Chapter Four
Splendid Salzburg
Melissa and I woke up feeling rough. We had done a lot of walking in the past few days and our feet and ankles were ready to revolt. I went down and had breakfast with the group while Melissa rested. I told Anja we would opt out of the morning activity, a two hour walking tour of Salzburg followed by a schnitzel baking class. Shortly after the tour left, Melissa came down for breakfast. We had brought our cooling towels that we always take to music festivals, so we soaked them up and wrapped out feet and ankles in them. That helped a lot!
A little before midday, we were ready for an adventure, just one that didn’t involve much walking. We had been given public transportation day passes, something Salzburg does for overnight guests to help bolster hotel tourism. We walked to the nearest tram stop, hoping to hop on to go anywhere along the surface streets. We rode the #1 tram through the old town, across the river, past some ethnic restaurants and through some cool little neighborhoods. One was called Lehen. I thought to myself, “I’d love to go for a leisurely walk through this neighborhood”. However, that would defeat the purpose of resting our feet, so we stayed on the tram.
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For the second time on this trip, we had hopped on a route going the wrong direction. We wanted to go to the mall with a brewery inside, but we ended up at the expo center. We were the only ones on the tram, so as our driver took his break, we got to chat with him. He‘s from Egypt, been here a year, attended a German high school in Egypt, got a business degree and decided to take a job in Salzburg. Unfortunately, he didn’t have the business job for very long. Fortunately, they needed tram drivers, so he took that job instead and they let him keep his work visa.
The tram got back underway as we retraced our steps back toward the mall or the other end of the line. Suddenly, buzzers started going off and we pulled off to the side of the road. Something was amiss. The driver got out and started banging on something at the back. After some time, all the passengers gathered their things and started walking. I looked at Google Maps and smiled to myself. We had broken down in Lehen! I would get my neighborhood walk after all!
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Another one came by and we rode to the city center and stopped for lunch on our walk back to the hotel. We found a sidewalk café where Melissa had a chicken salad and I enjoyed some Hungarian goulash with spatzel. After picking up some snacks for later, we rested in the hotel.
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In the evening, we got all gussied up and walked with another couple from our group to the base of the cliff that the fortress sits upon. We took the funicular up and were treated to an array of amazing views of the town and the Alps beyond. We went deep into the fortress to hear a concert of Mozart and Strauss. It wasn’t Mozart and Strauss themselves, it was more like a cover band. A string quartet to be exact. At one point, they were joined by an amazing pianist. As the sun set on an amazing day, we sweated through an unbelievable concert experience. Then we walked through Salzburg in the dark to our hotel to cap off the day.