Austria - day 1

I've wanted to go to Salzburg for a while now. Our original plan was to go for the Salzburg Festival that takes place at the end of July and all of August. But, by the time we actually got around to it, all of the tickets were sold out to anything we wanted to see. We didn't feel like dealing with the crowds if we didn't have the reward of a Mozart opera, so we went the weekend before the festival started.

Non-alpy Alps

We got up at 4 and got ready as quickly as we could. We were out the door by 4:45, and on our way. I started driving, and Max tried to nap. I tried to get Em to nap, too, but she was having nothing of it. I did make her lay there with her eyes closed for an hour. I knew it was going to be a long day, and I didn't want her cranky. Most of the trip was pretty boring, but when we got close to Austria, we started to see Alps. It was pretty cool. Em had seen Alps when she had gone down to Pisa with the Girl Scouts, but I had only seen them from the plane to Rome. In this part of Germany & Austria, the Alps are actually pretty small. Definitely mountains, but nothing like when you think of the Alps.
I missed  the Austria EU sign that I always try to get when we go to another country (the blue one with the country name in a circle of stars that you've seen in my other posts), but I got this one.

 

This sign is actually telling us that we need to go buy a vignette, the special sticker to put on the car that everybody needs to have to drive on Austrian freeways. We didn't realize it, though. We knew we needed one for Switzerland, but we didn't know we needed one for Austria. Oops. We went merrily on our way.

Do, a deer, a female deer

I had looked online and found that the Salzburg Marionette Theater did a marionette version of Sound of Music that I thought would be fun. I had looked at getting the tickets online, but I didn't see anything about being able to pick them up at Will Call, and I was afraid they wouldn't get to us in time at home. So, we decided to just get them that morning. We picked a parking structure close to the theater, and got our tickets. Instead of going all the way to the hotel (since we needed parking, we had to get a hotel outside of downtown) and coming back, we just stayed in that parking structure. Conveniently, the theater was very close to where we needed to get on our hop-on, hop-off bus at Mirabell Gardens. When I looked at my voucher for the bus, I noticed that it had the wrong date on it. I'm still not sure how that happened. Luckily, though, the lady accepted it, and let us get on anyway. Whew! We had some time before the bus left, so we went into the gardens, since it was one of the places we wanted to see anyway. It's one of the places featured in Sound of Music, when Maria & the kids are singing "Do Re Mi"
It had been sprinkling the whole time, but it really started raining when we got on the bus. People said it was a really walkable city, but I'm glad we had the bus. It would have been yucky to have to walk the whole time in the rain. Along the way, we saw where Doppler was born.

We hopped off at the stop for Mozart's birthplace. Unfortunately, the maps that come with the bus tours aren't exactly to scale. The town doesn't really look like a few major roads with a couple of huge buildings sticking out of the top. Luckily, though, the picture for Mozart's street had a very distinctive chapel at the end, so while we didn't know exactly where on the street the house was, we at least knew we were on the right street. We stopped in many tourist souvenir shops on our way down the street. Max really wanted a hat. I really wanted a dirndl, but they were way too expensive. I'm not willing to spend over 300€ (almost $450) on a costume. I did wish that Em were smaller, though, because they had some truly adorable outfits for little girls. 

We found Mozart's birthplace simply because there was a tour group milling around in front, and I thought they were in line for something. They weren't in line at all, but I'm glad they were there, because we probably would have missed it otherwise. Mozart was born in the 3rd floor apartment of this building on January 27, 1756. There wasn't actually a line at all, which was nice. I was kind of disappointed that the rooms weren't furnished like rooms, (I love that kind of museum. I think that's why I like castles & palaces so much) but there were some pretty cool pieces of memorabilia, like the little violin he played as a child. There was no photography allowed, and too many attendants in a close space to do it secretly. We had lunch in the cafe attached to the museum. It lured us in with a cheap soup & salad price, so we sat down. The menu was the first one in a long time where I understood very little, and I had to have the waitress help. Then the menu for the day was fish. Yuck. Max got the fish, but Em & I ordered Wienerschnitzel. They were out of Wienerschnitzel, so, Em & I had to pick something new while the waitress stood over us.  I recognized the word "ravioli," so we went with that. As she was pulling away the menu, I noticed the word for mushroom attached to ravioli. Dang. But, I didn't want to pull her back again, so I let it go. I just hoped it wasn't too mushroomy. It actually ended up being quite yummy, so that was good. Max's soup was absolutely delicious. It was some sort of creamy dill concoction. So good. There were two older American couples a couple of tables away from us, and they couldn't figure out the menu at all, so I went over to help with my limited German. They were finally able to find something on the menu they wanted, so I feel good about that. I don't know if they liked what they got, since we had left by the time they got there food. I hope so, though!

