Nächste Halt: Salzburg

We spent Friday night in Salzburg, arriving late in the day and just in time for dinner. So we had a traditional Austrian meal of...SUSHI!

Alright, so perhaps it is not so much traditional. But when one lives in a German-speaking country, one does start to crave anything besides pork, potatoes and stinky cheeses. Nagano's, in the Old City, was the best sushi we have had in Europe to date. And perhaps the cheapest dinner as well at less than €40 for both of us.

After dinner we had a bit of a walk about...

I have started to believe that all of Europe is in a constant state of renovation, not surprising given how old most of the buildings are. The renovations are generally covered up with screens or large cloths. And frequently those screens have pictures, such as an image of what the structure looks like when it is not being renovated. After all, even the locals would forget given how long renovations tend to take.

But I was surprised to see this on the front of the Salzburger Dom...


Yes, Ladies and Gentlemen, that is an advertisement for H&M!

We next took the funicular...


Up to Festung Hohensalzburg...

Festung is German for "fortress." And Hohensalzburg had all the requirements of such, including a prime location for cannonballing any who should try to climb to its battlements.

The funicular service runs until 11:30 every evening. By going later in the day, we missed the crowds, the heat and the sun.

What we had instead was a glorious view of a sun beginning to set over the Austrian Alps...


Close to the funicular station is a beautiful fountain. Although I am afraid I haven't a clue what it might be called.



Our ramble through the now nearly dark streets continued.


And we enjoyed looking in the shop windows. I have to say, Salzburg has some of the most beautiful window displays I have ever seen. Nearly every window we saw was beautifully decked out.

An astounding number of shops sell dirndls, both off the rack and custom-tailored.


It also seems to be Christmas year round in Salzburg...


(The next morning we had to go back to this shop to get some of their beautifully painted eggs for our Christmas tree ornament collection!)

And many know that the famous composer, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, was born in Salzburg. But did you also know he had a side-job hawking chocolates?


Our evening finished with a bottle of champagne and fresh strawberries at the rooftop bar of the Hotel Stein. Where we were able to catch the very end of the sunset...

We had intended to wake up bright and early the next morning to drive around and see some of the film locations for The Sound of Music. I used to watch that movie when they showed it on tv every Fall and was really looking forward to seeing some of the places in person. Unfortunately, the hotel failed to perform our wake up call and we didn't roll out of bed until 10 am.

Since GLH was bound and determined to keep as close to our itinerary for the day as possible, he nixed the TSOM driving tour. Instead we headed down to the shops to pick up some of those wonderful eggs ornaments. GLH also surprised me by purchasing the TSOM soundtrack, reasoning that listening to it as we drove through the Austrian Alps would be good enough!

Well he was wrong, so I tricked him and changed our GPS navigation for a detour past Leopoldskron, the house used as the film location for the Von Trapp Family home.

Unfortunately it is private property and completely surrounded by a fence and very large trees. I perhaps would have climbed the fence if not for the many cameras. (Do you think the cameras were installed because others already thought of climbing the fence?)

But at least we were able to see the road where the children hung from the trees singing when their father drove home!

As we left Salzburg, GLH started up the soundtrack and I amazed him by knowing every single word to every single song in it!