En route from the Dolomites to Vienna, our other main destination, our train journey passed back through Innsbruck (where we spent three nights a week earlier) and Salzburg. We decided to break up the trip to Vienna with a brief two-night stay in Salzburg to spend a day exploring the city. This also gave us a breather after a somewhat complicated travel route: local bus from Ortisei to Ponte Gardena, local train to Brixen/Bressanone, Inter-City Express (ICE) to Innsbruck, then another Inter-City to Salzburg. We had the unusual situation of the first ICE train being delayed by 14 minutes, and with only a 16-minute layover in Innsbruck Ken was able to get his first experience running through a European train station trying desperately to leap onto a departing train. It turned out our final train was held for about 10 minutes to give passengers time to hustle one platform over from the ICE train that was running late, and the time was made up before we reached the next station – making it unclear why the first one was late to begin with. Use the accelerator, people!
Anyhow, the better Salzburg weather was forecast for the day we arrived, so after walking 10 minutes and checking in to the hotel we strolled through the Mirabell Palace gardens, the tight pedestrian passages of the Altstadt, and the plazas near the cathedral. Our second day promised drizzle in the afternoon so we did a longer morning walk along the riverwalk and through the Altstadt before spending the afternoon taking care of some planning for Vienna. A photo montage:
Quick Takeaways
We both felt Salzburg was the grittiest place we visited so far on this trip, with extensive graffiti everywhere and posters/placards pasted on many surfaces. At the same time, the city is full of interesting large-scale contemporary public art, of which I failed to take a single picture. We found the vibe to be quite touristy, with Christmas shops and Sound of Music tours competing for attention, and that’s before even getting into the large number of tourists we observed re-enacting Sound of Music scenes. There are many extremely historic (and fully original) buildings here, with the city center named a UNESCO World Heritage Site, but ecclesiastical buildings and classical music performances are not really our thing so we preferred to save up our mental space for “buildings” for our next stop in Vienna. Our quick visit was enough to give us a sense of the personality of another location with a strong sense of culture and history. A lingering mystery: We saw ads around town for a marionette performance of The Sound of Music. How do they handle the scene with the Lonely Goatherd song? Do the marionettes manipulate even smaller marionettes? Inquiring minds need to know.
Food and Lodging
We stayed at — what else? — a Motel One located a 10-minute walk from the train station, which was also a short walk down the river from the historic downtown area. On our first evening while in the Altstadt we had a meal of traditional food at Zirkelwirt (established in 1647!). On day two, having a bottle of wine at the hotel bar and dinner at Cosmic Pizza, a block from the hotel, was satisfying and easy to manage in the iffy weather.
Next up: The Austrian capital city of Vienna!
