Saturday 16 April 2011

Austria 2010: Day 4 - Salzburg




Wednesday 18th August 2010.

The Hills are alive with the sound of Music ........

An early start and we were down in the Breakfast bar at 8am. Yep, told you it was early. We walked up to the Wes
tbahnhof (being rebuilt as are a number of Austria stations) to catch the fast RailJet train over to Salzburg which left at 09:20. Just before departure on climbed the "Great Unwashed" or students as some people called
them complete with sleeping bags, crates of beer and a lot of noise. Apparently there was a music festival in St. Pölten. The kids amused themselves with various things including the screen in the carriage with the train speed on it! RailJet is a great ride and hits speeds of 200km/h. It's clean fast and impressive. Now what on earth is going on in Austria? Sudbahnhof is demolished, Westbahnhof is being rebuilt and on arrival at Salzburg we found that station to be a construction site!

We left the confines of the station area and headed to the old part of town and the bridge over the Salzbach and round to the base of the mountain the castle is perched upon. We stopped at the Kleinbahn shop for a quick look. Walking round you can see how little Salzburgs old town area has changed over the years. On arrival at the Dom (Cathedral) we went past it and into the square to one side where they have market stalls. Both Kayleigh and David's eyes almost popped out of their heads at the sight of the huge Pretzels of which two were bought! we went to the castle entrance and the funicular railway that takes you up to it. Sarah and I were astonished at the sheer cost of it to get up and have a look around. We turned round and went back to the Dom and the kids lit a candle for my Dad. Inside a group of young children (9-12 years old) began to sing and filled the cathedral with such beautiful music. Outside we visited the horse fountain featured in the 1965 film 'The Sound Of Music'. Of course photos of the children were taken.

Round the corner from the Dom was a nice little sweet shop and of course they all got sweets. Then on the way back through old town we passed the birthplace (Geburtshaus) of

Back in Vienna we grabbed a snack as the kids were hungry and headed indoors!

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