Salzburg!

This morning we had a kind of short (2:45 seems short now) train to Salzburg. I figured I'd finally take a picture of what our train looks like (although this isn't our typical train)

The scenery was gorgeous as we traveled through Austria from one side to the other.

And Salzburg is absolutely stunning. It is very likely that it's my favorite city. It's been the European city that I had in my head. More country and less busy. The only public transportation is a city bus. It is definitely small enough to easily walk. And our hotel is in an amazing location, close to everything. Mozart's house is even around the corner from us.

As we walked to our hotel we walked past a post office. We'd been meaning to send stuff home since Berlin, but had run out of time at each place to seek out a post office. So since we had everything on us, we stopped and made up a box of all of our souvenirs, gifts, and ornaments. I'm so excited to open it when I get home and re-live our adventure!

We continued our walk (it was only 15 minutes to our hotel), we saw a place that was selling pretzels, but not just any pretzels. No, these were giant pretzels, and different flavors. I got chocolate and Doug got pizza (we are so predictable...). They were really good, but really filling. I only ate half of mine (Doug finished it tonight for dinner).

We got to our hotel and rested for about 20 minutes. Once again, we were pleasantly surprised by it. (I love how they do blankets). And like I already said, the location was superb!

The entrance

Our room

We headed back out to the city. It was really nice to get to explore and do some stuff (and even found our ornament today), instead of squeezing everything into tomorrow. It helps that we got here around noon, instead of later, because we had more time before stuff started closing.

I didn't have a guidebook on Salzberg, but we figured we'd find tourist information here, which we did!

Pretzels shaped like instruments!

I asked Doug if our future children would be allowed to wear stuff like this (I think it's adorable). He's not to sold on the idea (but I've been trying to talk him into getting his own lederhosen, which he is not game for haha)

I didn't need a guide to tell me that this was in the Sound of Music. I recognized it right away! (It appears at the beginning of "I have confidence")

Our first stop (after a couple of souvenir shops) was Hohensalzburg Castle, a high fortress on the top of a mountain. We took a tram ride up to the top and then got an inclusive audio guide. We learned that they used to store salt up in the fortress (a major economic boost, since they mined it and used it to preserve food), and also that they used it for protection during the peasant's war and the 30 year war. It was never overtaken by force, although it was surrendered, without a fight, in 1800, to Napoleon.

Such amazing views of the mountains. And the clouds kept changing so I kept taking pictures. I'm gonna warn you now, I posted a lot. But I think they're amazing :)

Salzburg!

The original fortress wall that we walked down

The hills are alive...

We don't know what was going on, but they fired off a number of canons at a place much lower than where we were, and they were in official garb...

Stunning

:]

We found bratwurst! Although, technically they call this bratwurst hotdog, since it's served in a bun. So now we can say we had authentic bratwurst. We both decided that we like our Americanized Johnsonville brats better though!

Pretty streets lined with LOTS of shops (I dragged Doug into quite a few souvenir shops)

We walked around a little bit more, and found Mozart's birth place. We didn't go inside, because we know about Mozart (or can google all the information), and it was rather expensive for what was said to be inside (portraits, letters, and instruments). I was content with seeing the outside of the building. It's fun to be able to point at it and say, "that's where he was born."

We walked across the river and found the house where Mozart lived for 7 years, and where his dad had died. We took a picture of the outside. -"that's where he lived"

Right down the street was the Salzburg Cathedral. We didn't tour that one either, but maybe we will tomorrow.

We came back to our hotel a little early in the day, but satisfied and tired. We have internet in our lobby, but since we're right above it, we're able to get it in our room (score!).

We decided to watch The Sound of Music, and we're already going ,"We've been there!" for the stuff that we recognize and have been to (like the fortress). We figured that it'd be good to have the sights fresh in our mind for tomorrow's tour.

I'm so excited for this tour! And I'm in love with Salzburg. We agreed that if we had to pick a city that we've visited to live in, it'd be here :)