Austria...the land of no Kangaroos

Salzburg, Austria.
You may be asking yourself, 'what inspired those two to choose Salzburg as a destination?' Or maybe you're not saying that at all.
But here's the reasoning behind our decision...
 Rick Steves. I know you already could tell the two of us are Rick Steves fans. Just look at us. We scream RICK! There we were tuning into his blu ray (Don't judge, YES, we purchase his tv shows.)
While Rick was whisking us away to To "Beautiful Baroque Salzburg!" ...  There we sat on our hideious hammie-down sofa, me in my infamous bo duke tee, paired with my favorite blue flannel jammie bottoms (the ones with the cresent moons on them). Mike was in his Star Wars loungies and matching tee.

There was Rick, in all his nerd glory standing in a fortress, talking about the endless Mozart concerts. (The Impromtu on the street concerts AND fancy pants ones in a concert halls.)

I looked over at my husband and said "Wow. That looks pretty. We should go."
He looked at me and said "Yeah. We should!"
Now, typically "yeah we should" means..."we'll get around to it someday..."
But when the episode was finished Mike got up and got our big yellow map book of Europe.
He said "Ya know, it's not THAT far from us."
I said "What isn't that far from us?"
He said "Salzburg."
I said "You know, I read that book (On Hitler's Mountain by Irmgard Hunt.) and her dad took her mom  on romantic get-a-ways to Salzburg."
He said "I remember you saying that."

Next thing I know, there our two happy selves are at the Bahnhof buying two train tickets whisking us away to Salzburg.
Everyone but everyone tells you travelling by train in Europe is simple, easy, and agreeable.
And guess what? Those people do not lie.  It was thoughtless travel. And before we knew it, there we were climbing off the train in Salzburg.
I have to preface this story with saying....our first impression of Austria was NOT that of a magical fairy land that dances to the tune of Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. In fact, it looks more like a war torn former soviet town. Fresh off the train, the bahnhof area does not seem welcoming, and the rundown dirty cable cars look...like you need to hang tight to your euros.

We hop on the #2 bus (Perfect name for it. It smelled. It looked like you could get Botulism,  Leptospirosis, or maybe Trichinosis, just from standing ON it.)
Mike says to the driver: Sprechen Sie Englisch?
The Driver nods and says: Ja, a little. Sure.
Mike says: Will this bus go to the Mercure hotel?
The Driver says: Ja, sure. It goes to deer. Maybe...it is stop...(he counts on his fingers) Seben?
Mike says: Danke!

We count off the stops but at stop 6 NOT 7 the driver yells back "Hello? Dis one! Dis one is dee stops for dee hotel, ja? Ok?"
I yell back "Vielen Dank!!!" as we hop off the bus.

We found this same attitude everywhere we went. So, the bahnhof looks like there are children to be sponsored nearby and Sally Stuthers is going to hop out of the side hatch and ask you to spare a dime for them... But first looks can be deceiving. Austrians are not only nice but HELPFUL, and turns out Salzburg is beautiful, once you get past the grit.

We decided a night walk to old town would be perfect, that and we were hungry. Salzburg was beautiful at night. No shops were open but people were out milling about, despite the cold air coming off the Salzach River.
We were happy to get back to our hotel room and into our warm beds. Yes, we were twin bedding it June and Ward Clever style.

The next morning we got an early start to cram pack in as much Mozart as possible. After all, the town is famous because of him. He was born here, and he is still a major Rockstar. You can't walk without tripping over something Amadeus. He's like their Elvis...without the fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches.

We went to his Geburtshaus (Birth house) and his Residence. If you are ever in Salzburg...skip the Residence, go for the Geburtshaus. It's big, it's yellow and it has a HUGE sign that says "Mozart's Geburtshaus" You can't miss it.  We liked his birth house much better. You can see a lock of his hair, his childhood violin, a ring he was given from royalty (you see it in a portrait then on display).
His residence has his original piano and it's an audio guided tour so you do get to hear a lot of his music...but it just didn't pack the same punch as his birth house (In my humble opinion).

We also climbed up to the fortress for views of the city. We had HUGE pretzels, We went into the Salzburg Dom. This is a MUST see. The art alone will make you gasp. I felt so small in the huge cathedral. Interesting fact? In 1944, the Dom was bombed by the allies. I couldn't help but wonder if my grandfather (whose plane was shot down in Austria) could've had some connection with the bombings there...
But, it's now completely restored and very glorious...

We saw the statue of a man standing on a golden ball, and the human sized chess board. There were tons of dogs and lots of babies...and the window shopping is fantastic...but with stores like Louis Vuitton &Vogue, you can rest assured that ALL the Suman's did was window shop.
Like I'm going to spend over 1,000€ for a purse when we have a hand-me-down sofa? Uhm. my goodwill vintage purse find is more up my alley.

The strange/local color things we saw? A caricature of Hilter graffitied on a wall, a silver statue man of Mozart who was handing out postcards and bowing with grace. (He scared me). A man playing Amazing Grace on the accordion (VERY beautiful, too I might add) A mullet that was shaved on top and dred locked in the back, a blond eurotrash decked to the nines, a couple making out more than PG 13 style right in old town, a woman screaming in accented english that her food was "Shit" and she was "piss" (Pissed off). Mike wanted to make a video of that debacle.

Alas, we skipped the Sound of Music tour, promising ourselves we'll do it if/when we return.
We had a lovely time, and I think we enjoyed it more because we weren't in peak tourist season...
Those Mozart concerts that lured us there? Well, we didn't want to pay the big bucks for a fancy pants concert, when really we did a fly by the seat of your pants trip and didn't bring fancy pants clothes, and the impromtu ones? Yeah, there were signs that said "No Koncerts today."  Oh well, Macht's Nicht...

Salzburg was still beautiful. Still fun, and still enchanting....