Salzburg
Salzburg, the city of Mozart, through the Mirabell gardens, with the Hohensalzburg Fortress rising above it all.
Salzburg is a wonderful town - our favorite! It's magically beautiful and compact enough that you can feel like you've really seen it in a relatively short time.
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After we checked into our hotel, and had a little time to relax, we were off to another group dinner. Iris called a taxi for Dennis so that he wouldn't need to try to keep up with everyone. When the group got to the restaurant after our orientation walk, he was already there, waiting for us and we settled in to a wonderful dinner.
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The following morning, since our "Munich strategy" had worked so well for us before, we did the same thing. I went on the walking tour, and Dennis stayed close to home. The town was preparing for a marathon, so some of the areas were filled with trucks and equipment which somewhat impacted our ability to get good photos in some spots. When I returned to the hotel, Dennis had been out walking in the hotel neighborhood, and had enjoyed himself exploring two or three churches. We had lunch, then strolled through much of the "Salzburg Town Walk" from the guide book, taking in the cathedral, Getreidegasse with it's fascinating wrought iron signs, Mozart's birthplace and then his home from later in life, St. Peter's cemetery, St. Sebastian cemetery and much more. Several of our fellow tour members took "Sound of Music Tours" and enjoyed them.
Beautiful Salzburg with the Salzach River in the foreground and the Hohensalzurg Fortress in the back.
St. Peter's cemetery with it's beautifully tended graves.
Mozart's birthplace, where he was born in 1756.
Several days earlier, Iris had offered to order tickets for anyone who wanted to attend the Mozart Dinner Concert in the Stiftskeller St. Peter restaurant. This was another item on our "must do" list, so we signed up. The group left the hotel, and Iris had again ordered a taxi for Dennis. I went with him because it was clear that a taxi would not be able to get right to the restaurant due to the marathon which was taking place right then. On our earlier walk, Iris had shown me how to get to the concert restaurant from where the taxi would probably need to leave us. With all of the detours we needed to take to avoid the runners, we barely made it on time, and our taxi driver had to plead with a police officer to let us through the barricades. It was worth all the effort - it was wonderful!
The concert in the elegant Baroque restaurant.
Dessert - a parfait with various sauces, plus a little cookie in the shape of a silhouette of Mozart!
At the end of the concert, one of our fellow tour members even hung around to ensure that the restaurant had called a taxi for our return to the hotel. What a nice group of people we were traveling with!
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The next morning, we were back on the bus, headed to Lake Hallstatt!