Salzburg, Austria

​The greatest part of traveling is when you can share the adventure with family. My mom and our family friend Sue came to visit. While they were here I planned a trip for us to explore the city of Salzburg. Even though I wasn’t feeling well the whole time they were here, we had a great time making lots of memories.
 
Salzburg, Austria is on the German border and about a four-hour drive from my house.  It has views of the Eastern Alps and is known as the birthplace of Mozart and the setting for the film “The Sound of Music”.
 
The weather and traffic going to Salzburg was good and we arrived early afternoon at our hotel. Our hotel was on the outskirts of city center and a family ran hotel. We were greeted warmly and shown our triple room, which had a double bed and a pull out couch. After unloading our stuff, we traveled down the hill, yes our hotel was on top of a small hill and headed into the city. Our first stop was finding the meeting place for our Sound of Music tour we were talking the next day. Then we walked around and saw some of the sights. We saw Mozart Gerburtshaus (birthplace) and walked down the Getreidegass which is a medieval street full of shops.

​The next day we took the Sound of Music tour. We saw Leopolskron and saw the Gazebo which now is housed at Hellbrunn Castle. We drove into the Lake District to St. Gilgen and Mondsee. In St. Gilgen we saw panoramic views of the mountains. In Mondsee we saw the church where Maria and the baron were married in. Then we explored Mirabell Gardens when we arrived back into Salzburg.

 
Our final full day in Salzburg started off cloudy with rain showers, but soon the sun came out. We explored Fortress Hohensalzburg and  traveled to the top by cable chair or funicular and then explored the inside of the castle. One neat area was the museum of marionettes. After the fortress we saw the inside of Dom Cathedral.

 
On the way back home, we stopped at Hallein salt mine which is known Salzbergwerk Dürrnberg. The mine has Celtic history and no longer is an active mine. We changed into our miner clothes and took a miner’s train into the mine where we walked and explored the process of making salt. We then traveled down slides and across a lake. We received a little bottle of salt as a gift.

The weather on the drive home was nice but with it being Friday we did hit a few traffic jams or stau which added time to our commute, but we arrive home safe and sound!