Alter Markt

A bit of a novelty this morning... We are staying in a newish compact hotel room with no self-catering facilities or fridge etc, which makes breakfast a bit more of an ordeal in some ways. The hotel offers a buffet continental breakfast for a reasonable rate, and only €3.50 for the kids, so we ate a pretty good breakfast. Whilst doing this, Craig noticed that someone was buying a "Salzburg Card" and on investigation we found that it included free entrance into everything Salzburg + bus/tram trips included, so armed with a new card each, off we went to discover Salzburg!

First stop was the Mirabell Gardens, followed by a trip through the residence of the Mozart family. Keyboards were certainly a lot more compact back then. Afterwards we walked through the "old town" streets which were full of beautiful arcades and elaborately decorated street lights and shop signs. There were a number of shops selling beautifully tailored dirndls, although I didn't see anyone in the streets wearing then, so not sure who their target market was - they were retailing for between €600 and €1,000, so wouldn't really be considered a mass tourism item.

We then caught a very speedy funicular up to the "big white fortress on the hill" Festung Hohensalzburg - a panorama of Salzburg, a number of museums including one which just warmed the sarcasm of my husband's tongue - a very lame marionette museum, although it would be more aptly promoted as "someone's poorly maintained collection of marionette dolls put together in a bit of a lame way". It was a bit chilly by the time we got back down from the fortress, and we passed a person selling hot wine and hot cider. Craig bought some hot red wine - we have been meaning to make mulled wine for the last few winters and not gotten around to it - if it tastes like this, I don't think we will bother. It was impossible to not pull a face when drinking it as it tastes like you are being poisoned with every sip!

Lunch was some street food - the highly anticipated eating of "wursts" - the best sausages on buns ever eaten!

The weather was trying hard to be annoying today - very cold and spitting intermittently with rain. Luckily any full scale rain managed to stay away. We did a cruise on the extremely swift flowing water of the Salzach River. Afterwards we went up to the Museum of Modern Art (it is situated at the top of an escarpment). Given we knew there were not that many restaurants around where we are staying, we decided to have dinner in the city before heading home. Found a fascinating restaurant which had about 7 or 8 different "rooms" which were all styled/themed - from very modern, to a biergarten, to traditional. We decided to go traditional as the waitress was wearing a dirndl. I ordered spitezl, Craig had another wurst washed down with 1/2 litre of Austrian bier. Gigantic meals - will need to eat less tomorrow!Read more