Settling in to Salzburg

Okay, I was a bit harsh in my description of Salzburg. It was a hard travel day, but now we have settled in, gotten to know the neighborhood, learned to tolerate the jack hammers and are planning our next visit.

Yesterday we took the Sound of Music tour, our guide was really funny and the hills were definitely alive. After a day with our guide and a Mozart concert and dinner in the Salzburg fortress that has been standing for 1000 years give or take 500, history has never been my strength. We dashed home in the rain and feel like this is a city to love.

Today, we walked about 8 miles along the river out to a town called Hellbraun and visited a castle for lunch. Garlic soup and green salad, yummmm. We have decided we have seen enough churches to last the rest of the trip, but castles, we love castles. Many  more castles to come in Germany.  Salzburg has 38 churches in a very small area, we can't keep them straight. They should be good landmarks. But green onion domes are a dime a dozen and they all look the same to us.

However, we are able to navigate a lot better after three days, and I have had lots less trouble with street beggars. I think we were targets walking with our luggage. We are taking the bus back to the train station tomorrow, avoiding the mile of walking with our luggage.

Our host here, Vivian, has been great, so helpful and friendly. She is 28 and taking on the running and ownership of this hotel. Pretty bold. She fixes us cappuccinos in the morning and has a wonderful spread of food for her guests in a cozy dinning room. Will definitely come back. For the record the name is Trummer-Strube.

It was just a short walk out of the city where all of the bike riders and baby carriages are wheeling along. We spent most of our day hoofing along the trails.

The Lake District is so beautiful, and Monsee is worth a second look. Next time I would like to come during the festival and take in much more Mozart. We went to his residence today for a bit of history, found it disappointing. The main emphasis was on authentication images of him. He is the most  painted musician in history. So lots of imitations that were done of other people and the later changed to Mozart when he got famous.  I would have preferred another concert, his chamber music is so great here in his city.

Off to Munich tomorrow,