We got up pretty early to get on the train to Salzburg, Austria which is about 2 hours away. We grabbed breakfast and a bit more cash for our day trip and settled in for the ride. The ride itself was nice as you approach the mountains as you get closer and closer to the border so that combined with the fields of snow made for a scenic ride.

Once in Salzburg, Becky had read up on the buses and we quickly got on the right bus and headed to the old town to start our walking tour. We saw several churches and an interesting cemetery with metal headstones. We saw the shopping street that has been there since medieval times and still has the ornate signs to tell what each shop does.

We also saw Mozart’s birthplace.

Once we had finished the tour which covered most of the old town we decided to eat lunch and boy did Becky (and Rick Steves) come through.

I had a schnitzel the size of a plate and potatoes and a grapefruit radler and Becky had an amazing looking bowl of goulash with potatoes and a dumpling and a beer. We went back through the Christmas market which was just starting to open when we went through on our walking tour and got some dessert and some gluhwein and rested before our next stop. The afternoon plan was a Sound of Music tour we had prebooked online. We found the tour office and paid then grabbed a few drinks and waited for the rest of the tourists to arrive. We were with a newly married couple and a mom and daughter so 6 of us total in a nice van for the 4 hour tour partially in town and some out in the lake district. If you didn’t know the von Trapp family really lived in Salzburg and some of the movie was filmed there as well so we visited the houses they used for the facades, the lake that they fell out of the boat, the gazebo and the church they got married in.

Overall I think Becky enjoyed it and I enjoyed the scenery and getting to see the Red Bull drink company headquarters.

Our tour guide made it fun and I would definitely recommend a smaller tour like this one if you are planning anything similar. They dropped us off at a garden where several scenes were shot and after looking around Becky and I walked back to the train station to catch a train home. We got back to the hotel about 9:30p and are updating our blogs and heading to bed.