Vienna to Salzburg

Thursday 12 May 2011

First day to ride with Busabout and I can already tell it was a great move buying this hop on hop off ticket. We stopped at the hostel in gruenau for lunch and to drop off some travelers, they made us an excellent traditional Austrian meal of chicken with the most delicious thick sauce and pasta. Out the back of the hostel there was the clearest stream I have ever seen in my life, and this was just the first one! We carried on to Salzburg, arrived at 2pm then I rushed out to see a bit of the city. It is my favorite so far, so beautiful, really quiet compared to Vienna. Walked through the Mirabel gardens where they filmed part of sound of music, walked over the bridge to old town, strolled aimlessly this way and that way with a grin on my face... until it started to rain. So stopped in at the supermarket and got some cheese and olives etc for a light dinner. Still raining...so I window shopped in some old arcades... Still raining... So I stopped for the most expensive coffee of my life and pored over my lonely planet... Still raining... So I tried to work out how to get a bus back to the hostel. Machine won't accept notes, so had to walk back to the shop to buy the cheapest thing i could find, a lighter for 0.20 euro. Finally got my ticket, got onto my bus. BUT IT WAS THE WRONG FUCKING BUS and I ended up off my map! I couldn't even work out where i was so i could walk back (it's still raining). So I found a nice taxi man who took me home for 9 euro. I laughed about it over my olives and beer.
Met 2 girls from Canada in my dorm and had beers with them in the bar. Ended up playing drinking games with a group of 10 American guys who just finished college/uni and were on a big trip. And so begins my 72 hours of beery indulgence

Friday 13th May 2011
THE HILLS ARE ALIVE WITH THE SOUND OF MUSIC! Went on the tragically touristy sound of music tour today, it was fabulous! Visited all the salzburg locations where they filmed scenes in the movie, we drove out through amazing countryside over hills and past magnificent lakes to a town called Monsee which has the church where Maria and Cpt Von Trapp get married in the film. I even got to spin around and skip through the fields like the opening sequence of the Movie, got some great photos to put up on the blog one day. When we got back to town we visited more spots from the film, marching around the top of the fountain like they do in the do rae mi song. It was so daggy but i loved every single minute. Also got to see the cathedral, catacombs, the abbey (I saw a real live nun!) and we climbed the massive hill to the fortress on top, started building a thousand years ago and apparently the best preserved medieval castle in Europe? Very cool weapons and armour on display. Met another cool chick, Ingrid, from NZ. Hope to catch her again in Oktoberfest. Tonight we went to the augustinerbrau beer hall for liters of the good stuff. They closed at 11 which I think is a foolish economic decision, so we went back to our hostel for more beer (half a liter a time though)