Saturday 20 June 2015

Salzburg, Austria

The unfortunate occurrence of my visa ending has to have some kind of silver lining, right?

Of course there is! Something that pretty much all those my age do these days - TRAVEL!

I had a couple free weeks before the start of my Asia trip so where better to spend my time than in the relaxing city of Salzburg before the more happening cities of Hannover and Berlin.

I took the cheap option and flew into Linz to take the train to Salzburg. The trains were a bit of good luck, had a whole train compartment to myself! It was very Harry Potter-esque.

I checked in to my hostel, YoHo International Hostel and had a quick nap after arranging dinner with a fellow traveller I had connected with on Facebook.

We had a lovely Austrian dinner before buying a cheap bottle of wine each and making our way up to Hohensalzburg Fortress. We sat on the fortress wall, playing our drinking games, watching the sunset over Salzburg.


It was such a lovely view and then the rains came! Luckily, the rain only lasted as long as the wine did! 

Luckily, the next day saw the sun shining brightly and a short walk bring the sweat on!  Unfortunately I had not looked at the extended weather forecast, otherwise I would have made more of the sun on Wednesday instead of making use of my bed for a nap! 

Thursday I woke up early to go on a tour to the Eagle's Nest. 
The Eagle's Nest was built high up on a mountain in the 1930s as a present for Hitler's 50th birthday. It was purely for conferences and Hitler only visited around 10 times. 

Unfortunately, I thought the actual building wasn't worth the price, but the view is absolutely to die for (and 6 - 8 people did die during construction).



Even on the rainy, cloudy day I went the mountains are magnificent to view. And I even met a lovely couple from Adelaide up there!

Thursday night had me back at the same restaurant, Zum Eulenspiegel with a bloke from the hostel. They have their own gluten free menu so I had some Austrian cuisine options. Unfortunately the rain stopped us from exploring Salzburg Old Town at night so we made our way back to the hostel for the nightly viewing of Sound of Music. 
I had to have a refresher of the songs as on Friday morning I was on another tour, this time to the different locations of Salzburg that are featured in the film.

We drove past the Von Trapp villa, the lake in the boating scene, the gazebo and the church in Mondsee where the wedding took place as well as the different locations featured in the 'Do Re Mi' song.




Typically, the sun had to come out and stop the rain AFTER the tour had ended. I made the most of it and wandered into the Old Town where I stumbled across a fresh food market! Score! No more paying €3.50 for breakfast! And the size of the strawberries! I'm pretty sure they were bigger than my nephew's head when he was born! 
Luckily, the fresh fruit, cheese and ham have sustained me all today as I have been cooped up inside the hostel due to the miserable weather.



Hopefully Germany will bring out the sunshine for me on Monday. 





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