Vienna, Austria - 12 June 2005

We are traveling from city to city now, staying in each city for three or four nights so each day we are running around trying to see as much as we can in each city. As a result the only time we have for preparing text for the blog is on the train; so this is being written as we go through the Austrian countryside from Salzburg to Vienna. Since we left Italy the weather has been chilly, cloudy with some rain in Interlaken, Switzerland and in Salzburg. It hasn’t been enough to slow us down, though, and every day we have been getting in some serious walking. The Internet connections have been a little spotty so we don’t always get a change to download pictures and text at the some time.
Salzburg is a beautiful, small city with the snow-capped Alps Mountains in the distance. It has a very quaint medieval old town section and a huge castle above the city (Festung Hohensalzburg) dominates the town. Salzburg was also the birthplace of Mozart. On the first day in Salzburg we took a long hike on the old city walls, browsed through shops, churches and museums in the old town. We took a funicular to the castle and took tours of the castle walls and defenses, living quarters, marionette display, ancient armor, torture chamber, dungeon. In the evening we went to a very enjoyable marionette performance of Mozart’s Magic Flute opera. On the second day we went to a museum in Mozart’s house and took a boat ride up the Salzach River to the summer palace of the Prince-Archbishops (Hellbrunn Palace). The palace includes an elaborate set of ponds, fountains and wonderful water actuated displays. The Prince-Archbishop who had it built was apparently a trickster and had a number hidden fountains that would spray his unsuspecting guests when he nodded his head to an assistant. Salzburg was very enjoyable and well worth the trip.More on Vienna on the train to Budapest.