Taking over Europe by Rail: Day 12: Vienna and Salzburg

Wednesday, August 18 2010

Our morning routine had to be changed. Our alarms rang 6:45, and we had planned on leaving with the 9.12 bus, but we didn't make it. We went with the 9.22 bus. Packing the tent wasn't complicated, it was just annoying. The inner tent was difficult to fold neatly. Also that had been directly on the ground, and the ground was wet, you get the picture. And we had to get rid of all the spiders, crickets and ants off of it too.

Our train to Salzburg left 10.20 from Wien Westbahnhof. We there early enough and I went to get some tea and since I was still feeling like I was going to get sick, I added a bag of Finrexin, a cold medicine to my tea. Brain thought that the combination is disgusting.

The train was really packed this time too, and luckily we were there early enough to get good seats. The trainride wasn't very eventful.

Salzburg Hauptbahnhof was under construction and it didn't look like it was going to be done anytime soon. It took a while for us to find an info place where we could get a map of the city.

Originally we were supposed to stay at a camping place, but we got an email from there while in Berlin, that they're fully booked and we can't go there. I had also gotten sick in Vienna, so we decided we'd stay in a hostel. We started walking to the wrong direction first, luckily not that badly, but still too much. I was tired and sick and getting cranky. I apparently was very cranky while we were walking to the hostel. I noticed it myself, but I didn't think others would, and Brain did. I thought I managed to hide it so well!

Our hostel was YoHo International Youth Hostel in Salzburg. We hadn't reserved anything and just went there. The 6-bed mixed dorm cost 22€/night/person. Including us there was an Asian girl and boy and two guys who we never saw awake. They weren't in the room when we got there, they must've been in town somewhere cause they got there around 2-3 am. And we left before they woke up the next day. Our dorm room had a bathroom and a toilet, and they were separate too!

YoHo hostel pictures (all clickable)

We left our luggage in the room lockers, and left for town. We walked onwards on Paracelsusstrasse and turned onto Franz-Josef Strasse. There was a little cafe there, we got coffee with toasts. I got an Italian toast (mozzarella, tomatoes, olive oil and lettuce of some sort) and a caffe latte. Brain got a Greek toast and a caramel macchiato. MasterCard wasn't accepted. Dun dun dun

Since it was already afternoon, we wanted to climb up to the Hohensalzburg fortress. We walked around Schloss Mirabell. I wasn't very impressed with it, after all, I've seen Sanssouci and Schloss Schönbrunn. This was in the very middle of the city, and it wasn't as grande as one would assume a Schloss to be. (Although there were sculptures of unicorns, which I thought were cool! -Brain)

Schloss Mirabell (clickable)

We crossed the river and walked through the old town towards the Hohensalzburg fortress, but didn't spend too much time in the old town. We did buy a couple postcards, one for our friend's fiance who was fighting in Afghanistan at the time. The address was strange, it had no country on it. We assumed it was going to England first, so we just got stamps to England..

Hohensalzburg Fortress

Views of the fortress and around it

A funicular up to the Hohensalzburg fortress would've cost over 10 euros, so we decided to walk up the hill. It didn't take too long, and it wasn't very difficult, although it was a very steep hill. At one point we noticed we had taken the shorter way, which meant a whole lot of stairs. Once we were up high, there was a gate and entrance through that cost 7,40€ and that included the entrance to the courtyard, the museum in the castle, and some audio guide. We didn't want that, we just wanted to get to the courtyard, so we didn't pay the 7,40€. We turned around and started walking on the Mönchberg, which is the mountain/ridge the fortress is located on.

To get back to the old town we had to climb down a whole lot of stairs, and some were quite scary too! We saw St.Peter's Abbey. It was very different from Vienna's St. Peter's. The Dom was near too and we had a look inside. It was very pretty. The center isle was probably as long as the one in Tuomiokirkko in Tampere, but this was wider and higher.

Brain's side-note: I don't think I'd ever seen a real-live nun before the visit to Salzburg, or after it, for that matter. But in Salzburg we saw several: one was riding a bike, and there was one on the bus as well.

Mozart's birth house on Getreidegasse

We walked to Getreidegasse, which is one of the main streets in the old town. We saw the yellow Mozart's birth house. We ate at an Italian restaurant. Our waitress had the craziest hair, I tell you! Small pizza was 5-6€ and bit 8-9€. We thought we ordered the small pizzas, but I guess we weren't clear enough. The check had some funny numbers on it. Pizzas and drinks together were supposed to be less than 20€, but the total cost was 23€ or so. After dinner we bought Mozarts kugeln, they weren't that good. It had been raining a little the whole day so we walked back to our hostel and hung around there.

More pictures of Salzburg taken on the Mönchberg. You can click on all the pictures to see them in full size.