Salzburg with the Frenches!

After Munich we stopped in Salzburg for a couple days on our way to Vienna.  I really love Salzburg, I think it is such a gorgeous city, full of history and breathtaking scenery, so I'm always happy to stop off there with guests...and actually I'll be back there the couple days after Christmas!  

I love the shop signs downtown

One of our first stops after dropping off our things at our hotel and grabbing a few sandwiches for lunch was to head up to the fortress before it got dark.  The sun is setting here about 4pm, so it makes the afternoons very short. 

We took the tour of the fortress, which actually I had never done before...this room is showing the Archbishops of Salzburg throughout history, and their contributions to the building of the fortress.

And we had to make a stop in the Marionette World at the top

We found our way to the Punsch stand on this cold evening

After dinner in town we headed back to our hotel so Ryan and Teresa could do some laundry and decided to watch the Sound of Music on the ipad...although when Ryan went down to the lobby to put in the clothes, they were showing the film down there, so we all went downstairs and watched with a few other people...

Some sassy statues in the Mirabell Gardens

The fog had rolled in pretty seriously overnight...you should be able to see the fortress up on the hill, and it was just barely visible.  We were set to go on the Sound of Music tour in the afternoon, so I was getting a bit worried that the fog would ruin our views of the lakes and mountains...thankfully the weather was localized enough that once we drove out of Salzburg it was much clearer.

Now, I had been on the Sound of Music tour when I was in Salzburg earlier this year...and that day I think they sent 3 or 4 coach buses of people out on the tour.  This time however, it's definitely the off season, and we had a little 8 person van for our tour.  Apparently they still send the coach bus in the mornings, but for the afternoon tour it is much less crowded...might have something to do with the fact that the sun sets about halfway through the tour, but it was really neat to be on such a small van and be able to drive down into towns where the buses can't go.  There were actually only 5 of us on the tour, the 3 of us and a couple from DC, one of whom grew up about one traffic light from me and graduated the same year from my rival high school! Small world.

St. Wolfgang

After our tour we headed over to Augustiner Brau for some warm food and beer, and actually met up with the other couple from our tour, and ran into another group of Americans...and ended up staying there talking and hanging out until it closed.

And then the next morning we hopped on the train back to Vienna!  The part of this trip in Vienna doesn't exactly lend itself to going in purely chronological order...so I'm going to try to group activities in another way and write about them before I forget!