Day 6: Hallstatt/Salzburg

We bid goodbye to one of our favorite places as we boarded the ferry boat and crossed the lake away from Hallstatt. After a slight rush (ultimately unneeded) to the train station, we arrived at Salzburg after about 3 hours and an easy journey.

(....Unfortunately, there was a poor soul on our train who realized he forgot his passport in Hallstatt AFTER taking the ferry AND train more than an hour in the opposite direction. That put any minor inconveniences that we had experienced in lightning-quick perspective...)

As we took our BFF Rick Steves along via podcast and began walking throughout the town, I quickly fell in love with the medieval city. Salzburg is surrounded by the rolling Alps foothills with the proper Alps towering in the near-distance, and is split by its river into a "New Town" (rebuilt after WW2) and the "Old Town" (mostly survived the war.) Its imposing castle looms on a large hill overlooking the town and.... well, it's hard to put into words just how lovely everything is. Good thing we took a ridiculous amount of photos so I don't have to:



View from one of the bridges over the Salzburg River between New and Old Town

Happily plugged into Rick Steves city walk tour.



Mozart is the hometown hero! Before living in Vienna, he was born and raised here in Salzburg. His birthplace was around the corner from our hotel, and much of Old Town looks similar to how it did in his time. I loved walking the pedestrian-only streets and knowing that Mozart had visited these same buildings and cathedrals.

Salzburg Cathedral -- gorgeous Catholic Church in Old Town (we could see its cupolas from our hotel room). The current structure dates from the 17th century -mostly all but its dome survived the war -- and a church has existed on this site since the first century.

Above photos are interior views of Salzburg Cathedral.

St. Peter's Church - does it look like the area where the Von Trapp family hid during the Sound of Music? It was! (Well sort of. The movie version used a Hollywood set that was based on this church & cemetery.) The real life Von Trapp family's story took place in Salzburg and there are a crazy amount of commercial Sound of Music tours for us American tourists. Brendan thanked his lucky starts that I got my fill of SOM tidbits from our Rick Steves podcast and didn't feel the need to join one of the herds of cattle -- I mean, tour groups.

The main streets in Old Town feature traditional wrought-iron signs. 

View of Salzburg Castle (background) and Salzburg Cathedral (foreground) from our hotel room. I spent an embarrassing amount of time just staring out our window at this sight.  

Photo taken in New Town, across the river from Old Town and the Salzburg Castle.

That night, we enjoyed our best meal of the trip -- so nice, we ate there twice! -- at K&K Restaurant. Delicious Austrian-themed food but lighter and more modern in presentation and ingredients. The weather was nice so we enjoyed tables on their patio, but the restaurant's interior dates back more than 800 years (!!!).

Hotel note for travelers:
We stayed at the Hotel Elefant and again, couldn't have had better luck with our room. The hotel was located in the middle of Old Town and within easy walking of all the sights. It retailed for 347E/night -- but we only paid around half of that due to shoulder season and my polite-yet-cranky pre-booking requests. The room was on a high floor and had a sitting room, bedroom, separate entry room and large bathroom. But best of all, it had great views of the castle and Salzburg cathedral. If you visit Salzburg, request room 509!

 Auf Wiedersehen!