Salzburg Day One

On Saturday, June 6, we (Donnie, Vanessa, Sam, Professor Lowe, her son Alan, and I) went to Salzburg.  We took the 9:40 am train and arrived by 12:45 pm. A taxi took us to our castle, yes castle. We stayed in the Johannes Schlößl der Pallottiner. 

The scenery leading up to the castle and the exterior were absolutely gorgeous. After depositing our belongings in Donnie’s room since ours was not ready, we went out exploring. There were cows on the property! 

A little farther we came across a café alongside the mountain with an excellent view of the city. 

To get down the mountain, instead of hiking or taking a little train, we took an elevator. Yea, that was pretty cool. It took us right through the center of the mountain all the way to the bottom. It was pretty high up because on the way down my ears changed pressure.

There were no available walking tours of the city L and I was disappointed because everything I had heard of Salzburg was that the landscape was gorgeous…and we weren’t even going to see it. So we went to the Salzburg Museum instead. It was good, but definitely had nothing on the Vienna Museums.

Then we went to Mozart’s house, where he lived for 26 years. There were descriptions of all the people who lived there and what the room was used for. There was a display indicating that the family dog was shot because he was barking. That was sad. There was also a room in which everything was upside down. The floor was the ceiling and looked like stars, the ceiling was like a town, and the paintings on the walls were all hung upside-down. I really didn’t understand that room – there was not an explanation or anything – just randomly thrown into the mix. I saw locks of Mozart’s hair, which were a light brown and I saw his silk wallet among a bunch of other things like his small violin and several types of pianos.

After Mozart’s house, we went to eat a large dinner since we hadn’t had anything all day and we were pretty much on a one-track mind to get food. Vanessa and I split the house platter made for two and it was enormous! There were two schnitzels, two chicken breasts, two pork, two bratwurst, fries galore, and cole slaw. 

We finished off this huge and delicious meal with a meringue.  I wasn’t a fan of this – it didn’t taste like a dessert to me and I didn’t like that it dissolved the second I put it in my mouth so there was nothing to swallow.

After dinner, Vanessa and I went shopping but stores closed ten minutes later so we were forced to go back to the castle. Easier said than done. As is custom when Vanessa and I venture out on our own we got lost. This time it wasn’t in nice Vienna where there are signs. It was in the rainy, muddy woods. And it was getting dark. We managed to get on the wrong trail, which wasn’t quite taking us as close to the castle as we would have liked, so we cut through the woods. I swear I saw grave markers! I wanted to stop and take a picture but it was raining and we wanted to get the heck out of there. We finally made it to our room and collapsed. Since it was cold (~ 47 *F), raining, muddy and we would have to climb down a mountain to go anywhere fun, we stayed in the room and just talked and played cards. There was no tv or internet so our options were somewhat limited.

It was actually a really fun night, but it wouldn’t be study abroad in Austria if we weren’t scared somehow. Everytime we looked up at the ceiling we spotted a new “Mitbewohner” – but not the nice kind – spiders. They were everywhere. We were freaking out. Vanessa actually got up on a chair to kill the spider but had a massive freak out when she came face to face with the gigantic beast. I even started tearing up I was so scared – but that’s just me. – I HATE spiders. It was horrible. We laid in bed cuddling and telling stories trying everything possible to distract ourselves and avoid gawking at the horrible beings. In the end we finally fell asleep. That was the end of day one in Salzburg.