You should all put down what you’re doing and come here immediately.

Seriously, if you’ve never been to Salzburg, what are you waiting for? This place is SO pretty. It “exhausts superlatives,” as Stephen Fry said of Wodehouse. It’s a complete change of pace from Vienna; there are things to do here, like concerts and museums, but I don’t think that doing things is the point. It’s more about looking.
Saturday was another beautiful day, and we went up to the Festung/Fortress to take a look over the city. The festung is surprisingly (to me) military oriented. I mean, I get the concept of a fortress, but all castles are fortresses, and most of the modern day tours and museums seem to focus on the décor, and where they did the cooking, with the odd boiling oil story thrown in to please the kids. But this one was all about the swords, guns, battle pictures, and military uniforms (isn’t a swastika on a uniform the ultimate in sinister). Considering that they only had one assault in about 900 years, and that was from revolting peasants (yawn), one feels that they might be slightly overreacting. But yes, I’ve heard of WW’s I and II and I suppose those might have influenced things.

The medals etc didn’t really fascinate me, but the view from the top was eye-popping. Salzburg and its environs are surprisingly unspoiled (less surprising when you hear about all the rules now in place to protect the area and restrict building), and everywhere you look, the view is gorgeous. A river here, a Schloss (one of my all-time favourite words) there, an abbey with an onion dome over yonder. Usually, you look over a city and try to ignore the one side with all the blocks of flats and power plants, but there really wasn’t a side like that here.

On Easter Sunday we went to Mass at the Franzhof Kirche, which was lovely (Handel and Mozart), and then went for a drive into Bavaria. The plan was to visit the Eagle’s Nest, but my luck with the weather ran out for a while, and all I got was a look at some picturesque pine trees through the fog, and a picture of the Hotel Bavaria to prove I’d been there. We also stopped at a very friendly gasthaus, where everyone said “Gruss gott” when we walked in. (I really like this Tyrolean greeting – means “God’s greeting.”)

Then we took the Sound of Music tour, which was delightful. It was fun to see the gazebo (though they keep it locked, sadly, so no dancing on the benches for me), and the church, and the lake, and all the other places, and to sing along with the music they played from the movie. I think what I enjoyed most, though, was the scenery. Think Park City, but more authentic, and sort of on crack. The colours are so intense, the mountains are so pointy and high, and the houses are so...Tyrolean. We took a boat trip on the Mondsee (Moon lake, with a legend attached to the name), and they fed us apfelstrudel.

Then spaetzle and these really yummy cheese dumplings (flaumige topfenknodle) for dessert at a gasthaus.