Day 6 – Salzburg, Austria
I woke up to the church bells of Salzburg. The first we thing we did today was eat breakfast at the hotel. My family went down without me while I finished getting ready. I got a little lost trying to find them. I got a cappuccino for the first time – I would rate it a 3 out of 10 because I normally don’t put milk in my coffee, and it was very frothy. Ha ha – that rhymes!
Hohensalzburg Fortress
We took a quick walk over to the old town where we rode the funicular up to the Hohensalzburg Fortress, a giant medieval castle on top of Mt. Festungsberg. Construction began in 1077 and walls and towers were added over the next few centuries. The views were spectacular – atemberaubend! Mamafer was so kind to share her camera with me and I was able to snap some gorgeous pics of the scenery.
We headed into the fortress and soon realized that there were games set up around the entire interior. Evan insisted that we get the game pass and then we competed against each other at each station. The games ranged from tug of war, which showcased our strength, to spinning a wheel to complete a peacock’s feathers. I got first place, obviously. (It was a four-way tie, but whatever.)
Then Mondra led us out of the fortress back down to the town and we found a slug named Greg. At the bottom of the hill, we walked through the cemetery, and toward St. Peter’s Abbey, which was founded in the 7th century. Walking through the square, we one searching for lunch and found sandwiches and a massive pizza pretzel at an open market. We sat on the stairs of Kollegienkirche (Collegiate Church) to eat our food, and watched the pigeons, who were fearless. The kept coming right up to our feet, which excited Kate, but I wanted nothing to do with the birds.
Museum of Natural History and Technology
When we finished, we walked to the nearest ice cream shop and got our favorite flavors to eat on the way to the Museum of Natural History and Technology. We planned on going here since it was supposed to rain… it never rained. Evan wanted to explore the science center, so we went there first. We went to the mechanical science area and there were so many different interactive exhibits. My favorite was running on a hamster wheel to see how many watts I could produce – not because it was fun to do, but because it was fun to watch other people flop over when they tried to stop.
Mondra and the twins were tuckered out and went back to the hotel, but Mamafer and I wanted to stay longer. We saw so many different reptiles and amphibians – my favorite was the crocodile because I didn’t even know it was there, but he was staring directly in my face the whole time.
I didn’t love the deathly venomous snakes because I felt like they were going to pop out of their little enclosure and eat me whole. We also walked through the aquarium and saw lots of fish. There was even an octopus there.
Salzburg Cathedral
After the museum, Mamafer and I headed out for our grand exploration. We went to the Salzburg Cathedral and the upstairs was gorgeous – the carvings over the arches were extraordinarily detailed. As we were just about to leave, we realized that we could access the crypt, so we took a little looks, and boy oh boy, it was creepies. There was a sculpture installation of demons in one of the dark rooms in the crypt. There was a light shining through a rotating metal cutout that made it look like a monster was flying through the room. We decided we were done with the church.
We explored the old town and the area around our hotel for the next two hours. Then we went back and got Mondra and the twins, had some dinner, and now we are off to bed!
