After we had satisfied my almost infinite obsession with The Sound of Music in Salzburg we decided to devote some attention to its other sights, most importantly its other main contribution to music - Mozart, who was born and grew up there.
I got distracted by pretty doors and buildings along the way, as usual.
And Tom got distracted by vehicles. Here he is describing how this cycle thingie works.
There's a juxtaposition for you.
There have been horse-drawn carriages in virtually every city we have been to on this holiday, but Salzburg may just win the award for the most in a small area.
We started walking our way towards the building that we thought was Mozart's first house, snapping photos of anything remotely attractive as we went, as always.
With a small pause for me to drool over a chocolate shop window.
Yes, they have an entire range of Mozart branded chocolates.
OK, back to sightseeing.
We couldn't forget The Sound of Music entirely I'm afraid, since we passed the bridge that Maria and the kids ran down during Do Re Mi. It was closed for some kind of repairs, though.
And then we found the square outside the Mozart Museum, which we had wrongly assumed was his first house. And were amused to see the wind change and this fountain start blowing water all over the tourists gathered around it.
We had a peek inside the museum, but decided to continue our search for Mozart's first house.
We discovered that virtually everything in Salzburg has the word Mozart in it, so it took us a shamefully long time to actually find his house. We did also keep getting distracted by souvenir shops with funny T-shirts.
And beautiful little streets.
And grand buildings.
And strange shop displays.
And then FINALLY we found the right house!
No photos inside the museum, I'm afraid. We did snap this one of me sampling a Mozart chocolate we'd bought while listening to a sonata.
And then we were back on the streets of Salzburg, having completed our Mozart quest, and free to enjoy the less musical attractions on offer.
Here's Tom sampling two different types of Schnapps.
And then we wandered along the banks of the river towards the local open-air beer garden, the Augustinerbrau.
Tom was once again overjoyed to find free water.
We took a little bit of a mountainous detour towards the Augustinerbrau. Pretty good for views!
And then we made it! We almost felt like we were in the wrong place, entering by some grand foyer where there was nobody in sight.
It wasn't hard to follow the noise though, and we made our way outside.
Of course we had to sample the most interesting thing on the menu - Steckerlfische.
Which is, essentially, a fish on a stick.
It's slightly intimidating being given an entire fish.
However with a little creativity I figured out how to use the little two-pronged paddle pop stick tool they gave me, and quickly mastered the art of separating flesh from bones.
Poor fish didn't stand a chance then! And may I just say, it was absolutely delicious. My tip? Get the trout (it's a bit more expensive, but it feeds two people easily), and the curly radishes and a nice big hunk of mayonnaise, and you've got yourself the perfect mouthful.
Once we felt we had done our Steckerlfische justice (such a fun word to say), we decided to walk it all off with a bit more climbing.
More free water! Woohoo!
We stumbled across this little soccer field in the middle of the woods. Here's Tom demonstrating his kick. I think this is the follow-through part of a pretend kick in case, like me, you were concerned that he was mistaking soccer for some kind of martial arts.
We spent a bit of time hanging around the Museum de Moderne, which has the best view of the city.
We even crept inside to use the facilities, and admired the arty way in which gold and purple chairs were stacked in the stairwell.
And we went vaguely cross-eyed as we tried to decipher this neon message.
OK back to the view and our walk.
There was also a wedding going on at the museum. Here is one of the finest dressed guests.
And we even had the privilege of watching the bridal bouquet being thrown!
That seemed our cue to leave, so we caught the lift (which isn't cheap) to get to the bottom faster, and parked ourselves on the banks of the river to watch the world go by for a while. You can just see one of my feet in this photo.
The river flows quite fast. These ducks were having a hard time trying to stay in control. They swept past us incredibly quickly!
It's really beautiful at sunset.
We had a great view of the Sacher hotel, and decided to visit there afterwards for dessert.
We ordered their famous Sacher Torte, a special kind of chocolate cake with jam in it, the recipe for which is apparently a big secret.
Characteristically, I ordered an apple strudel.
But the night still wasn't over! We decided to pay a flying visit to the rooftop bar of another nearby hotel, Hotel Stein, which has a lovely view over the lit up city. Not before Tom paused to enjoy an unexpected art installation of chairs and poles. Apparently it's supposed to be a spot for reflection.
With reflection ticked off the list, we moved on to the rooftop of Hotel Stein, snapped a few shots, and then powered our way back to our hotel.
This was Tom's record of our travels on our map of Salzburg.
Vienna next, with a very very very early start to our journey there the next morning.
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