Europe 2011

Yesterday was a very long day…

I woke up at 2:30am did not get back to sleep.  I did head southeast to the town of Salzburg, Austria.   I caught the ÖBB (Austrian Railways) RailJet train from Munich to Salzburg. There in just under 90 minutes – faster than by car (and much cheaper!) and much more relaxing.  Hint – take the 7:20-ish train – it puts you into Salzburg before most of the tourists are there…

I spent the morning wandering around Salzburg – basically following the Walking tour in Rick Steves’ guidebook.  Starting at the Mozart’s status, I hit the Dom Cathedral – it was amazing inside.  Rebuilt after World War II, it’s been restored and has beautiful architecture as well as paintings inside. After visiting the cathedral I backtracked to the town square to view the Glockenspiel.  Back on the walking tour took you to another square – this one had a giant chess board on it as well as Gold Sphere with a man standing on top looking at the fortress – to quote RS: trying to decide whether to walk or take the funicular to the top…

I then visited the old waterwheel (which was running) and has been used to mill grains – right next to a bäckerei that makes a very good süß-Brot (sweet bread) which I tried as well as a Rye bread – all natural and no preservatives – you have to eat them right there and then. After more wandering around, I stopped for lunch at a small sausage stand (again from the guidebook) – the lady who was pictured in the book wasn’t there, but the curry sausage with mustard was amazing.  After a quick stop at McD’s to use the WC (€0,50 🙁 ), I continue down Getreidegasse (the main shopping street in Salzburg), pass Mozart’s birthplace (mostly tourists taking pictures of a building with a sign saying “Mozart’s Birthplace”) then back to the town square.

Up next is the Hohensalzburg fortress – there are two options to get there (normally) – Funicular (railway that goes up the side of the mountain) and on foot.  Today, the funicular was closed, so to see the fortress, it was on foot – climbing steep stairs (at first) then steep dirt paths – very tiring and thus, not a whole lot of people going up there (though folks with kids had the kids asking “why are you going so slow?” to the parents 😉 ).  Once inside the fortress (and €5,90 lighter…), more steep walkways and once on the edge – amazing views of the city.  I spent a while taking quite a few pictures – then went into to view the museum about the fortress.  Finally, the hard part – going down.  Usually not a problem, but these were steep roads, not really meant for walking. Up took more of the breath away – which came back quickly; down was hard on knees and toes – just take lots of short steps and you make it down fine – though I was definitely glad to get to the stairs toward the bottom.

After deciding to head back to the train station, I caught the bus (where I had gotten off) – and based on the map – it went two stops – made a right turn then turned around.  Ha! After the making that right turn, it kept going and going – I found a bus map and it still had many miles to go before it turned around.  I got off and waited for the return bus.  For future reference – cross the river to catch the bus back to the train station.   So rather than catching the 2pm train back to Munich, I caught the 3pm train back, which put me back into Munich around 5:30pm.

After heading back to the hotel to drop off some items, I headed out to hunt down all of the Fasching activities (aka, Mardi Gras for the folks from New Orleans and Galveston).  By the time I got downtown, it was over – everything was shutting down and the town square was a disaster of beer bottles (glass – and often broken), confetti and miscellaneous other trash.  Cleanup was already beginning – I suspect (and will verify Wednesday evening) that the square will be spic and span clean by Wednesday morning.

Since I missed the drunken party, I decided to head to the Hofbräuhaus for ein Bier and Abendessen.  I found a table, ordered a Hofbräu Weiße and pork with potato “dumplings”. I ate, drank, took some pictures for  a group of Japanese tourists, some more for a group from Spain – had a few taken of myself – then headed to the main hall to view the Oompah Band and folks dancing. I then headed back to the hotel as it was getting late.

Tschüß!