Salzburg

On the 9th of May, we caught a train (2nd class this time but with a compartment for only 6 people so it was not as loud as the normal train cars) to Salzburg.  It was amazing to see the country side.  It was so green and mostly farm land.  They have the rapeseed (canola oil) that grows everywhere so you have these pretty looking yellow flowers all over the country side.

We took a taxi over to our apartment not knowing that we could have walked it in about 40 mins with our luggage but since we were new to the town, it was better that we took the taxi until we familiarized ourselves with the town.

The buildings off to the right is the area that our apartment was in.  The apartment was built in 1374.  We were on the top floor or 4th floor with no elevator.  At the top of each set of stairs you could find a crucifix with Christ hanging on it.  We wondered if this was incase you could not make it any more and died right there on the stairs at least you could make your peace.

Our first day was mostly just night since we did not arrive until around 5.  We asked our housekeeper, Igor, where we should eat to get authentic Austrian food.  We decided to stop at an outdoor place to eat.  We were not very bright to bring our jackets - after the 4 flights of stairs, we were toasty so we did not think we needed jackets.  When the sun went down it was chilly.  We ordered our first schnitzel.

For those of you that do not know what schnitzel is, it is pork that is cooked kind of like chicken fried steak.  This plate had Vienna style potatoes with parsley.  Mike was not as brave to try the schnitzel.  We thought it needed some gravy like you would put on the chicken fried steak but it was still yummy.

  

 Our first full day we stayed in town to look around.  We ate breakfast at the Mozart Cafe.  Then we went to the Fortress and rode the train up the mountain side.

riding up the train

views from the Fortress - this is so they could see who was coming to attack them.

I was getting tired of all the pictures that Mike wanted me in and I thought he had cut me out of this one - guess not!  This is one of the cannon windows in the Fortress with the original cannon.

This was the marionette museum inside the Fortress.  In the floor were these glass holes that looked down to money (We were thinking a wishing well type thing.) and this creepy marionette that would wave at you.

Payton and I wanted to be part of the Von Trapp family - can you find us?

When we were done with the Fortress, we came upon a large chess set.  Payton likes to play chess so we stopped to let him enjoy seeing the large pieces.

This is the same plaza as the chess set.  Each year they showcase some artist's work - this was one of a giant gold ball with a man on top. The man looked real as we were walking up to it.

This is the plaza behind our apartment

This was called the Cloak of Peace.

This was a church close by.  There were some musicians playing songs and selling nesting dolls.  We bought a small set from them.

This is Mozart's birth place house.

We went over to the Mozart life museum (we decided that this would be more worth the money than going into the birth place just to see where he was birthed)  It was fun to see some of the original pianos (harpsichords) he used.  It was also hot in this place so Payton and I went faster than Mike did.  We stopped at a map of some of the places he and his sister and dad traveled to performing for people.

We passed some quick frankfurter type places on the way back but thought we could eat closer to home. We stopped at the grocery store to get some food for lunch to take with us for the next day.  We got more than we thought we would and did not know you had to have your own bags.  We had to buy some bags to carry them back with.  We took the food back to the apartment and went back out to eat and crossed the bridge to get some frankfurters or something.  They were all closed at 6.  We are ashamed that we stopped at McDonalds to eat dinner.  It was our first and last time in Europe.  Mike made me order so I could have the experience.  I got brave because all the other places we had been that day spoke some English.  They had McRoyals instead of quarter pounders.  The meat tasted different than it does at American stores.  The fries were the same.  I asked for a kid's meal for Payton but was not understood because it is called a Happy Meal and that is all they know it by in English and they did not speak much English here.  I learned more understanding for people that do not speak the same language where they are living or visiting.

The next day we did a day trip out of the town to Bergesgarden.  We went to two places - one the salt mine and the other was Kongissee (or King's Lake).  We took the bus about 30 mins or so our to Bergesgarden and then took another back to the salt mine.

