September 2014

We decided to take a day trip to Salzburg from Munich seen as we were so close. After an early start to make the train we arrived in Salzburg. Our first encounter with an Austrian was great. The lovely man in the office we brought tickets for the day from found maps for us and even Gummi-Bears.

We arrived in the old-town around 9.30am and found the place quiet and quite deserted. It was a great way to find our way to the Schatz Conditorei pastry shop that I had read about to have cake for breakfast. Lewis had Sachertorte and I had Mohntorte (apple with poppy seeds with toasted meringue on the top). The poppy seeds and apples went together a treat. The gritty texture of all of the poppy seeds was great against the soft and smooth meringue and cinnamon apples. Lewis latte looked fairly good too.

Full of cake we walked up to the Kapuzinerberg lookout on the opposite of the river (300 stairs later). This place gave amazing views of the old town with the castle behind it. It was beautiful and we spent a good hour up there just enjoying the view of the hills, the castle and the old town area.

The lookout is beside a monastery. There wasn’t much to see as it was all fenced off but the statues outside it were still pretty awesome.

I feel that our time in Salzburg was a little different than most others as Mozart and the Sound of Music were not our main reasons for visiting (the reality is that we didn’t have a main reason to visit except to explore). We found out where all the people were in the morning. They were on the sound of music tour. The amount of tour groups of 50+ people that passed us was amazing (at least 15-20 groups during the day). We did walk past where Mozart grew up (the yellow building). The amount of people getting pictures there was pretty ridiculous!

We continued on and saw the amazing buildings like the Dom, the streets with their beautiful old-school signs, the churches and monasteries. We didn’t go up to the castle after being all castled out from the day before and already having seen the view of the old town from the other side of the river.

Our lunch was at popular Italian restaurant. We had a delicious vegetarian pizza and ice-cream spaghetti. The novelty of the spaghetti ice-cream was great. The fresh strawberries definitely helped to make it even more amazing. It was just what we needed considering how hot it was.

Salzburg was also preparing for it’s own Oktoberfest so carnival stalls were being set up everywhere. The amount of people that were walking around in their traditional dindl's was unbelievable. Apparently this happens quite a bit.

We went to the Mirabell Castle and gardens on the other side of town. The gardens were immaculate. Everything was an exact replica of the other side. It was beautiful! We didn’t stay to long as there was little shade and it was an amazingly hot day (28 degrees with no breeze).

Before we left I found the hotel that claims to have the original Sachertorte. After seeing the ridiculous price I decided that the original is likely to be just as good as a replica. It helped that I was already caked out from our breakfast.

We also had our first experience with Almduder drink (Only sold in Austria). It was delicious and tasted just like Chi. Being a Chi lover at home I figured it was a good thing to know about for when we hit Vienna in a few weeks time. It was a great little day trip. The place definitely has charm.