Hinterforst, Innsbruck, and Salzburg

On our way to Salzburg we made a couple of stops. The first stop was in Hinterforst. Yeah, I had never heard of it before a few weeks ago either. It is important because that is where my Swiss Grandma (My Mom's Mom) was born and grew up. It was only a 15 minute detour from our trip so I wanted to drive around. Aunt Vicki had sent me a little bit of info with the picture of the house but no address. The bummer was that we probably would have been able to find the house but because of the no internet situation I wasn't able to get the picture downloaded the night before so that we could look for the house. We drove around anyway and I enjoyed thinking of Swiss Grandma yodeling on the little hills around town (of course she yodeled, she is Swiss and everyone knows that all Swiss people yodel ;-)).

We crossed through into Austria and had lunch in Innsbruck. We walked around and enjoyed the nice scenery. It was a great stop and worth a couple of hours if you are ever driving through the area ;). The most popular thing to see is a building with a gold roof. Natali and I thought that the building was okay but what is important is to find it so that you can walk in the area around that building. That is the area that is really nice to see and makes for great pictures.

We made it to Salzburg after driving most of the day in the rain. We met Harry, whom we stayed with for 2 nights (we booked most of our rooms through airbnb.com), and he gave us some tips before we headed off for an evening in Salzburg. He recommended a restaurant up on top of the hill above the city center that we tried out. We tried the famous Schnitzel and enjoyed the views. Then we just walked around the city and took some pictures. Salzburg is strange because after 8:30 PM there is not a soul on the streets. The city center is all closed down and most of the lights are off. We were hoping to stay out a little longer but it was pretty creepy being out alone so we called it a night.

Schnitzel: we had heard so much about it but this was our first time trying it. It was pretty good but we didn't understand why everyone told us that we HAD to try it. I guess you have to try you if you go to Austria just to check it off the list.

The river at night, not a single person in sight.

The next morning we woke up to a wonderful breakfast prepared by Harry. He was a super nice guy and very helpful. The only negative was that he smoked downstairs so we could smell it up in our room when he smoked. It wasn't too bad if we kept the door shut but I guess that is a risk you take when you go through airbnb. We were just super surprised that none of the 50+ people before us had mentioned anything about the smoke in their reviews.

Just a little side note: It has been very interesting to see one of Natali's little quirks on this trip: she is a mirror to the weather. If it is sunny and nice outside then Natali is sunny and nice. If it is dark and gloomy then Natali is dark and gloomy. Okay, not so much dark but it does dampen her spirits when it is gloomy outside. The days we had in Salzburg were gloomy and rainy so Salzburg was nice, but not as great as it could have been due to the weather.

Salzburg is famous for two things: Mozart and The Sound of Music. On our way to Salzburg Natali watched The Sound of Music so the songs were fresh on our minds. We started off the day in the Mirabell Gardens which contain the steps of the song "Do-Re-Me." It was cloudy out so Natali was a little bummed at the time but the pictures actually turned out really great.


 (Do Re Mi Steps)

We then went into Dom Cathedral or Salzburg Cathedral. It was massive and is named for its giant dome. It was also famous because it holds the place where Mozart was baptized. It was funny because Natali and I were picturing a big baptismal font... until we saw it and remembered that the font just needs to hold enough water to sprinkle water over an infant's head so the font is not all that impressive.

We were also able to go inside St. Peter's church which was very nice inside.

We ended up buying a Salzburg Card that gives free entrance to almost anything and everything in Salzburg as well as free public transportation for 3 days. Because of the card we ended up doing many things that we probably would not have done if we had to pay full price for them. We started with the Residence State Rooms and Gallery. The state rooms had many elaborate decorations and paintings from floor to ceiling and also along the ceiling. Natali would love a house decorated like this.

 

This staircase was interesting because each of the metal bars on the railing was made from a brass bell and was tuned to a different note. Natali had to hold me back from going and smacking all of them and trying to play a song in the middle of the room.

Lunch was really great that day (except for some rude Germans/Austrians). I tried the goulash and Natali got some really good spinach dumpling things. For dessert we had the famous Salzburger Nockerl. It was this puffy dessert with raspberries at the bottom. It was huge so we couldn't eat it all.

We headed up the funicular to Festung Hohensalzburg Fortress. It was a little boring for our taste but offered some more great views of the city. Inside the most interesting thing (well for us) was the room that had some old torture devices. There were about four masks that looked like deformed animals that could be locked onto someone's head. They called these "masks of shame" or "masks of humiliation." That would definitely be torture to wear one of those things.

 

Here are a few other sites that we saw in Salzburg: The Horse Pond.

Getreidegasse street (this area used to be famous for making these iron signs so now they require all the businesses on this street to use them, even McDonalds--as you can see).

One of the views.

 Mozart Square and statue.

 Residentzplatz, right outside of the Salzburg Cathedral (the Dom).

 A little cemetery right outside of St. Peter's Abbey.

We enjoyed the modern art museum in London so much that we decided to try another one in Salzburg. We were pleasantly surprised to find some paintings and even some photographs that we actually really enjoyed. We had some good laughs as well. Here are a couple of our favorite pieces:

We had about an hour to spare after the modern art museum and a Mozart dinner/concert that we had booked so we decided to go on a boat tour down the river. It was one of those things that we would not have done without the Salzburg Card but it was nice to sit and see the sights from the boat.

Our favorite thing in Salzburg was the Mozart dinner/concert. The whole things was very nice with the dinner (good but not great--though we had some interesting lemon soup as an appetizer that surprisingly we really loved!) and the very nice music, but the best part of it was the French couple that sat at the same table as us. They are from southern France so we spoke French the entire night and Natali loved it. They gave us tons of travel tips and we had a great conversation (well at least the parts that I understood were great). They gave us their contact info at the end of the night and told us to call them when we get into southern France so that we can get together again. We love meeting people like this. We don't have a picture with them but here is a picture of us before they arrived.

The next morning we woke up to rain and it rained ALL day. We had planned to ride the cable car up to Untersberg and see the view but it was too rainy. So we went to Hellbrunn Palace with our rain jackets and our umbrella. The first thing Natali had to do was find the gazebo from The Sound of Music from the song "16 Going on 17."

Around the palace there were some gardens and also some "trick fountains." They are called trick fountains because they are not your normal fountains. For example, there is a table outside where people can eat. With the flip of a lever, water comes shooting out from all the seats (except for the host's chair of course--who incidentally was an archbishop and (obviously) a bit of a jerk) and all around, getting everyone soaked except for the host. There are rooms that can shower down water or one that shoots a cone up and makes the cone "float." There is also a place where water fountains shoot from behind people as they sit and watch a little mechanical play. Yeah it was a pretty interesting place.

Salzburg was fun but I think because of the weather and a few bad experiences we had with people there, we were not super sad to leave. We had heard awesome things about it so maybe we will try to come back someday when it is sunny and see if that makes a difference.