"Climb Ev'ry Mountain"

We have had a brilliant day yesterday exploring Salzburg, home of the Sound of Music.

Breakfast with Timothy before we left. We left quite early (for us), feeling a bit guilty about leaving Claudia rushing to her physio appointment with Timothy still to feed and get ready. They were a bit late apparently but it didn't matter.

Caught a bus to Freising station, then a train to Munich, and another train to Salzburg - about 2 and a half hours altogether. The biggest entertainment at the station was the grin on Glen's face as Lyn and I negotiated paying $1.10 each to go to the loo! The train trip down was great, with the snow topped mountains coming closer and closer, and little villages with steeples nestled in bright green fields at the base of them. It was just like a continuous postcard.

In Salzburg we did a lot of walking. To begin with Lyn was full of praise for her comfortable sneakers, but by the end of the day she was cursing them for her blisters!

The streets of the old town are narrow and cobbled and lined with tall pastel coloured buildings that seem to lean over you. We wandered about for quite a while - the shops were lovely, gorgeous wee boutiques, but definitely only for looking!

Salzburg Cathedral looked pretty impressive from the outside, but the inside was amazing - decorated with coloured frescoes right up to the top, and very ornate. There was a school choir singing and the sound was magnificent, clear and rich, and you could hear a very slight echo at the end of each verse.

There is a huge fort, Festung Hohensalzburg, up on a steep rocky hill behind the town, originally built in 1077, and added on to over centuries, and lived in right up to the late 1800s. We could have gone up in the cable car, but chose to walk so that we could admire the views over the city. I don't think Lyn was so fussed about the views.....

The Festung itself was great, fully intact, and we were able to go through part of it and up a spiral staircase (more fun for Lyn!) to the top of a tower with wonderful views.

We came down in the cable car, because you have to ride a cable car at least once in the Alps!

After coffee and apfelstrudel at a wee cafe in a tiny alley, we wandered along to the house where Mozart was born. You can see that this is a city of music - there was music playing in a lot of places, music schools, and several other houses labelled as birthplaces of people who I'm sure a more educated person than me would have recognised.

We bought bread in a market. In Bavaria they eat bretzen which are the twisty pretzel shaped loaves of bread with salt on them, but in Salzburg they have different flavours of the same thing, so we bought some cheese, bacon and olive ones for on the train home, and chocolate covered for Claudia.

Salzburg is where they filmed The Sound of Music. We walked back through the Mirabell gardens past the fountain that they danced around in the film, and along the banks of the river which was also in the film. It certainly looked pretty daunting to have walked 7 children over those Alps!

Today we are having a quiet day at home. Glen was going to take me to do the big walk today, but Claudia's friend Andrea, who is a keen walker, says there will still be too much snow. I think we will see Timothy in his bath this morning.