Salzburg

Begrudgingly Chris drove us out of Germany and to Salzburg, the fourth largest state in Austria and its capital. The Austro-Bavarian name is Såizburg which translated literally means "Salt Fortress." Yummy. I was very excited to visit here not only because of the filming of one of my favorite movies Sound of Music on location, but also because of the rich history and its beautiful setting in the mountains. It was everything that could be expected and definitely lived up to at least my expectations. Driving through it was a little confusing as we weren't sure where everything was and where would be the best location to park. We did find a sign eventually for the Palace of Mirabell so we parked at a nearby parking garage and got out to explore around on foot.
When you walk through the town you are quickly drawn in by the baroque architecture and the old-fashioned setting. It is like you are in another world and are in some kind of period piece film. I had Mozart music in my head the whole time, but I do think they were playing it throughout the town so that could be why. The gardens were beautiful and vibrant with color. When we first got there the place was overrun with a huge group of Asian tourists who all had to had their picture on the step where Frauline Maria sings her famous high note at the end of Do Re Mi (see below). So I had to do a walk around and come back through after they left to get the picture I wanted-much to Chris' resentment.




Despite the Sound of Music tours and the filming of the movie, all that aside, it really was a beautiful place to tour and I am so glad that we made the extra stop. We did do the other touristy stop and I got the picture that I wanted of the front of Mozart's house on Getreidegasse, Salzburg's most famous shopping street. Chris was really eager to get to Munich so we didn't spend too much time there. Just enough to get the feel for the city and to know that I would really like to see more of Austria. Maybe just avoid the major highways or get a sticker :)

On a side note, it seemed we made really good timing. We had arrived there fairly early in the morning, but as twelve o'clock approached the place became swarmed with tourists, cameras, and lederhosen. When we were walking down the street to head towards our car, we looked back over at the bridge which was completely packed with people rushing to hurry over to get to Mozart's birth house and God knows what else. The gardens I'm sure get run over by noon time so I am glad we got all the pictures we wanted or we would have Bavarian wannabes in every shot!

From there, we carried on to Munich. We drove to the airport where we had to part ways with our car. It did great the whole trip and there were never any issues.
This is a picture of what it looked like.





We then caught a train to the city of Munich which I was so excited to see!!