I woke up abruptly. My alarm was ringing for what felt like hours before I actually woke up. I bolted out of bed, got dressed, and ran downstairs. It was our free day and a group of us needed an early start to make the long trek to Salzburg. I was excited to be in Salzburg, but not very excited for the two-train, two and a half hour commute. We left with high spirits, however, we were quickly demoralized by trying to buy train tickets. It wasn’t an easy process and it took us a while to get it right. But we prevailed. We first took a train from Augsburg to Munich, and then, from Munich to Salzburg. When we arrived in Salzburg there was a brief moment of relief; everyone was thinking, “Okay, we made it.” However, the main planning was only to get us to Salzburg. We showed up to an unfamiliar city, in an even foreigner country, with no plan for the next several hours. We started walking towards the Mirabel Gardens and the Hohensalzburg Fortress. To be honest, I had no idea what tourist attractions were in Salzburg before today. I really only decided to go to Salzburg to cross one more thing off my bucket list. As we walked through the city I realized that this was not like Germany. Its hard to name exactly what felt different but it just did. It could have been the urban feel of the city with the view of the Alps in the background.

We arrived at the Mirabel Garden to be met with hundreds of tourists and even a group taking wedding photos. (I didn’t realize just how big of an attraction this was.) It was beautiful. The gravel paths paved through what was primary grass with spiraling designs of blue and yellow flowers. All this surrounded a fountain in the middle.

We continued past the garden towards the fortress. At first, we had no idea how to get to the top. I was having flashbacks to the winding trail up to Neuschwanstein. We then found a type of cable car, similar to the Pittsburgh Incline, that would take us to the top. We arrived at the top to be greeted by a view of the entire city on one side, and the Alps on another. It was one of the most majestic views I had ever seen. We moved into the fortress and explored the inside. One thing that greatly confused me was the World of String Puppets.

Wow was this creepy. Inside there were hundreds of string puppets placed into scenes from pop culture, definitely going to give me nightmares. We then sat down at a small restaurant on the patio of the fortress for lunch. It was a great lunch with a view!

Sadly, it was time to go down. There was so much more of the city to be seen with only a few hours left.

Afterwards, we decided to walk though the streets of the city and explore. We went into a few stores, but nothing struck our eye until we saw the Sound of Music Museum. We all knew Salzburg was a big site for the Sound of Music, but none of us had seen the movie before. We walked out of the museum shortly after somewhat disappointed. As Ravi said, “I think if we actually watched the movie we’d appreciate this so much more.” Right you are, Ravi. To fill what time we had left before dinner, we got ice cream and sat in the center of the Mirabel Garden.

Once it was time, we made our way to dinner at Pasta and Vino. It was a pretty authentic Italian place in the city. The waiter, however, said that they don’t have menus and only three options. I went with the salmon cream pasta. It may have been the best Italian food I’d ever had. It was for a great price too.

Once we were finished and paid, we made our way back to the train station for our long journey home. Although at times it seemed like we were scrambling for a plan, the day turned out great. We wrapped up a great trip with a great final day.

Highlight of the Day: View from the top of the castle.

Low of Day: It was the last day.