Anyway, I got on a train from Rome to Florence early in the morning. This might be a silly observation, but I noticed that people are much more talkative in Italy than in other places I've been to on the train. All the while there was a pleasant hum of conversation filling the car rather than the stiff silence I've experienced elsewhere.
Trains are very punctual here, and I was surprised to see that at the scheduled arrival time to Florence, the train was still rolling and there was no city in sight. Normally, I wouldn't mind this tardiness - it means less time hanging out in a train station, but I only had a fifteen minute break between that train and my connection to Innsbruck, Austria. Time crept on, and I started getting more and more anxious. In summary, had I not ran through the train station in Florence and or had the Rome train been only one minute later, I would have missed the train to Austria and would have been in quite the pickle.
Nothing bad happened, though, and I was safe on the train, which meandered through Italy for a while before turning north towards the beautiful Alps. Though it looked cold, miserable, and rainy, it was still amazing to look out the window and see walls of earth rising up around the train. Clouds looked as though they had gotten tangled on the wooded slopes, almost like garland on a Christmas tree. I was in a small cabin with a German couple, and aside from a few comments on where in Italy we were coming from, we sat in a comfortable silence (as opposed to the uncomfortable, awkward silence that exists in other situations).
By the time I got to Innsbruck, it was dark outside. The connecting train to Salzburg was uneventful other than making significant progress in finishing The Hunchback of Notre Dame. I found my way to the buses, took it to my hostel, and settled in for the night.
Salzburg was my first experience with a hostel, and I think I was a little spoiled! It was very clean, comfortable, and well run. If you didn't know this already, The Sound of Music was filmed in Salzburg and was shown every evening at 8, and so of course I watched it both nights I was there. But more than watching the movie where it was filmed, the following morning I went on a Sound of Music tour. The tour guide was a crazy, charismatic English woman and I had a complete blast!
Let the pictures begin!
Woman in the middle in the black hat was my tour guide - like I said, she was a hoot!
First stop: The Pavilion!
Something funny about the pavilion: people can no longer go inside it because an 82 year old woman was skipping around on the seats singing "I Am 16 Going on 17" and fell and seriously injured herself. Okay, so maybe that's funny in a terrible, ironic way.
Recognize the back of the Von Trapp home? :)
In the gardens where most of Do Re Mi was filmed.
The little gnome that they marched around.
The Do Re Mi steps.
I just felt like skipping for some reason.
On the tour, we also went outside of Salzburg and saw some of the beautiful mountain lakes!
A nice wall of rock that was seen in the movie. I know - these pictures are just becoming ridiculous!
See the red dome of the Abbey?
The Church in Mondsee where the wedding was filmed.
The bank where they skipped along the river, again in Do Re Mi.
The foot bridge they walked over!
That concluded my Sound of Music Adventures. I wandered around the city, ran into Mozart.
This wall is older than the United States of America.
I went up to see the fortress...
But entrance was pretty expensive and I had other plans to see castles later in my trip. I thus wandered down some new paths and found myself in the hills above the city!
It was so beautiful! The colors on the trees were pretty ripe and it was a nice fall day.
A bit of Salzburg for you!
In conclusion, Salzburg has been my favorite city so far! It wasn't a huge city like Rome or Paris, but was just about right for my tastes! And of course I am a fan of mountains. In fact, it has made me want to backpack through the Alps and first visit Switzerland, but then come back through Austria, and maybe on to Hungary.
I was sad to leave Salzburg, but my adventures weren't done yet. I still had Munich on my itinerary before heading home. But that's a story for another day.
Love from Belgium!
Gracie
1 comment:
I love Salzburg. I think it's because I'm partial to it on account of the Sound of Music, but still. It's beautiful. What a quaint and lovely place it is, too. It's almost as if you can imagine Maria and the Captain and all his seven children popping out from around a corner, singing at the top of their lungs!!
Okay, scratch the Captain from that picture. Somehow I don't see him doing that.
But you know what I mean! ;)
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