Salzburg

       To avoid a mutiny, we decided to spare the kids (and their parents) more hours together in the van and opted to take the train to Salzburg instead.  The state of Bavaria offers the Bayern Ticket with which you can travel anywhere in Bavaria for one day and since Salzburg is right on the border, it's included even though it's in Austria.  The first person pays Euro 22, then an additional adult pays 4, and the kids are free.  What a deal!  Some people have asked how we can afford to travel like this, well, deals like this help but we try to be thrifty as well.  We only stay in hostels and so far all 3 have been clean, quiet and cheap!  We bring sandwiches for lunches, and each morning, Andrew would run to Aldi, or Hofer as it's called in Austria, and get rolls, fruit and misc for the days.  As most hostels have kitchens, we'd make spaghetti or chicken nuggets and fries for the evening meal.  Since admission to sights isn't negotiable, we save where we can but despite being thrifty, we couldn't keep it up for a full year so perhaps it's good that school starts next week!

      Our main goals were to see the Sound of Music and Mozart sights.  We were astonished that no Salzburgers (a name they call themselves... ) apart from people catering to tourists, has even heard of "The Sound of Music!" The tour of sights from the film wasn't even available in German! (only English and Spanish). So the kids and I had to "Do Re Mi" all by ourselves. What fun!  Here we are at Mirabel Gardens where Fraulein Maria and the children sang, and danced around the fountain and on the steps.





Yes, they are rocking out to "My Favorite Things"  FYI the ear buds aren't even plugged into anything!





Beautiful gardens but I couldn't help but thinking that all the visitors didn't know what they were missing!

Of course, Salzburg is known as Mozartstadt and in addition to his birth house, we were able to see his baptismal font in the Dom.  Fun Fact:  he travelled more than 10,000 days during his short life.  EVERY store sold these Mozartkugeln, which Declan just gobbled down until Serena said, "Yuck! What's that green in the middle?"  (pistachio) and then of course Declan couldn't even look at them.

Salzburg is nestled in the Alps and it's highest peak, Untersberg, 1,972 meters high, is relatively modest -- no glaciers here.  We took the Bergbahn (mountain tram) up and enjoyed the view and took the Talbahn (valley tram) down.  Were we the only ones to notice it was the same tram?