Can I just say BEST. DAY. EVER! (in my best Rapunzel voice, of course!) Our second day in Salzburg was probably my favorite day on the trip (and we even got poured on so that's saying alot!). We started out by making the trek up to the Hohensalzburg Fortress. We ventured through Old Town, passing by most of the sites we had seen the day before.
Cute horses and carriages lined up and ready to take tourists around town...
It was really overcast but we were lame and left our one and only umbrella back at the hotel. When we got up to the top of the fortress, it started to rain. We decided to take check out the museums in the fortress and then took an audio tour in hopes the rain would pass by. The fortress was more of a museum. It wasn't set up like how it would have been back in the day, but instead had different museum rooms throughout with things from way back when.
A view of Salzburg from a cannon hole...
In the Marionette Museum...
In the weapon room...
In the music room...
The Salzburg Bull, an organ that Archbishop Leonhard von Keutschach supposedly had built in 1502 in order to
wake the town inhabitants at four in the morning and to signal the time for bed
at seven in the evening.
This section include various things from rooms used by the Archbishops. A fancy, schmancy furnace (called the Majolica Stove)...
Yep, that is what it looks like it is. Wonder where that empties to?
These next two are the ceiling and walls in the concert room...
Part of a wall that was excavated to show the original arches in the wall...
The fortress telephone system, I believe...
Doesn't look so comfy...
It was still raining but we wandered around the outside of the fortress trying to find the Abbey but didn't have much luck and decided to head back to Old Town since we were drenched and hungry! We finally found this little student cafe near Mozart University that Rick Steves recommended if you want a cheap meal while mingling with students away from the touristy places. Well, cheap is what we were going for and it ended up having the best soup and a stroganoff type rice dish, even if looking at the menu we had NO idea what it said or what we were ordering. I'm sure the lady behind the counter of the food line was just as frustrated with us as we were in trying to tell her what choices we wanted. Maybe it was because it was a warm meal and we were wet and cold, but it sure was a tasty, cheap meal!
My best "look-like-your-pouting-and-not-trying-to-smile-because-you-are-soaked-to-the-bone" face...
We headed back to our hotel to change into some dry clothes and get our coats. We had originally planned to rent bikes to find the rest of the Sound of Music sites but decided to drive instead because of the soggy weather. First up was the GAZEBO!
Since it was locked, we had to pretend we were dancing and leaping from bench to bench...
Next up was the mountain scene at the end of the movie when the von Trapp family is crossing into Switzerland. The scene was filmed here but ironically if they had actually taken this route, they would have ended up in Germany, right into Hilter's Eagle's Nest...probably not where they wanted to go!
They had a cable car ride that would take you up to the mountain top but we got to the ticket office and it was closed from April 8 to April 20...of course, the exact dates we were in Europe. Rob and I love watching the Amazing Race and this cable car ride reminded me of something the teams would have had to do on the show. Looking up at how high you would be hanging from this little cable actually freaked me out but I would have done it just to prove to myself that I would have to do something like that on the Amazing Race and I would conquer a fear! After taking pictures of where we could have gone, Mary Anne said, "Well, darn, what should we do now?" to which I quickly belted out in my best Mother Abbess voice, "Climb Every Mountain!" Oh man. Fun stuff.
See how high up you go?! The arrow on the left is near the starting point and then it takes you all the way to the arrow on top! Yeah, I think I might have hyperventilated on the way up!
Next stop in the GPS...the meadow. What meadow? We're not exactly sure. The opening scene when Maria sings "The hills are alive with the sound of music"? Or maybe when she starts to teach the children "Do Re Mi"? We're not sure we even found either of those but the mountain meadow that the GPS led us to was absolutely gorgeous! I want to live there! There were cute little houses up by the meadow and I can just imagine this peaceful little life there. Oh wait, I'm day dreaming again.
Here's Mary Anne and I trying to do our best Maria, spinning while singing the hills are alive...
This was the fun part. Rob would take pictures of us taking pictures. He put this little animated photo together with some of the shots.
Aww...my love!
Love this girl, too!
Next we headed to the von Trapp mansion (well...mansions) Did you know they used two different places for the front and back of the mansion?
Maria runs down this road doing heel clicks while carrying her suitcase and guitar case and singing "I Have Confidence in Me" so of course Mary Anne wanted to do it! Cue the heelclicking! We tried so hard to time it so both of us are jumping and clicking at the same time that Rob takes the picture. Not easy! I think this was the closest we got after laughing so dang hard while looking at the pictures on the camera that Rob had gotten so far.
The front view of the mansion...
And then on to the next site, the back side of the mansion with the lake...
And that was the end of the sightseeing in Salzburg. We went to dinner at an Indian restaurant in Old Town and then headed back to the hotel. One last night shot from the bridge...
And a few views on the walk back. A cool window display at pretzel shop...
And that, my friends, was Salzburg!