We went in and were immediately given these outfits (this is not us in the photos because we did not think we could take photos in them since we saw signs that said no photos.)  We happened to come on a day that an elementary group and middle school group had come on a field trip.  It is strange to be around a big group and be the only one not speaking the language everyone else is speaking.

We waiting in line to take a small train into the mine.  When we got off the train we were given the history of the mine (we were given translation devices).  Our first stop was this.......

This is how the real miners would get to each level of the mine.  I am afraid of heights and did not want to do this but did not want to be the only person to walk the stairs down so there we were.  Payton and Mike had a great time and we were all laughing the whole way down.

By the end of the tour we had seen how they mine salt - basically just like the coal and copper mines here in Utah.   We were given small salt shakers with the salt that they mine.

We then walked back to the bus stop and saw that we would have to wait another 30 mins for it to come and then cut it really close to catch the next bus to Kongissee so we started to walk it back.  It was hot that day too and it was a longer walk than we thought it was.  Sitting on the bus was a nice break from all the walking.

We had to ask directions to the docks to get the boat to take us on to the lake.  (a side note, President Monson likes to go on this lake when he is in the area.)  There was a huge tour group of elderly people.  They filled 2 whole boats plus the one we were on.  They did not have English translation so we just nodded and smiled when everyone else was laughing.

They stop at this point on the lake and play a trumpet and it echos off the mountains around it.  There is only one way into the lake other than hiking over the mountains.  I did a video of the trumpet - if you listen closely you can hear the echo - it is real faint on the video.

This is the first stop on the ride up.  It takes about 30 mins to get here.  We decided to stay on so we would have plenty of time to catch the bus back to Bergesgarden to catch the bus back to Salzburg.

This was the second and last stop.  We got off here because we needed a restroom.  Yes, we had to pay for this one too.  We turned the corner and the restrooms did not have the stick figures to show you which one to use.  It only had the names in German.  We guessed and I made Payton go into his first to make sure we had guessed right.  We had!

After this photo we stuck our hands in the lake.  It was cold water.

We learned that the word fahrt means exit.  You see it everywhere on the highways and the train stations with other words in front of it.

Some random carving on one of the mountain walls on the lake.

We walked back to the bus stop and had a Chinese couple ask us in English if we were going back to Bergesgarden too.  It was strange to have someone talk to us in English.  We stopped when we got back to Salzburg and had Brats and fries and ate them at the apartment.  They basically put fry sauce on the fries but put ketchup and mayo separate on the fries.  We carried them the four flights up laughing the whole time that we were going to drop dead each flight because this was our second time up in less than an hour.

The next day we left on a train back to Wiesbaden, Germany to finish out our Europe stay.

We had reserved seats in another compartment on the ride back.  We got to our seats and there was someone in them.  This is allowed if no one is in the seat during the leg of your trip.  You just have to ask them to move and they should.  This man did not speak English and was trying to tell us that his companion was out smoking and would be back in (this man looked like Russian mob or something).  She got back and tried to tell us that they were already in the seats and we tried to tell them we had the seats reserved.  She did not speak English and we did not speak German.  Finally she gestured that we take the 3 other seats in the compartment.  We were fine with that and we sat down.  They were on the train for about an hour and then got off.  We then had the compartment to ourselves except for the other man that was in the compartment when we got on.  About an hour later an elderly couple got on and the other man was in their seat so he moved over one and decided to spend the rest of his ride standing in the walkway in the hall.  After he got off the train, the elderly lady sitting next to Payton started getting lunch out.  She pulled out a bag with two apples and gave them to Payton to eat.  We then explained that we spoke no German and they spoke no English but they were very nice to us.

In all Salzburg was our favorite spot.  The people were friendly.  Even the bus drivers who spoke little English still tried to help us know where to go.  The scenery was amazing - green everywhere we looked.  Maybe we will make it back to Europe and can see more of Austria.