European Vacation - Day 7 (Salzburg)

Salzburg was a little soggy in the morning, so we decided to head up to the Fortress, which overlooks the city and then walk along a ridge over to the Art Museum. The Fortress was basically and old pile of concrete and Chuck and I kept thinking about all the adaptive reuses of the complex. Just imagine what you could do with an old walled city?!!? Unfortunately the Art Museum was closed due to a new exhibit that was scheduled to debut the next day...however, we'd be on to Munich, so we couldn't go.

When the going gets tough, we go shopping. We walked along the coblestone streets of Salzburg and did some shopping. It was pretty uneventful. Salzburg would be a good day trip from Munich (about 1.5 hour drive). However spending a full week here or even more than a day or so, would be too long. There's not much action or even sightseeing options.

Tomorrow we're off to Munich.

Pretzels with salt...in Salzburg

Chuck and I don't exactly like taking pictures of each other. Here's my attempt at taking his picture as he eats a huge pretzel in Salzburg.

European Vacation - Day 6 (Hallstatt and Salzburg)

Today's journey was the scenic route between Vienna and Salzburg. In our guidebook, it recommends Hallstatt, a beautiful mountain town of 1000 nestled among the Austrian Alps on a clear lake. Well, based upon that description and the fact that it has the oldest Salt Mine in the world, we had to go.

The drive was a little unnerving. Winding roads and steep drop offs, but the view was spectacular. It was raining, so our raincoats came in handy yet again. We parked the car and headed to the Salt Mine and the tram that took you straight up the side of the mountain...and it was a pretty steep mountain!

The tour was about 3 hours long and included a walk through the mountain, sliding down a wooden rain about 35' and then a second rail about 65'. Chuck had the fasted slide time at 33.6 km/hr on the second slide. It was a little scary for me. I think I said Holy Crap about half way down the 65' drop. Ahhh, adventures. The Salt Mine was actually quite cool and I'll blog about that one in more detail later.

Later in the afternoon, we arrived in Salzburg. We stayed at the Hotel Sacher, which is a great hotel, complete with chocolates on our arrival. The Hotel Sacher is known for the Sacher Torte in Austria. We even received mini tortes as part of the turndown service. Yum.
Pictures will be posted soon.