Day 16 - Salzburg, Austria

04.07.2019 26 °C

We had a relaxing morning as we were going to have a big afternoon - we were going to meet up with our friends Johnny and Sam who live about an hour away. They were coming in Salzburg to meet us!

We tried the Red Bull that we had bought the evening before - they have so many different flavours here it is amazing!! The blue one is the best.

At about 11.00am we headed out to explore some of Salzburg on our own before we met them in the afternoon. The first thing we came across was St Andrews - after going through a lot of churches in Europe there was nothing much that stood out in this one. However, Auke was very taken with the fact you could climb up into the pulpit above!

We also popped into a souvenir store which had this funny sign in there!

Along the main streets there are quite a few little fountains coming out of the ground which the girls thought were fascinating. They had so much fun playing in them.

We decided to walk to Mirabell Palace which was just across the road from the church. The palace itself was closed so we couldn’t go inside, but the gardens were mostly what we wanted to see! The gardens were made famous due to part of The Sound of Music being filmed here. The gardens were beautiful - they included a maze, statues, and fountains.

While we were exploring the gardens we came across a park which the girls were very excited about! They had a really cool slide there - you can obviously tell we aren’t in Australia considering it is made out of metal and it is enclosed! Imagine going down that in summer!

Once we had finished at the park, we walked through a little tunnel and headed towards Old Town. We walked down the Main Street, and we came across Mozart’s birthplace.

Auke wasn’t very interested in seeing it, and Titus was due for a bottle, so he stayed downstairs while Ali and the girls went up! It was interesting, they had some of his old diaries, compositions, a lock of his hair etc and you got to go inside the room he was born. Of course there was also a place where you could listen to music. Unfortunately, photos were not allowed.

Once this was over, we decided to get some lunch at a place nearby. We tried some Austrian beer. Would you believe that while we were eating here, we saw the people from the train that were cranky at us the day before? What are the chances in a large city to see them the very next day!

Lana was excited because we found another shop with her name in it!

After lunch, it was finally time to meet up with Johnny and Sam!! Auke was texting them about where to meet so he led us to where he thought this was. He ended up taking us on a 40 minute trip around the block only to end up nearly back where we were! Eventually we found them. We did get to see a nice fountain along the way while we were looking for them!

First we went for a quick look around - we saw where they used to bath the royal horses - nowadays it is a pond where people throw coins into! The girls were excited because Sam gave them a few coins to throw in.

We all decided to head up to the Hohensalzburg Fortress. Apparently it started off as a fairly basic fortress, but every time a new Arch-bishop was in charge they made additions until it became the spectacular fortress it is today! We caught the cable car up to the top and then explored it. The view at the top of the fortress is the best way to see the city of Salzburg!

The girls thought the torture chamber was pretty fascinating!

Titus also enjoyed sitting at one of the medieval doors until he nearly toppled over and then he was highly offended.

At the end of the fortress, we ended up with a bunch of soldiers!

After this, we headed back down to Old Town and got some icecream! Poor Johnny got his icecream taken off him as Titus decided to claim it as his own!

We did a bit more exploring, saw another church and came across a cemetery which was both beautiful and creepy. It had stunning trees etc, but some of the gravestones had creepy pictures like skeletons on them!