We left in the morning to take the train to Salzburg. We arrived around noon and checked into our hotel, which was sooo cute. It just felt very Austrian, and the girl behind the desk was wearing one of those German biergarten dresses. In fact, we ended up seeing a lot of people dressed like this at restaurants and stuff. I’m not sure if that’s still just the standard uniform, or if they just do it for the tourists. Considering that we later went to a restaurant highly recommended by locals and that was the uniform, I’m thinking it’s the former. More on the outfits later.
We walked around for a bit in the Old Town. It’s so cute and quaint, all the buildings are in pastel shades, and the font of all the signs is very “olde” looking. It felt a little like time forgot this place, except for the random Internet café. We walked through a square where there was a huge chess set on the ground that people were playing with. There were some statues and monuments, though we’re not sure for what. In one square was a bunch of empty horse-drawn carriages. There were also a few sundial clocks on some of the buildings. Oh, and I can’t forget: everything has something to do with Mozart. They’re freakin’ obsessed with the guy. I get it, they’re proud and all that, but there’s the street Mozartplatz, stores with “Mozart” in the name, a whole brand of chocolate with his face on it. It’s insane.
There was a big castle, Hohensalzburg Castle, at the top of one of the “hills” (I think it’s interesting that everything is called a hill here – at one point does it become a “mountain”? I didn’t know hills could be capped with snow…) so we took the tram thing up to look around. There were really pretty views from the top of the town and the Salzach River.
The girl at the hotel told us how to get to Hellbrun Palace, so after the castle we waited for a bus to take us there. By the time it dropped us off, the palace was closed (at 4:30!). I think Holly really wanted to go inside, but I was really happy to see the main thing that brought us there, which was outside: the gazebo that Ralf and Leizl sing “Sixteen Going on Seventeen” in The Sound of Music, or, as they call it, the “Sound of Music Pavillion.” It was a lot smaller than I thought it would be, and it’s surroundings also seemed strange – not what I remember from the movie. A plaque explained that it wasn’t actually filmed there; the gazebo was donated to Hellbrun after filming.
Finally, a note on German/Yiddish: There was a sign warning that if you parked in a certain spot, your car would be towed. Or, as they put it, it was a “abschleppzone.” In Vienna there were also a lot of stores with “schmuck” in the name. So while “schlep” means something pretty similar, schmuck most likely doesn’t. Unless those were all male strip joints/sex shops and we were just oblivious.
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