Salzburg Trip

We spent 2 days in Salzburg.  We drove in Sunday night after spending the day in Innsbruck and got up nice and early on Monday in Salzburg.  We spent Monday morning touring Hohensalzburg Fortress, the white castle on the hill that you see in most pictures of Salzburg.  The castle itself was not that impressive; the best part about being up there was the view overlooking the city.

Here's Carver thinking, "Bye bye boys, have fun stormin' the castle!"  Anyone, anyone?  Princess Bride.

After our morning of walking we stopped at a stand to get some big fat bratwurst.  It was educational.  I had never tasted the real thing before, and it was oh so filling.

Next up was our Sound of Music bike tour.  Apparently the locals don't understand the whole Sound of Music phenomenon with Americans.  Rick Steves (our go to PBS travel guy/author, referred to hereafter as Rick - we are def on a first name basis now), anyway, Rick says that there is so much more to Salzburg than the Sound of Music stuff: Mozart, history, architecture, blah blah blah.  You try to go to Salzburg without instantly humming "the hills are alive"…it is impossible.  Especially after recently watching the movie, which of course we HAD to do.  You cannot get over how cool it is to see all the  sites from the movie.  It is just so fun.  Especially when you are on a bike and your tour guide is a trained opera singer belting out all the show tunes.  Sorry, Rick…but it was the best part.  Period.  So here are some shots from our bike tour.  We went about 8 miles all around Salzburg, good work out.  And in addition to seeing all the fun SOM sites, we got a pretty good overview of the entire city.  And our kids loved every minute of it because we were constantly in motion.  Win, win, win!

Three pretty girlies at Mirabell Gardens.

Purple beach cruiser?  Yes, please.

We raced…it was pretty much a tie…almost.

One of the great things about doing the tour on our first day there was that we knew right where we wanted to go back to on day 2 to see more of.  Like the Salzburg Cathedral…it was pretty amazing.  Especially since Mozart used to play the organ there when he was young.  There were organs playing as we walked in, and you could kind of picture it.  It was neat.

The font where Mozart was baptized.

Kaydree doing some more exploring.

We had to hit up the best pretzel stand in Salzburg.  The kids wanted chocolate, but Ryan and I were a little more adventurous.  We had one that was cream filled and drizzled with chocolate, and the other was a bacon cheese something or other.  I think they had Ry at "bacon."

"These are pretzels?  I could swear they are donuts!"

The locks are for lovers…you throw the key in the water.  Romantic, right?

Enjoying the perfect fall weather.

Finally, need a post-election pick me up?  This video of our trip to Salzburg is sure to make you smile…or at least laugh at our cheesiness.  Enjoy!