Salzburg – The Sound of Money

Arriving in Salzburg in the pouring rain on Tuesday, it was immediately evident what a picturesque town this place is, so after uploading some photos to the internet, while waiting rain to ease, I was out walking around the town with my camera at the ready.

I walked through the old town taking in the many statues amongst the town squares and attempting to avoid the throngs of tourists. It seems Salzburg is where Germans and Austrians come for a week away, as most of the tourists were German speakers. The two most striking things about Salzburg are the fortress high up on the ridge, overlooking the town, and the stunning turquoise of the Salzac river. Walking back towards the hostel, I crossed a footbridge over the Salzac and was greeted with a stunning view along the river, to the town with the cathedrals sitting above and the Castle dominating from the top.

After accidentally falling asleep for a few hours I went down to the bar and met Clay, Michael, Matt and Dave who were planning on going out to the Monastery for a beer and maybe a meal. I joined them and we headed out into Salzburg, finding the Monastery after a little bit of walking around in circles and got ourselves a stein. You have to get your own stein off the shelf, then wash it, then wait in line to pay for it, and it is then filled directly out of the barrel. Pretty cool stuff, but I was disappointment with the fact that it seemed much more like a pub with a big beer garden than a monastery.

The next morning I woke up and decided to go out to the Eagles nest, which is a small chalet at the top of a mountain which was given too Hitler by the Nazi party as his 50th birthday present. The tour cost 50 euros, which is pretty nuts, but after my time in Berlin I have found myself very interested in all the history relating to Hitlers third reich. We were taken by bus to a tunnel about 80m below the eagles nest, where we boarded an elevator and were taken up to the Oval room. Nearly everything that Hitler ever used has since been destroyed, so it was a strange sensation to stand in a room knowing that 65 years earlier Hitler himself would have been there. Although he wasn’t there very often, as he suffered from Vertigo and this place is built right on the peak of the mountain with sheer drop offs on 3 sides. One a side note, I starting to think of Hitler as a bit of a fairy. He was a vegetarian, suffered from vertigo and was a failed artist. Seems like someone should’ve given him a cup of harden the fuck up when he was a child.

Unfortunately, the eagles nest has little historical significance remaining as they have turned it into a massively touristy area, with the chalet itself now set up as a restaurant. If this was all I got for my 50 euros I would have been very disappointed. However, the best thing about the tour was the hour we got to walk around on the mountain, and as it was a clear day you could see for over 100 miles. Clay, Michael and I all walked around the mountain for a while, taking some great photo’s and generally being amazed at the scenery.

That afternoon, after making the decision to stay in Salzburg for another two day, I now had time on my hands so decided to take it easy by reading a book in the park. Something that I hadn’t had a chance to do for a few months, so spending a few hours reading was a great relaxing way to spend my afternoon before the night ahead. That night we all went out for a few beers at a bar called Flip. Clay and I then kicked on at some other bars before stumbling home, attempting to eat a pretty average Kebab on the way. As you may be able to tell, I don’t actually remember a lot of what happened that evening.

Thursday morning was taken fairly easy recovering from the previous night and waiting for Nic to rock up on the next bus. She arrived and we sorted out what we were going to do that night and she went off to do the sound of music tour. I decided to go read some more of my book in the park. While reading Stef came and sat down and had a chat about how much she loved the Mirabelle Garten, and I agreed that it is one of the prettiest gardens that I had seen. That evening Nic, Stef, Arija and I all went out for some food, and Arija and I decided to splurge and purchase a meat extravaganza for two at around 20 euro each. I was great to have some real meat for the first time since Australia. Damn I need a good barbeque.

The next morning Nic and I went to the Ice Caves which are apparently the biggest in the world. The trip out there was massively picturesque and the mountain trail up to the caves was astounding. The caves themselves were good, but suffered from what every tour in Salzburg suffers from, which is. “It’s good, but is it worth $AUD100?” Unfortunately, the answer is probably no. However, I’m glad I did it, so I guess it is worth it in the long run.

Nic and I got back to the hostel, after getting a curry at Indigo, and after an hour chilling out we joined some friends at the bar to participate in the quiz night. We didn’t come last, but missed a couple of easy ones that could have won it for us. After the quiz night we went out, again starting our night at Flip, where we met some Austrian dudes. That’s the first time so far on my holiday that I have actually met locals. Inevitably when I go out, I end up speaking to fellow travelers, so it was really cool to hang out with some locals, go to pub and clubs frequented by locals and drinks the drinks that locals drink. At about 4am we dragged our ass home, emptied the vending machine with our late night munchies and headed to bed.

My time in Salzburg was spent doing two things. A) avoiding all things “Sound of Music”, as the movie was filmed here, there is a lot of avoiding to be done, and b) Spending money. Austria is expensive and I managed to burn close to 400euro in 5 days in Salzburg. It’s a bit scary to wonder how I’m going to cope earning 400 euro a month while working on the snow an hour down the road. I did really enjoy Salzburg though, and that’s the main thing, if I’m gonna be spending close to 6 months in the area, I’m really glad I like the area.