Weekend Update

It's been a busy week, what with the second half of my German class and a day trip to Salzburg. Not to mention this bad cold I picked up from somewhere (read: Marty). Still, there's lots to report!

The German class continued to be a worthwhile challenge. I worked very hard and I certainly felt like the hard work was rewarded -- my conversation is greatly improved, and my confidence along with it. I hadn't taken any type of class in a very long time, but I found out I can still do school, when I want to. Next up for me is a distance learning course, which I'll do until sometime this winter. Then I plan to go back for another two-week class.

Yesterday Marty and I went to Salzburg, Austria, on the train. Two guys who are visiting from the US (on a business trip) came as well. I hadn't been to Salzburg since Doug and I were there in 1988. We spent two or three nights there then, if I remember correctly. This time, I saw several sights I remembered from before, including Mozart's birthplace, Hohensalzburg castle, and the Mirabell Gardens. I remembered some things so vividly from 14 years ago, it was hard for me to beleive it had really been that long since my last trip.

I was in Salzburg once before that, with my grandmother, when I was around 10 years old. I hardly remember anything from that trip now, except that we were there together.

We left Munich on the train yesterday morning around 7:30. We had reserved seats (4 together) and I had packed a breakfast in the backpack. So we had some fruit and bread on the way to Austria. The train was pretty empty at that hour. We saw some beautiful scenery as we traveled along the Alps. Autumn is here, and the leaves are changing now. It seemed a little hazy out on our way to Salzburg, but you could already see that it was going to be a sunny, beautiful day. The weather was perfect.

We arrived in Salzburg around 9:00 AM and I stopped at the information booth in the train station for a city map. We decided to do a self-guided tour of the city, with the help of the official guide book, so we walked into town from the train station (about a 15-minute walk).

Our first item on the agenda was Hohensalzburg, an old fortress that sits up above the town. Imagine my excitement when I discovered that it was accessible by a funicular railway! My second funicular railway ride this year! It was a lot more expensive than the one in Bridgnorth, but still very cool.

The other way to get to the castle is to walk up the side of a steep, steep hill. Before we went up on the train, I couldn't remember whether I'd ever seen the castle before. I knew I couldn't remember taking the funicular railway before. But when we got up to the top of the mountain I recognized the castle courtyard so vividly -- and it all came rushing back. Doug and I climbed that hill back in 1988. I thought I was going to die from overexertion. I guess I blocked it out!

We spent a couple of hours walking around the castle and taking pictures of the city below and the alps in the distance. It was a gorgeous morning.

Then we rode the train back down and had lunch at the Cafe Glockenspiel, a nice cafe in Mozartplatz. We sat up on the terrace in the sun and had a great lunch, then continued with the sightseeing.

Please excuse my Americanness, but the thing I always remember about Salzburg is how present The Sound of Music is to that city. Everywhere you look, there, you see locations that were used in the film. From the Mirabell Gardens to the Residenzplatz fountain (pictured above) it is impossible not to be reminded of the movie, if you are even just a little acquainted with it. And I am more than a little acquainted with it. There's a very popular tour that takes you to all the local Sound of Music locations (including the ones out from town, where they filmed the house scenes, etc). I have never taken the tour myself, but I plan to when someone comes to visit who loves this movie the way I do. I hear the tour is very good, but it's long, and it's not cheap, so it's something I want to wait and do with the right person.

After lunch we spent a long time walking around the city, looking in stores and seeing some of the other sights. Mozart was born in Salzburg, and his birthplace as well as his later home are open as museums. We went to the Mirabell Gardens, which I think I do remember from my first visit as a child, and enjoyed the sun there for a little while. We walked up and down that green, green river -- it's green with minerals from the Alps, I think -- stopping to have a beer in the afternoon.

I didn't do much shopping -- just bought some postcards and a couple of patches for my new backpack. One of our companions bought some Mozartkugeln (you may know them as Mozart balls), which are of course ganz typisch for Salzburg. They are perhaps one of the most readily-identified tourist items you can find anywhere in Europe. They are absolutely everywhere in Salzburg!

Salzburg also has its own Hotel Sacher. The original is, of course, in Vienna, but in Salzburg they also sell the Sacher Torte. In addition, the hotel has some very beautiful, civilized restaurants and cafes.

In general, Salzburg strikes one as a very civilized city. It stands on both sides of the river and features so many picturesque cobbled alleys that you feel like you've absolutely stepped back in time. And it's so close to Munich by train!

We had originally planned to leave Salzburg after dinner last night, but we were pretty worn out with all the walking and sightseeing. Plus, we had all been working hard last week, and I was coming down with a cold as well. So we left on the 5:30 train back to Munich. We were at the Hauptbahnhof by 7:30, and I led the gang down Goethestrasse to an Italian restaurant I discovered during my class (I had lunch there twice in the last couple of weeks). It was a nice change from Bavarian food (which I do love, but I get tired of when people are here visiting and it seems to be all we ever eat when we're out). The restaurant was a hit with the whole group, thankfully.

Over on that side of town one is very close to the Oktoberfest, and the streets were full of people last night, even after dinner. Today is the last day, so everyone is getting in their final revelry.

And this morning it looks like fall. Across the street, the trees are turning russet and gold, and the sky today is gray and light. Just a little more time until colder weather, I'm betting. I'm staying in with tea and juice, trying to recover from this cold. And I'm doing all the laundry that piled up in the last week or so while I was in class.

I took a bunch of pictures yesterday, so I hope to process those in Photoshop sometime today. If I do manage to get them done, I'll put them up later on.