Friday, April 20, 2007

TO SALZBURG

Up at 6:15 am, with a knock on the door from the night manager - no phone in the room.

Left the pension at 7 am and walked up Skodagasse to the tram stop. The tram had two cars, the second of which stopped in front of the shelter we were waiting in. We stepped on the tram with a push of the outside button to open the doors. Following the instructions from our night manager, we went to a little grey box to put in our 2 Euro coins. SE pushed her first 1 Euro coin into the only slot in the box - turned out it was the ticket reader slot. The coin jammed in there and no amount of prying could release it. The passengers didn't seem amused. They're probably talking about us the way we talk about our dumb tourists in the Yukon.

At the Westbanhof stop, I walked up to the front tram car (which is where we were supposed to go in the first place to buy a ticket) to try and pay the driver. But, the tram started forward just before I could knock on the door.

The money we saved on tram fare helped pay for breakfast in the train station.

Got on our train to Salzburg, but we couldn't identify the car numbers from the outside. Once we were on we had to move forward through narrow aisles and hallways five cars to find our compartment. The seats were not as comfortable as the other trains we had been on. However, the scenery more than made up for it. Very picturesque villages and farmland, dotted with the churches/steeples.

Arrived Salzburg just after 11 am. Went to the train ticket office and got a schedule printed out for tomorrow's ride to Heidelberg. Should be interesting with train changes in Munich and Stuttgart.



At the train station tourist information booth we made a reservation at the Trumer Stube pension. A short bus ride on Bus 5 from in front of the train station took us to within a block. A lovely place on a very narrow curved, old-town street.

Just down the street, Bergstrasse, we found a little café where we ate some sort of Austrian dumpling dish - and more beer.

Across the street was a bank machine and SE had seen a man use it, then come to our café. Moments later she noticed another man approach the machine, pulled out some money and looked about in confusion. Right away SE realized the previous man had withdrawn cash, but left it in the machine. She got the second man's attention and directed him to our café, where the money was given to the first man, now seated at the table next to us. The staff at the café seemed to know him, so he was the subject of some friendly ridicule.





At 2 pm we were picked up by a van for our 1 1/2 hour guided tour of Salzburg. Our guide, Thomas, gave the tour in perfectly fluent English and Spanish. There was a couple from Barcelona, a couple from Guatemala, and a couple from Great Britain, and us. Thomas flipped back and forth between the languages with an ease that was very impressive. He said he was born in Salzburg, so he obviously speaks German as his first language.





In addition to the downtown sites, he also took us to Hellebrunne Castle (photo left), where we could get out and walk around. Good thing too, because on the way there the Spanish women beside me fell asleep with her head back, mouth wide open, and started snoring not so softly, until her husband nudged her awake.









Our tour guide dropped us off at the Mozart Museum where we had an audio tour of the house Mozart was born in and spent his childhood until moving to Vienna.








After coffee we walked to the Mirabelle gardens. Much of it is laid out in formal gardens with fountains, old walls covered with wisteria, and beautiful trees in bloom.















At the end of the gardens there are steps up to a higher level where you can look back over the gardens into St Peter's church and the Salzburg fortress above - awesome!

















One part of the gardens has a rounded vine-covered walkway. As I was taking a photo down it, a woman with a baby carriage stopped at the far end, bathed in sunlight - an award-winning photo.









Dinner was in a nice café near our pension. We shared a chicken breast dish with pasta and a great salad. We were finding that Austrians don't seem to eat salads or vegetables.

Dessert was an apple strudle. Drinks included beer, and coffee with our dessert.

Walking back to the pension, the narrow streets were filled with booths selling drinks and food, crowded with people. It seemed to be the Friday evening happy hour. Down our street there were two pubs with revellers spilling out into the street and carrying on into the wee hours of the morning - a few until about 6 am.