English-speaking folks - apparently the tour's considered a little 'schmaltzy' for the locals. Josef said he'd lose his citizenship if he came with us! We ran through several of the sites used in making the film, with the soundtrack playing over the bus stereo when the guide wasn't talking. (Remember, this was Valorie's idea...)

After the tour, we walked through Salzburg looking for dinner. What's safe when you can't read the menus? Pizza...you can't screw that up. We found a great place where I got a pizza for €5.90, even though the Cokes were €3.30! They make a really nice thin crust pizza in Europe, but they don't cut it for you; you're supposed to eat it with a fork and knife like anything else. Forget that...

We had a pass that let us use the bus service as much as we wanted, so we tried to take a bus back to the hotel room. Unfortunately, we didn't know which bus would do that, so just jumped on one randomly. As a result, we got a thorough tour of the outer suburbs of Salzburg.

When we finally got back to the hotel, I turned on the TV, but only two channels came in English - CNBC Europe and CNN Europe. I ended up watching a little CSI in German, which doesn't translate well...it's hard to figure out what's going on since it's a very verbal show. Spongebob and movies like Anaconda were much easier to keep up with in a foreign language. One weird thing about the hotel room - the shower curtain was not as wide as the shower! You could try anything you want, but there was always going to be a gap...not such a big deal since the showerhead was in the middle of the tub?!?

That pass we got allowed us to enter most sites in town for free, so today we did a whirlwind tour of Salzburg, visiting museums, the fortress, magnificent churches, Mozart's birthplace, and more before heading back on the train this evening. It's been great weather here, but today was in the upper 80's at least. We cooked while walking around town, but especially in the train, where the glass magnified the heat. The air conditioners in the train and our hotel room were both either broken or ineffective, so it's been a hot day. Fortunately the churches were all built from solid stone, so they were probably 20-30 degrees cooler than the outside, and a welcome break from the heat.