10:00 a.m. We wake up.
We are all doing fine, getting ready. I am about to make coffee for us in our room when suddenly se hear a terrible noise. “Is that the fire alarm?” We open our door, and yes, indeed, it was the fire alarm. Celia asks me if I am leaving my things in the room, and I say no because we are mostly packed up as it is. We quickly gather our things, and head towards the lobby. Just as we reach the end of our corridor, the alarm stops. We continue down the stairs, where there is a mob of people, including several mothers and their babies. As we arrive in the lobby, a man tells the crowd that everything is ok, and that there is nothing to worry about. We go back up to the room for a moment to do a final sweep, since last time we almost left Kim’s converter in Italy. Everything is in hand, we check out and search for replacement coffee.
We are all quiet, I think Kim was especially upset at being ripped away from her morning routine so violently. We all just needed some caffeine. After breakfast, we significantly perk up! We head in the direction of the Fortress!
12:00 p.m. We know our was across the river well by now so we make it to the street we know leads to the fortress. Halfway there, we see some incredible view, and we stop for pictures. We are already being challenged by all those stairs. Frequent breaks are a must, and it is made easier by the gorgeous views. Every time you look around, there is something more breath-taking than what you were previously looking at.
Celia, Kim, and I have become quite the sight-seeing team, and traveling together is a lot of fun.
The last leg of the journey up to the entrance of the fortress is hard. You are traveling up an extremely steep road for an extended distance. We kept each other motivated. It wasn’t until we were on our way down that we discovered a second way up to the fortress...a sleek looking tram that took up up the side of the mountain in probably less that two minutes. For all my adventuresome friends going to study abroad next year, I highly recommend taking the hard way up. You feel so much more accomplished when you reach the top sweaty and gasping for breathe, and it makes all the cool stuff in the fortress seem even cooler.
1:30 p.m. We have wandered around the fortress for some time, seeing some beautiful views, and climbing through the halls and outdoor areas you are allowed to explore when we stumble upon tour! It is a guided tour through the inner rooms. A few highlights were the torture room, a room set up to show the archbishops and what the fortress looked like when they took over control of construction, and a view from the top. You can see everything. We saw places that took half an hour to get to from the Sound of Music tour!
Another memorable part of the Fortress was the marionette museum! You even get a chance to try out your skills with a real marionette. It is a hoot-and-a-half! :) In the corner of the exhibit there is a box with a closed lid. If you swing the door open, suddenly there booms a maniacal laugh and a skeleton bathed in red light pops up! I was too scared to open the door, so Celia did.
By the time our tour is over we are ready for some substantial lunch. We find a cafe at the base of hill, where the food is good, but the service terrible. :) I had a “Bratwurst Hot Dog” and a desert of Kaiserschmarrn. (check spelling)
After that, our next stop were the catacombs. We were excited to be shocked and spooked by skeletons and graves. We were sadly disappointed, but we did have an entirely lovely experience at the beautiful graveyard! It was kept up with flowers and offerings. The catacombs were deep within rock caverns, but you have to go up to get to them! We were confused, because we thought that catacombs would be far beneath the ground. On the contrary! There were some beautiful caverns carved out of stone, they were lit with natural light from windows that overlooked the cemetery. No skeletons, but not a total loss! :)
3:00 p.m. After that we head to Mozart’s birthplace! We stood in the room where he was born! We got to see the clavier he composed on! It was really exciting for our dorky sides. I got Nora her present in the shop there! (Get excited Nora!)
5:00 p.m. We were all three getting pretty pooped out at this point. Climbing up to the fortress really took it out of us, not to mention we were carrying around our computers/clothes/etc on our backs the whole time! After our tour of Mozart’s Geburtshaus, we went to the house he lived in for seven years in Salzburg. When we arrived, we found them closed, but I think we were really relieved, and we decided to catch an earlier train home.
6:10 p.m. Our train left the station!
We were under the impression that we had reserved seats for the whole month, and that we could come get those seats whenever we wanted to. Apparently, that is not the case, and after chasing up and down the train trying to get what we believed to be our seats, and some help from the controller, we were set straight. Of course you can’t reserve seats for a whole month! When I said it out loud, I understood how ridiculous it sounded, and realized that the people in the seats were right, and that we couldn’t kick them out. I apologized at least six times, I felt so badly for misunderstanding, and for getting upset when they would not leave their seats for us. To make matters worse, they were two sweet older ladies!
Kim and Celia went off to find their own individual seats, and I took the one left with the ladies. I blogged and worked on my school work for the rest of the trip. Home, pjs, facebook, skyping with matt!
Goodnight!
Best trip ever.
E
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