July 30th
The night before last in Fussen, after another Bavarian feast of one plate of ribs with 2 baked potatoes (that’s 2) with sour cream and one plate of Bavarian meat loaf (looks like bologna but tastes good) with potato salad, we hired two mountaineers in lederhosen to load us into wheelbarrows and roll us back to our hotel.
The next morning we had another great buffet breakfast in the hotel and caught the 11:05 train to Munich. There was a 1st class compartment car available so we had our own nice compartment for the trip - no seat reservation required. We were about 10 minutes late getting into Munich so that left us only 10 minutes to catch our train to Salzburg. Luckily we had scouted out the station a few days before when we passed through so we knew which way to go. We had no problem catching our “Rail Jet” train to Salzburg. Again we had 1st class seats but this time in a new coach that’s very much like business class in a plane. There are overhead monitors telling where you are, the train speed and time to the next station. There’s a waiter from whom you can buy full meals off a set menu and get your food with real plates and cutlery. Plus the train travelled at speeds up to 155 km/hour with no stops.
We arrived at our hotel near the train station without too much searching. We had booked a double room with bathroom down the hall for 96 euros per night, which seemed a little steep but we thought that was the going rate here. The hotel is about a 3 star but the room, on the 4th (almost top) floor smelled of smoke and looked like it hadn’t been renovated in about 40 years. We asked for another room and got the one across the hall which looked a little better but at least didn’t smell of smoke. So I went to the front desk and asked if they had a better room with ensuite bathroom. They did for another 10 euros per night. We looked at it (sort of the penthouse room on the 4th floor plus a bit) and it was really big and nice (although not as good as the Fussen room) so we took it.
We asked at the desk why this room was available but not listed on the Hostelworld web site. It turns out that they only list the 4 worst rooms in the hotel with Hostelworld. We don’t know what’s going on here but we felt like we were being overcharged for the lousy room and got a pretty good deal on the room we’re in now. We’re going to put this in our review to Hostelworld and maybe start searching for rooms with that site but look into booking them directly from the hotel. We’ll see but there’s definitely something fishy going on. We haven’t had this trouble before.
Last night we ate in the hotel restaurant (good Indian food of all things - it seems to be run by Indian immigrants). On our room television they have the usual channels plus they run “The Sound of Music”, which is set in Salzburg, on a continuous loop. Anita duct taped me to a hard chair, propped my eyelids open with toothpicks and made me watch it all night. I’m a little tired today but all I feel like doing is skipping through a mountain meadow yodelling the song in my heart.
This morning we had the buffet breakfast (not bad) and then set out in the rain for the old part of the city. The weather has been cool and mostly damp since we left Verona last Saturday but this was the wettest day yet with almost constant rain and some heavy showers. We’re really glad we have our Gore-Tex shells after carrying them around for 3 weeks without taking them out of the pack. Nevertheless we went to see a big church, some catacombs with 2 chapels in them cut into the cliff, the big fortress and the home where Mozart lived for quite a few years. He composed many of his famous works there. There are quite a few of his original musical scores preserved there plus some of the pianos and other instruments that he used. The big fortress had several museums in it. One was devoted to marionette puppets. This seems to be a big thing here. We had a good day of touring and saw lots of interesting stuff despite the weather.
Salzburg is very beautiful and would likely look even better if we could see the tops of the mountains.
Yesterday afternoon I went to the train station and got 1st class seat reservations on the Rail Jet to Vienna tomorrow, then Vienna to Budapest a few days later, then 2 days in Budapest and a Rail Jet train back to Vienna plus a same day connection to Prague. That will be a long day but now we’re set for seat reservations for about a week. I stood in line for about 2 minutes and paid only 35 euros for all these reservations. I haven’t stood in line for a long time since we left Rome. Plus, the reservation costs are much less in Austria and Germany. So far, Spain and Italy have been the worst for long line-ups and higher reservation costs. I’ve read that Budapest is nuts for train station line-ups too but now I don’t have to deal with that at all.
Instead of going out in the rain, we’ll go to the hotel restaurant for dinner again. Tomorrow it’s off to Vienna for 3 nights.
We know that some people have tried to contact us using the wrong email address. Our address is
abboles@gmail.com. We’re always happy to hear from anyone.July 31st
It's early in the morning and Anita is still sleeping. We have to leave here after breakfast to catch our train to Vienna. Last night I reserved a third night in our upcoming Vienna hotel by going directly to the hotel's web site instead of through Hostelworld. I got exactly the same price that we had got for the first 2 nights so using Hostelworld doesn't seem to be a problem. It must just be this hotel in Salzburg that's doing something odd.
It's not raining this morning so maybe we'll even get some sun later.
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