To Europe and Back

A Perfect Day in Salzburg

Since we were asleep so early, we had no trouble getting up early to get our day started. We had breakfast at the hostel (yes, we ate at the hostel far too often) and headed to the Mirabell Gardens to meet up for Fraulein Maria's Bike Tour (who incidently has the most poorly optimized website ever). Salzburg is famous for being where The Sound of Music was filmed and for being Mozart's hometown. This tour focused on the sights featured in the The Sound of Music, but was an outstanding overview of Salzburg. We biked about 14km total, covering most of Salzburg's major sights, but the most impressive part was the amazing views of the mountains throughout the tour. Our guide, Ian, was kind enough to wait while the members of our tour (8 of us total) visited Hellbrunn to tour the trick fountains. Clearly the Archibishop who called Hellbrunn home had a great sense of humor, and didn't mind if his guests got a little wet while they visited.

Hungry after our morning of bike riding, we stopped at Stieglkeller for some beers overlooking the city and some cheese and sausage to refuel. We walked down from the top of the hill and stopped at Cafe Tomaselli for another beverage, pastries and people watching. Cafe Tomaselli is 300 years old and serves outstanding hot chocolate -- the balcony was also a great place for watching the many people wandering through the square -- everyone from folks in tuxes and evening gowns heading to the opera to families with small children and even a troop of Girl Guides (many of whom happened to be staying at our hostel).

We headed back to our hostel, exhausted from our day, and left only to wander a few streets away to get a couple of currywursts for dinner... someone on http://www.chowhound.com had raved about them -- it was fine, but was just a sausage covered in ketchup and curry powder. Back at the hostel we hung out with a couple of our roommates from California in the bar until it was time to crash.

posted by Heather @ 3:45 PM