My three friends and I got to agree that Salzburg ranked at the top of the most enchanting city during our trip. This certainly came with reasons.
We entered Salzburg from Prague at approx 2 pm by train. As usual, we got a little bit lost in locating our hostel, which was supposed to be not far from the train station. We stayed at YoHo (Youth International Hostel), which was very nice and most importantly at affordable rate (only EUR17/person) :-)
We decided that we were too tired to walk around the city or event wondering the city transportation route, and that the city was too beautiful to get passed by without strolling every inch of it, so we rented a bike. The weather was relatively cool so it was perfect to have a bike ride. With a map in our hand and EUR 10 as the rent fee, we started our journey.
Salzburg is the fourth largest city in Austria after the capital, Vienna, Graz and Linz. It is very difficult not think about the legendary movie The Sound of Music when you hear about Salzburg. It is as well difficult not to burst into songs when you're walking along the rivers or stopping by at Mirabel Platz, our first stop in our bike ride. Well, that seemed to happen with one of my travel mates, Dewi. With no shame and doubt, she sang the song "Do-re-mi"...and danced....publicly!! Hahaha...yeap, she actually did those! She successfully served a public performance when people were openly watching and smiling at her.... :-)
We parked our bikes and encountered a three storey house (or castle) which initially we thought to be the house Von Trapp family but sadly it wasn't. The house was surrounded by a vast garden with several pools and fountains. Of course, there were always statues of horses, guards, just to name a few. Adding with the perfect weather, the place offered a very peaceful ambiance to simply walk through the green. I envied several old couples who sat at the wooden chairs next to the fountain and in the middle of a beautiful garden or hand in hand walked slowly, enjoying the presence of one another. Huuhuhuhu.... I really wanted to be like them when I grew old.
As we continued riding, we tried to read the map to get to the next stops, but then we decided to just follow the roads wherever it led us to. The view was too beautiful to be ignored as we may get busy reading the map. Renting a bike was an excellent choice we have made. Salzburg has over 100km bike paths and using bike was often faster than taking bus, car or foot. There were, of course, times when we were not sure whether it was allowed to ride on the bus lane, so we took the pedestrian side. Apparently it was not allowed as it was for people walking, well of course :-)
We rode the bike to the paving-block alleys with shops and restaurants on our side, until we finally encountered a river, a beautiful one! The view was really like a painting. The blue river with green hills as the far backside of it. The combination of dark green hills of forests and light green as huge pasture with some old farm houses spreading over the hills created a breathtakingly enchanting view!
Following the path (and intuition), luckily the ride brought us to Salzburg Museum with a big statue of Mozard, glaring so elegantly! We took our time to catch some breath as well as some snaps, hehe...and managed to buy some merchandise ;p
The next stops (again, with no maps, just follow the road and instincts) we managed to get to Hohensalzburg Fortress. It was located on top of a mountain, but of course we didn't ride up with our bike! We got there by a cable car, a vertical furnucular at a cost of EUR 4-6 (can't remember the exact ticket fare). It was around 6pm and there were only few visitors. The story said that the fortres was used to serve as the residence for the prince archibishop for many years, and also served as military barracks and as a prison. We climbed up to one of fortress areas which offered visitors a breath-taking views of Salzburg and the Alps. We also got to look down on a field below to find only one house. The story said that it was the prison excutioner's house and it was believed that to live anywhere near the house would bring a bad luck. We stayed for few moments to enjoy a beautiful sunset, while the weather was getting cold (poor me, I made a wrong outfit with a short pant). Going inside the fortress, it was a bit gloomy. I didn't know if it was because the atmostphere of having to see weapons , some torture instruments, dark chambers, or simply it was because it got dark so it was quite creepy. We didn't manage to check more rooms like the chambers, chappel. Anyway, we saw one outdoor cafe right at the edge of the walls, which could serve very romantic candle light dinners, but it was closed for the reasons I didn't bother to find out :)
Oh, before going up to the fortress, we happened to sit back a while in a quite big open space, looking at some men playing a giant chess. Really, it was a big chess game, where the pins were half size of a man.
After the fortress, we then rode back, heading to the hostel as it got darker. Again, we were so proud to be able to find the path back without looking at the map, hahaha... As hunger was catching up, we turned to find a place to eat first. We ended up in a very nice Turkey kebab restaurant near the train station. With EUR 5.5 we enjoyed a quite big beef kebab (so big that we couldn't finish it up) and a cup of hot tea.
We finally managed to get back to hostel, tired but so fullfilled (and with full stomach!)
We left the city the next day, heading to Venice....whoaaa....Italy, we're comiiiiingg...!!!
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