We hopped back on the bus, and I asked Max if he wanted to go to the Stiegl beer museum/factory, and he said yes. So, we went. the tour came with free samples and free gifts after the tour. We didn't have time for the drinks (the bus came every 45 minutes, so we would have been stuck in the rain for a long time had we missed the bus. Plus, we would have then not have time to do the rest of the things we wanted to do), but we got our gifts. They were little .3 liter beer glasses. Very cute. 


We hopped back on the bus on our way to Leopoldskron mansion. The mansion served as the back terrace in Sound of Music. The lake behind it is a frequently used recreation area, though, so we could mostly see the back of the mansion from there. The cool thing is that the bus actually took a three minute break, so we were able to get out, take our pictures, and get back on without having to wait an entire 45 minutes waiting for the next bus. So, it completely made up for our spending time at the beer museum. Perfect!

After Leopoldskron, the only thing left on the list for the day was the Nonnberg Abbey. It was where Maria was a novice. We got off on the stop for the Abbey, and could see it up on the hill, but had no idea how to get up there. We walked towards the center of town, and eventually found the stair up the hill. There were a lot of stairs. We made it to the top, and I was delighted to see we were in the right spot, and hadn't climbed all of those stairs for nothing. The only part of the Abbey open to visitors are the church and the part just outside, but those were very nice. The path to the church is lined with flowery graves. 

We had some time, and I really wanted to see  the castle, so we headed there next. It was just up the hill a bit more, we could see it from the abbey. We saw a sign for the funicular, and we headed that way. We didn't find, it, though. What we did find was the path the rest of the way up the hill. It wasn't just a little way, either. It was a pretty killer climb. but, we made it. There was a long line to get into the tour of the towers, but we went into the part that housed the museums and the state rooms. The museums were interesting, but it was suffocatingly hot. All of the windows were closed, and it started to make me feel rather ill. Emma's back was covered in sweat, and I'm willing to bet mine was, too. It was rather surprising, since it was almost cold outside. But, we got an excellent view of the town.

After the castle, it was time to get back to the other side of the river for our marionette show. We walked through town, since it would have been a long way to go back to the bus from the castle. Plus, we wanted to see more of the old town. Max found a hat, which made him very happy. We got over to the other side of the river, and started looking for dinner. We wanted someplace with outside seating, since we were still burning up from being in the castle. After quite a bit of wandering, we found a place. After dinner, it was perfect timing to run our purchases back to the car and get to our show.

The show was awesome. I have no idea how they got the marionettes to do the things they did. They were twirling in circles, and moving in circles around other marionettes. It was truly amazing. After the show was over, they moved in a big angled mirror and did the goatherd song for us, so we could watch what they did. The two ladies on the ends were actually on the stage, while everybody else you see is in the mirror. Even after seeing that, I still have no idea how they got the marionettes to go in circles. It's not a great picture, since it's taken on the iPhone.

We went to the hotel and checked in. They looked at Em and asked if she was going to share the bed. I said that I had put a request for an extra bed on the booking.com form. (The hotel had free extra beds for kids under like 16), but they hadn't gotten that part. Luckily, they had wifi in the lobby, and I was able to pull up my confirmation. We got the room and the extra bed, thank goodness. We got in the room, showered, and pretty much crashed.

Emma says - The drive was really long. They really like Mozart there. It's like the French with Napoleon. He's everywhere. The raviolis were really good. The Sound of Music show was pretty and cool. It was really neat how they showed us how they did it at the end.