Saturday, September 11, 2010

Salzburg to Vienna

Today has gone by quite rapidly and I see from looking at my watch that it is actually 12.45 am so its technically yesterday went by quite rapidly.

We spent the morning looking around Mozart's birthplace and the house he grew up in and getting a bit of a sense of his life. It was quite interesting (except for the couple of tour groups that intruded on our space!!). We then went up to the Festung Hohensalzburg (fortress which sits above Salzburg) via the funicular railway which is relatively short in distance but quite steep, from where you got great views of Salzburg and a bit of a sense of the history. With so much to remember I have to confess its hard to hang on to all the information. We then went back down the hill to St Peters (the place we mentioned yesterday that had the most beautiful little cemetery) to look inside the church. Again, it was very beautiful inside and quite peaceful. A lot of the Austrian decor is very ornate and possibly not the style that we would choose but it is lovely within the context of their history. We then went to the Residenz Zu Salzburgh (former representation building of Salzburg's Prince Archbishops) and had a look through the state rooms of the residence before catching the bus back to the hotel to pick up the car.

We both agree that this part of Austria is very lovely, quite relaxed in that it has a lot less tourists and the people seemed to be quite helpful. It is perhaps one of the places we have liked the most (okay, their might be some bias from those of us who admire organisation). In comparison to Italy they seemed to work harder at providing a good service for the tourists (e.g. even if you had to pay to use public bathrooms they were clean and readily available - and signposted! whereas Italy just didn't seem to bother with those sort of details often). I (G) noticed that they have an organised system for most things (e.g. the buses, English translations available for menus, etc) and it became increasingly easier once you recognised the system.

We had a fairly straightforward trip from Salzburg to Munich and the traffic moved at a steady speed (often about 120 - 130 kmph) so got to the drop off depot for the Peugeot about 1.5 hours early (we had allowed extra time as it was late afternoon on a Friday and thought the traffic might be building by then). Our GPS did well and has now been given a "techno holiday" for the next month. We caught a flight from Munich to Vienna (had forgotten all about having to go through security screening etc as it has been a while since thinking in that mode) so had to re-sort some of the luggage at the last minute to get the weight balance right and the contents in the right containers. Munich is quite a busy airport from the look of it and they took us out to the plane on a small bus (shades of Nepal/India in that way except they actually went a reasonable distance rather than drive in a square and drop you off 50 metres from where you got in). We finally arrived at our hotel in Vienna at about 11.30 pm to find they had given us a free upgrade on our room so currently enjoying a spacious and "all facilities" room for the next couple of nights. Even got free chocolates!!

Tomorrow (or should I say today) is sightseeing around Vienna and the Mozart Requiem at Karlskiche tonight so will update on that soon.

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