Between the two apartments we have one coffee maker that doesn’t work and the other one that you can’t buy coffee pods for in the local store. Deb and I went out this morning to get some milk, pasties, bananas, yogurt and the wrong coffee pods. We shared the pastries with Teri and Ralph and then it was go time.
Our first visit was to the Mirabell Gardens. Gorgeous gardens that included a really cool dwarf sculpture area, as well as the “do-re-mi” steps and the Pegasus Fountain from The Sound of Music.
Second stop was Mozart’s birthplace. Pretty cool to see where Mozart was born and lived with his family in a third floor apartment and seven kids. None of us knew much about Mozart, so all pretty interesting.
Next up was the Toy Museum which is not so much a museum but a place to bring young kids to wear them out. A wonderful resource for families with kids. You name it, they have it from reading nooks to model railroads to slot cars to building blocks to drawing projects to climbing structures.
Deb here for the rest. By this time we were ready for a pause, so found a cafe and drank kombucha (Teri and I) and coffee (the men). We were also hungry so we went to the square where a market was set up. Ralph, John and I all ordered the hot dog “special” which included fried onions, pickles, ketchup and mustard and was pretty tasty.
By this time it was after 2 and we decided to aim for the 3 p.m. boat cruise included with our card. We picked up tickets, scored window seats and enjoyed a leisurely 45 minute narrated cruise on the river.
Next project was to take the #25 bus to Hellbrunn Palace, an old castle outside of town. I’d read about the Palace’s “trick fountains” as being something good to see, but hadn’t thought we’d have enough time to venture out of town for this one. The bus was easy and we arrived by 4:30 p.m. When we picked up our tickets (Salzburg Card again) we were told to go to the trick fountains show at 4:45. None of us knew what to expect but it was the highlight of the day! When the palace was built in the 1600’s, the archbishop who owned the place had a vision for water powered entertainment, no electricity but amazing stuff. Hard to describe but worth looking up. Fantastically creative grottos, displays, trick fountains that would pop off randomly (based on an assistant controlling them), sculptures, really wild and all done hundreds of years ago. And then the icing on the cake was seeing the gazebo from The Sound of Music, along with the spectacular gardens. All a big wow!
By the time we left there it was 6 p.m. and we were tired and hungry. Back to the city and we made the decision to visit the rooftop terrace at Hotel Stein for drinks. Once up there we had drinks and decided to split a couple of burgers and fries for dinner. Another beautiful night shared with good friends at the end of a great day.
