The SalzburgCard? Everything is FREE.
That's right, free. Awesome, right? And there were a ton of stuff on the list of stuff in the brochure that we actually wanted to do, so we each bought 48-hour SalzburgCards and proceeded to act like serious tourists for almost all of those 48-hours.
BEGIN: NOON, Monday, Sept. 17
We spent most of the day up at Hohensalzburg, which is the big fortress/castle overlooking the city, one hill over from the Mönchsberg. We took the funicular up to the fortress and wandered around the fortress and the various museums. We stopped by one of the cafes and had cappucinos and Sacher torte (a delectable chocolate cake). We skipped most of the marionette museum because frankly, those things freak us both out. They were cool for the time, I suppose, but for today's day and age, they are a teensy bit on the creepy side.
From there, we went to Salzburg's Museum of Natural History. Natural history museums are Steve's favorite kind - he never gets tired of looking at animals. It was interesting just to see how they put together their natural history stuff versus how we do in the States - a lot of it is the same. Part of the building was also a hands-on science exhibit with machines and games that show people how things like balance, gravity and centrifugal force work. It would be a great place to take our kids someday. While we were there, a school had a field trip so there were pre-teens running around all over the place. It was still fun, even for us. I can't even imagine how cool it would be for a small child who doesn't yet understand how the world works to come to a place like this.
DAY TWO: Tuesday, Sept. 18
All public transportation is free with the SalzburgCard, so we took a bus to a mountain called Untersberg, which is about 45 minutes outside of the city. We took a cable car up the Untersberg - we went up 1853 meters, or a bit over one mile. From up there, we could see all of Salzburg and the surrounding area. There were little hiking trails all over the place where we could explore and see the view from different sides of the mountain.
The Alps are very pretty to just look at because they are so tall and jaggedy - not the sloping mountainsides like many of the mountains in California. Billy got to play in the snow for the first time, too.
As we were taking the cable car back down, I commented on how I wished we'd seen a mountain goat (like we did in Zakopane!) because they are so prolific here. Five minutes later, I look down and see TWO mountain goats grazing in a little patch of greenery on the mountainside! Steve and I both smile, happy we saw some, and I lamented the fact that we still haven't seen a mountain goat actually climbing the mountain. Two minutes later, Steve points out a mountain goat hopping from ledge to ledge up the mountain! At that point I decided I was the mountain goat whisperer and declared that I would like to see a mountain goat doing the macarena. FIVE MINUTES LATER WE SAW ONE!! (Just kidding.)
Our visit to Untersberg was followed by a visit to the Salzburg ZOO!!! We walk into the zoo and the first thing we see is a little red panda running around his little patch of land - Steve's favorite animal is a red panda! Other than manatees and cows and kitties, anyway. We saw many an animal, red pandas and (more) mountain goats and lynxes and tigers and MONKEYS ALL OVER THE PLACE and some pretty birds and fish and zebras and.... The list could go on. Most of the exhibits (they weren't even in cages! Just patches of land with high fences. Somehow I feel better about that than when they are in cement cages with glass windows.) had babies of whatever animal it belonged too. We spent the whole time oohing and aahing over how CUUUUUUUUUUTE everything was!
Soooo here are a bunch of pictures of cute animals!!!
YAY, animals.
For our last stop of the day, we went to the Hellbrunn Palace to see the trick fountains.
Something to note about many of the attractions we've seen in Europe: you ave to keep in mind that some of these things are tourist attractions because of how awesome they were for the time they were built. You can't look at a clock tower and think it is silly that they keep those creepy puppets that move around up there when we have better technology available. When that clock was built 500 years ago, those moving puppets were an innovation.
Same with these trick fountains.
They must have been way cool for the time, because everything is powered basically by the pressure of the water.
But seriously, the water show at the Bellagio in Vegas is cooler, and that isn't even that cool.
The grounds are very pretty though, and it was fun to watch people freak out when they got wet (some of the fountains sneak up behind you if you aren't paying attention). But overall, Steve and I both agreed that we were glad we had the SalzburgCard and didn't pay the 10euro each to see the fountains because they were pretty anticlimactic.
DAY THREE: SalzburgCard good until NOON, Weds, Sept. 19
For our last stop in Salzburg, we headed back out to Stiegl brewery in the morning to visit their brewery museum. It was pouring down rain once more, so when we checked out of our hotel, we put our stuff in lockers at the train station and took a bus out to Stiegl (rather than walking, like we did with Michael). The museum is half a how-to kind of thing about beer, and half a history of beer in Austria. After the tour of this three-story museum, we had the opportunity to try three of the Stiegl beers in the restaurant downstairs, and afterwards we both were given pint glasses as a thank-you gift for visiting. It was a very good final use of the SalzburgCard, even if it was before noon. :P
And then we took a two-hour train ride to Munich.... OKTOBERFEST, HERE WE COME!!!!!!
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