"My heart will be blessed with the sound of music"

So Monday April 11^th Sohae, Allison, and I boarded a train with a tour group and traveled two hours east of Munich to cross the border into Austria and visit Salzburg. Thank goodness we didn’t try to do this one by ourselves because there was a lot of construction and switching of trains involved on this journey. Basically, the train ride was almost the same as the one the day before except a tiny bit less beautiful. My pictures weren’t nearly as good.

But we eventually made it to Salzburg and our tour guide Yolanda who’s British but has lived in Spain and Germany took us quickly through the new part of town and right to some beautiful parks. Our first stop was the lovely Mirabell Gardens where they filmed several scenes from the Sound of Music. We took many touristy pictures but Yolanda didn’t dawdle and I was frustrated. Next we saw Mozart’s second home, where he lived after he became famous. Then we walked toward the river and Yolanda told us about the Sacher Hotel and its famous chocolate cake, the Sacher Torte. The cake is so famous that the recipe is now a state secret. Learn more here. You can have it delivered anywhere in the world. So Sohae, Allison, and I put that on our list of things to do during our free time in Salzburg.

Our tour continued across the river to the shopping district, and we saw Mozart’s first home where he and his family lived when he was young. Then we saw some fancy churches and the oldest restaurant in Europe (800 AD?) Then we went to the famous city cemetery where the cemetery scenes from the Sound of Music are based on. The real scenes were filmed in LA but it sure looked similar. And the graves were lovely. Beautiful tombstones and crosses and fresh flowers everywhere. In Austria, as well as other parts of the world, families are buried on top of each other. The first person to die is buried way down deep and each subsequent person is laid to rest in a casket on top of the previous person. I think that’s nice.

Then we passed the oldest bakery in Salzburg and it smelled heavenly. To this day, they still use a waterwheel. For what, I don’t quite know. Here our tour ended and we had about 2 hours of free time. Not enough at all! Because of the train construction our free time was cut short two hours and it made me very mad. The three of us sat down for a nice lunch of some yummy pasta and more Pinot Grigio. Then we went to the opera house where the end scenes from the music festival in the Sound of Music were shot but it was CLOSED! I was really upset about that. And all the other places from the movie that we could have visited were too far to walk with only about an hour left. And we still wanted the Sacher Torte. So we grudgingly headed to the hotel after our opera house disappointment and each got a slice of chocolate cake. It was pretty good. Not too sweet. Then we had to hurry to the bus to meet our tour group and head to the train to head back to Munich.

I was pretty disappointed overall with the tour. It was sparse; Yolanda should have talked a lot more about the city. And we didn’t have nearly enough time to explore. But I guess it was satisfactory. I suggest organizing your own transportation and arranging a tour once you get to the city. Then you can decide how long you want to stay. I mean I would have loved to go back to the Mirabell Gardens and wandered around but we had like no time. I’m getting sad just writing about it now. I mean, chances are so, so slim that I’ll ever go back. And I feel like I hardly saw anything. I mean I should count my blessings that I got to go at all, but I hate being rushed through stuff like this. It’s like I spend most of the day traveling.

Well upon returning to our beloved München, we freshened up in the hostel and hopped on the Metro to see the English Gardens. The gardens had a Chinese Tower and beer garden that we wanted to see. So we found our way there and each got a half liter of Radler (lemonade beer mix) and shared two huge pretzels. Typical German stuff. We dined under the lights of the Chinese Tower and reflected on our trip and had some laughs, and it was the perfect ending to such a great weekend.

Then to top it all off, we realized that if we had ordered the bigger beers, we would receive a refund for returning the glass, and since we wouldn’t receive a refund for returning our smaller glasses……… we ran back to the Metro with the mugs in our jackets/purses. Success! The perfect souvenir! So now that glass is on my desk here in Alicante, and I shall always remember the best weekend ever in what I’m proud to call my motherland.