I got the day started by going to the market next to the hotel to get fresh bread and we had a breakfast of coffee and bread with butter and jam in the hotel room. We admired the nearby mountains as we ate – we didn’t see them upon arrival as it was very dark. After breakfast we headed into Salzburg for a day of sightseeing.
We had more difficulty than we expected during the 20-minute ride to the center of town. First, the GPS took us to the wrong destination (no idea how the destination got reset), then we had to dodge the aggressive buses. In Italy it is scooters; in Austria it is buses. The seem to think they own the roads.
We found a place to park and then walked into the “altstadt” (old city). I was in Salzburg in 1974 and thought I remembered a bit about the city, but I was wrong. Either my memory is faulty (all too possible) or the city has changed dramatically in 50 years (also possible). It was all new to me.
We managed to find Mozartplatz and then just wandered. We went into the Residenz and that led us io the Salzburg Cathedral. But we couldn’t get into the cathedral because a noon concert was in progress. So we went back into the square, did some shopping (yes, we bought a couple of souvenir magnets) and then started climbing toward the Hohensalzburg Fortress, a massive walled complex that lurks over the city.
We got some nice photos as will climbed to the fortress. But we didn’t go into the fortress as it was rather pricey and we weren’t sure it would be worth it. So we continued to walk around the hill, taking more photos.
We stopped at several churches when we got back to town. Then we looked for a restaurant. Marlene really wanted a “bratwurst sampler” – a meal with bratwurst, fleischwurst and weisswurst. We couldn’t find that, exactly, but did find a 3-sausage meal at the Goldene Kugel.
We logged over 14,000 steps in and around Salzburg. We were tired after our dinner so we headed back to the hotel. Marlene got a terrific sunset shot along the way.
I spent the evening editing photos, blogging and clearing some space on Marlene’s phone (she had received a warning about it being unable to back up her photos). That took a lot of time.
We slept well.