Ok, so many thoughts from today. Salzburg is just beautiful. It’s clean and so much fun to people watch and explore. Erin doesn’t think the people here are very friendly…they don’t acknowledge her when she says hi or smiles, but I think that’s just how Europe and many parts of the United States are. We’re from the Midwest. We’re the ones who are different…and for the better, I think.
We started off the day with an 11-mile bike ride. I haven’t ridden a bike since high school so I was terrified that I wouldn’t make it today, but I did just fine. It all came back to me, and I left wanting to do a bike tour in every city and wanting to start riding my bike when I get home. (Or at least riding it when it’s below 80 degrees….) The bike tour took us to so many places in the movie, and unlike the bus tour, which was almost double in price, we got to put down our bikes and walk around all sorts of sites that the bus couldn’t get to.
The abbey where the real Maria Von Trapp went was amazingly beautiful. There was even a choir singing. Erin and I coudn’t figure out if it was real or not, and if it was real, we couldn’t figure out if the choir was in the choir loft or behind the wall in the abbey. Beautiful stain glass windows and amazing.
Also amazing was St. Peter’s Cemetery. The scene where the Von Trapps are hiding from Rolf is supposed to take place in this cemetery, but Hollywood re-created it because they couldn’t really record in the cemetery. I like that the church had standards. The cemetery looked more like a garden than a scary plot of dead bodies and headstones. It was just beautiful. Flowers everywhere. It looked like the families came in and planted flowers under the crosses and headstones.
The bike tour was so much fun. I loved getting to ride the trail along the river. The group we went with was amazing, as were our tour guides. I’d highly recommend it to anyone who loves the Sound of Music or just movies in general and who wants to get some exercise while learning the layout of the land.
In addition to the tour, we paid for our Salzburg Cards today, which allows us to use public transportation and go into a ton of sites. We went into the Salzburg Museum, which was just OK and went on a river cruise, which was less than OK. In fact, I’m really glad that I didn’t pay for it.
We have had an interesting time foodwise with Erin’s gluten allergy. Last night, we had so-so Japanese. I also got a Hellis, just for Mark. Today, we had breakfast at St. Sebastian (or I did, as it was jut a roll and OJ), I had amazing potato, bacon, and mushroom soup, a new type of drink that is Sprite and OJ mixed…pretty tasty, an amazing Margherita pizza (almost like Two Amy’s in DC) with a glass of wine, followed by a beer at the Augustinian Biergarden for my friend Brandon.
I’m hoping for a good night sleep with no loud fights outside the window at every hour of the night and with no trash trucks showing up to collect bottles at 7 a.m. We have a busy day tomorrow. Check out our pictures on Facebook. It was a beautiful day!
