The fourth largest city in Austria with a population around 157,000. Salzburg was founded in 696 as a Roman settlement, becoming the seat of the Archbishop in 798. It was also the location of five sub camps of the Dachau Concentration Camp – one of the first concentration camps built by Nazi Germany.

Home of Red Bull but most importantly birth home of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

In the 1960’s this also became the location for the shooting of everyone’s favourite, The Sound of Music.

Apparently the real Maria, a formidable woman, tried to influence the production of the musical. This did not go so well, however she is present in a scene with her real life daughter Rosemarie and the daughter of Werner von Trapp, one of the original von Trapp children. As Julie Andrews sings the lines ‘I must stop these doubts, all these worries’ (from the song ‘I Have Confidence’) she passes under an archway. Behind her you can see the city centre and the three women.

Today we headed on a two hour bus trip to Salzburg to meet up with Mozart and have a Sound of Music experience.

Johan warned us it would be cold and suggested that perhaps the three men who often wear shorts (Rob, MoD and an unknown who we haven’t befriended quite yet) may actually be turned back to the boat for big boys pants if they tried to get on the bus in shorts.

Lucky.

It snowed.

But I get ahead of myself. Firstly we took the second longest freeway in Germany – yes an Autobahn. Our guide told us the signs with four grey lines within a white circle meant there is no speed limit and our bus driver Martin was intending to do 300km per hour. She suggested we buckle up. We did. Martin fortunately didn’t hold true to his promise.

There were a heap of trucks parked up on the side of the road. Gary said trucks aren’t allowed to travel on the weekend. It is Sunday here. I am not sure what they do for the whole weekend but we did see a casino upon entering Austria with a ‘truckload’ of parked up trucks 😜

We didn’t see any livestock except a few deer, although we kept our eyes peeled. Julie and Gary saw some pheasants.

At one point Tanya yelled out ‘cow’. ‘Twas a horse. Good one Tanya. Turns out Tanya is the sister of a guy I worked with for 20 years. Small world.

Also turns out that in winter livestock is kept in a shed. A big shed.

Everything is closed on a Sunday because everyone goes to church. 80% of the population here is Catholic.

Lidl – Aldi’s competition – was closed but everything was left outside all weekend. Couldn’t do that in Aussie or New Zealand.

Aldi is called Hofer in Austria. It wasn’t hard to spot a Hofer.

When we got to Salzburg we took a little guided tour through the historical centre, taking in Mozart’s statue and his place of birth.

It’s a pretty little place. There are 50 churches in Salzburg with only one of them being Protestant. Every third person lives either directly or indirectly from the tourist industry.

There was a monastery but it has been turned into a hospital.

This is the statue signifying Mozart’s symphony ‘The Magic Flute’, a favourite meeting place for children.

And this of course is Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

Our guide told us it’s a rather nicer representation of him given his face had pox marks from childhood chicken pox. He was also originally turned towards the brown house behind him, whilst his widow was alive and living there. When she died they turned him back towards his birth home.

Mozart’s house is about 800 years old. If you can see the wires on the right hand side of the door, these are the door bells, which connected to each apartment. His birthplace was on the third floor.

Our guide also told us there were a number of coffee houses but in those days, women were not allowed to venture into them. Even though up to two litres of coffee per day were consumed by all. Apparently a law maker had been noted as saying ‘Women are hysterical by nature and shouldn’t do anything that makes them more frail’.

Hmmmmmm

It was about that moment one of our group pointed me towards one of my favourite signs thus far in Salzburg.

And just like that my day was just a little more hysterical.

When we finished our morning coffee we came out to find it was snowing. At times light but at others heavy.

Just enough to send us scampering into the local chocolate shoppe for one of the local delicacies. Mozart’s balls.

At 12.45 we met back with our guide who ‘guided’ us back to the bus and we ascended to the 1000 metre mark for an afternoon of song and of course food.

The Sound of Music Experience.

I bet you didn’t know the biggest Alpenhorn in the world is 47 metres.

When we finished eating, drinking and watching an amazing show, the staff opened the big doors. I think to tell us ever so subtly it was time to go. I stepped outside only to be hit with a snowball. Seriously Brian, you are such a big kid.

And it was on…

The buses had to wait for all the children to finish their snow ball fights.

When we stuck our heads up from fighting, wiped the snow of our faces, wiped down our glasses and looked around, we all agreed that it was really pretty. To be fair.

Another two hour drive, a late entry back onto the boat and a fairly quiet night. After all 50-75 year olds who play in the snow get pretty tired, pretty quickly.

Tomorrow Melk and an Abbey founded in 1089.

Night peeps.