CHAPTER 15. AUSTRIA

It is easy leaving our Munich (#14) hotel because someone left a baggage cart there and we use it to take our suitcases to the nearby RR station. The second class compartment on the train to Salzburg has 6 comfortable seats; a gentleman offers his window seat to us; an elderly German does his best to teach us some German words and tells us, in German, what we are seeing. There are neat green farm lands, clean villages with church spires or onions, forest areas, lakes, and high snow covered peaks.

At the Salzburg RR station a pleasant young woman asks if we have room reservations, and offers her zimmer frei. She drives us in her Audi to a new house, with a large room and breakfast for us for about 1/4 the cost of a hotel room. It is located a 20 minute walk up a hill after a 10 minute bus ride from the city. She has three rooms available to rent which are helping to pay for the house.

From the B & B we take a bus to downtown for a familiarization walk, seeing St. Peter’s Church and cemetery, and some of the shopping area. We have some coffee and bad apple strudel, and some good bouillon with raw egg before returning to the room.

This morning it is sunny and warm (a pleasant change from the cold of Munich) but it should be on the 18th of May. Accompanied by a young Japanese couple, we have a satisfying continental breakfast of coffee, fresh bread, butter, and homemade apricot jam. After bussing to the city about 10 am, we go thru the Mozart Birthplace Museum, which we find to be very interesting, then walk along a shopping street to the elevator up Monchberg to the Winkler Cafe and Casino for a panoramic view over the city, river, and hills.

From the view point we go back down and to Peterskellar for lunch. The tables are all occupied but, as is usual in Europe, we are seated with others, an elderly couple from Berlin. It is very friendly as we converse in their little English and our little German. After lunch we ride the funicular up to the Hohensalzburg Castle overlooking the city where we take a conducted tour. It is very interesting, as is the museum. We walk down the steep hill, buy some snack materials, have soup at a hotel, and bus back to the room.