Ah Vienna, hello Mozart

The Mirabell Gardens, slightly bare

So easy to get out of Vienna by train, 20 minutes in a tunnel and you exit to find sunshine and fields, both green & brown & first stop after 30 minutes is St. Polten.

The 'nice surprise department' looked after us when we realised that even though our tickets said 1st Class, our seats were in Business, woohoo! (Business Class is higher than 1st Class on most European trains, a good thing to remember, gives you more baggage storage options & a bit more comfort, most of the time)

Rolling hills with grain crops abutt either side of the train with silos and associated warehousing & machinery interspersed every 10 or so kilometres with villages. They could be further apart as distance is hard to comprehend at 160kph.

Soundproofing baffles block the views from the train however wind turbines are hard to hide. It’s beautiful countryside, I could only imagine it being improved by the trees having foliage; only a few months away.

A folly in a nearby village has been overgrown with telecommunications / mobile antennae only to service the village better. The day outside my window is absolutely spectacular, not a cloud in a sky of bright blue, sensational day! We stop to collect a few more passengers in Linz, we now have an hour until Salzburg then the train heads onwards, to Munich sans the Weiry Travellers.

In the meantime, I’m just going to take in the majesty of this day. We have been so lucky, each time we visit Europe in fact, with the weather. For my 60th we sat having lunch in SAN Sebastian with Scratch, Corrine & Lola inching into the shade as it was 22 degrees on Valentines Day (February) and this trip, like 2 years ago in northern Italy/Switzerland has been no exception. Cold mornings, cloud clearing to blue skies & sunshine, absolutely stunning. Even Zugspitze, where it was minus(-) 5 degrees, the sun kept us comfortable and warm; we wouldn’t have known had we not seen a sign telling us.

A DHL warehouse complex interrupts the view complete with its airfield in the middle of nowhere. Similarly, about 20 minutes later a field of semi trailers were coming into bloom, their yellow sidings lined up at angles perfectly aligned, again, in the middle of nowhere, but the adjacent packed car park said that it was somewhere.

Flowing hills are changing into larger hill mountains slowly encroaching on the train lines as we get closer to our destination cramping the options for rail workers of yore laying the tracks, twisting through valleys

huge timber mills line one side of the train, 25 minutes out of Salzburg, thick logs from nearby forests waiting to be transformed into building pieces or sheets of ply.

we’re really getting into the country of green, green pastures and evergreen trees, a lovely change. Valleys are getting deeper, houses atop ridge lines, the defensive high ground.

Playlist for this train ride started off with Skyhooks, ‘Ego is not a dirty word’ with the guitar duo riff kings of Starkey & Symons, what a band! I've had 'Every Chase a Steeple' in my head, no idea why, for the passed few weeks. This was followed by Paul Westerberg (ex-The Replacements) & his, what I think, opus, Eventually. Impossible to find an average song on this album, absolutely gorgeous & simply outstanding, peaking with Good Day & Time Flies Tomorrow (what a song!!!). He was at the top of his game, both singing & songwriting, I think anyway. Now that’s 2 pretty diverse selections, even for me.

We arrive in Salzburg to a partly, but getting more, cloudy day and walk to our hotel, the Imlauer Hotel Pitter Salzburg.

Our room is fantastic, a 2 bedroom Tower suite so that, at this point in time travelled, we can have some space and not worry about each other. There's no sharp implements available so we are pretty much both safe from each other. We unpack & head out straight up the road in the direction of Fortress Hohensalzburg, on the hill overlooking Salzburg.

Fortress Hohensalzburg, on the hill overlooking Salzburg from our room, Austrian Alps cloud covered in the background

We cross the river and have a look around the shops making our way to a find a lift that I know we'll be taking in a day or so to go up to the Modern Museum, we'll take the lift but mightn't go to the Museum, there's a nice looking restaurant up there though.

Making our way back we stop at a supermarket for some room supplies, a stroll through the Mirabell Gardens, not quite as attractive when void of leaves, unload our supplies & head to the rooftop bar for Mandys 4pm drinks. The sun is absolutely delightful but the air is chilly, the young bar really helpful as we try to sort out what we're going to do & if certain options are too hard or not.

Afternoon drinks with nature playing its part

He recommended a good Italian as we were craving pasta; the Pasta & Vino restaurant, sounded just like the doctor ordered. We make our way for a nice filling meal, a chat with a local around our age then a walk back to the hotel for bed.

Tuesday

It's a chilly morning, around 3 degrees, as we have breakfast and head out early, around 8:15am looking for a laundry. We couldn't find one we were looking for but managed to find another, after walking some way, and the lovely lady there said she's look after it for us, terrific! We drop our laundry bag and headed to the west side of the Salzach River, passing through the narrow streets of Altstadt with it's designer label shops. Making our way through Residenzplatz and passed Marlen Statue we come to Kapitelplatz and the Statue 'Sphaera' by the German artist Stephan Balkenhol. Mandy calls me over to a small lane where an old, original watermill was turning away productively.

We made our way to the funicular base station, purchase our tickets and head up the side of the mountain in the Fortress Railway that has been taking visitors to Hohensalzburg Fortress since 1892, and we are no different. Apart from that, the walking option looked far to strenuous. It only take a couple of minutes, if that, but you quickly rise above Stazburg with fantastic viewing & photo opportunities.

Found a lift that went up inside a turret, disembarked & went into another section for the Panorama Tour walk, up inside another turret to end up on the roof with fantastic views all around Salzburg & the fort.

On the way down we were forced to take a different, but just as enjoyable route, winding through hallways and turrets until we egressed through a stairwell at the other end of the complex.

Back at ground level, after our funicular ride down, we headed over towards the Museum of Modern Art Salzburg, above Linke Altstadt. It's mid-morning now and a cuppa is in order so we stop at the Afro Coffee that has a nice seating area outside the front door. They did nice tea also, provided with a steel basket of tea that dips into the top of your cup (large) and they provide an hourglass configuration using 3 different options, light (3mins), medium (4mins) & strong (5mins). Nice presentation. I took the strong option and had a thoroughly enjoyable cuppa, just what I needed, and not one word of Earl Grey mentioned.

We bought our tickets for the lift that took you up to the Museum and jumped in to enter the foyer, but we decided the external excursion should be seen first. Out onto the large 'balcony'/ terrace, along with 30 school students, we took in the spectacular views over Salzburg and the Hohensalzburg Fortress. We walked down a pathway that took us to another fort installation, the Bürgerwehr on Mönchsberg hill. Pretty impressive fortifications from around 1465-80, easily walkable. We then headed back to the Museum and stopped to have a look at M32, a restaurant that I had found (via I know not what) but it was highly recommended. It certainly had the views covered, absolutely spectacular. The menu looked great and we might head back there for dinner one night, we'll see how we go.

The Museum itself was in the throws of changing exhibitions in 2 of the 3 floors, and the third floor exhibition left us totally underwhelmed, (maybe I'm getting older but I thought studying art at university left me with a pretty good appreciation of various multiple styles of art, but geez there is some outright crap being put in galleries, just my opinion) so we made a beeline for the exit and started our walk back to the hotel, through half a dozen school excursions; all of this before midday and 11,000 steps later, we needed to go on charge for a while.

More tomorrow.