You wouldn't think you could do so much in 5 days, but there was a TON of things to do there. Since a single post about the entire trip would be a long read, I'll break it into three parts. This post, part 1, will be about Saturday & Sunday. Part 2 will consist of Monday, and Part 3 will be Tuesday & Wednesday.
Saturday morning we loaded the car up and dropped the dogs off at the kennel. It's the same kennel we used the last time, and the dogs seemed right at home there. Well, Milo did. As soon as we dropped them off in the gated area, he ran off to play with the other dogs. Murphy stood at the fence watching us until we were out of sight. The drive to Salzburg, including a stop to get an Autobahn Toll Sticker, took about 4 hours. Of that drive, 3 hours & 45 minutes was in Germany. I knew Salzburg was near the border, but I didn't know it was THAT close.
We pulled up at the hotel around 4 or so in the afternoon.
The place was nice, and was right next to the Old Town area. After we got settled, we headed out to explore. We quickly found out that the hotel was literally right next to Schloss Mirabel, and the Mirabel gardens. Anyone who has seen the Sound of Music will recognize the gardens as the area where they filmed the "Do Rey Me" song.
We walked around there for a bit, and when we left the gardens we stumbled upon the Mozart Wohnhaus, which translates to "Mozart's Residence". Unfortunately I completely forgot to take a picture of it. After that we were ready for dinner. We'd both read up on the largest Brew Pub in Austria still in existence, the Augustiner Brewery. We knew it was close, but had read that the food was extremely over priced. But, they let you bring in outside food. So we decided to head over there, find a take out place nearby, and bring food and have their beer. Once we found the place, we quickly realized there wasn't really any take out places nearby. We finally decided to just head into an Irish Bar called Murphy's Law that we stumbled upon. The original plan was to eat dinner there, then head to the Brewpub for drinks.
When we walked in, we immediately felt like we were back in a bar in the US. Everything was in English, the bartender greeted us in English, and hanging on all the walls were shirts, jerseys, flags, and other sports paraphanelia from European Soccer teams, American College Football teams, Major League Baseball teams, and NFL teams. And the bartenders working in the Irish Pub were actually from Ireland.
And, like most dive bars in the US, their food menu left something to be desired. I asked for the menu, and the guy opened the freezer and said that was it...all they had were frozen pizzas. We laughed and said why not. They also had some good Irish Beers on tap...I haven't had an Irish Red beer in awhile. The bartenders were extremely friendly, and it wasn't long before we started talking with them. I happened to notice they had 3 TV's on, and one of them was connected to a computer. It turns out the English Soccer game they were showing was actually streaming over the internet, and they had it hooked up to the TV to show there for people to watch. It was pretty quiet in the bar, so I told the bartender I had my TV at home hooked up to the internet, so if at 9:30 no one was watching whatever game was on, could I give him the website to connect to so we could watch the Arkansas / Auburn College Football game. He had no problem with it. Come 9:30 they had a game on that a few people seemed to be watching, so I asked again to confirm it was ok. He said it was just Spanish Fussball, people were only watching it because nothing else was on...he said he was a little busy, so just head behind the bar and "work your magic". So I did, and within a few minutes, we had our home TV in Germany streaming an American Football game happening in Arkansas to this little bar in Austria. Technology can be great sometimes. :)
It ended up being a really fun night. It got busy around the time the game started and as people noticed us watching the game, they would start asking us questions about American Football. The whole bar also got a kick out of the cheesy Armed Forces Network PSA's we get to watch instead of commercials. Shanna even taught the bartender the Arkansas cheer, which is called "Calling the Hogs". Within no time at all, he was calling the hogs everytime Arkansas scored. Unfortunately Arkansas lost. The bartender tried to console us by telling us it could be worse...we could be French. That got a laugh. The game ended around 2am, which is about when the bar closed. We paid our tab, and the bartenders gave us both a free beer "for the road". Of course we were walking, so no worries there. :)
The next morning was our actual Anniversary date. The day started great with us sleeping in late. Around noon time we were cleaned up and ready to walk around the city. While looking for a place to eat lunch we stumbled across Mozart's Gebursthaus, which translates to Mozart's Birth house. That I did remember to take a picture of.
We walked inside for a bit, then headed out. The fortress on top of the hill is huge, and impossible to miss from anywhere in the city. We walked in the general direction of it until we got to the base of the mountain it was located on, and took the trolley to the top. The tour was interesting...we got to see the "torture room", which was never actually used for torture, as well as go to the very top where the view of the city was amazing. It's just too bad the weather was so lousy.
After the tour we walked around town some more, then headed back to the hotel. We ended up having a nice dinner at the hotel, and calling it a day.
That's it for Part 1. To see the pictures, click here or any pics in this post. Part 2 to follow!
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