Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Woke up at 5 am this morning to catch our 5:50 train from Munich to Salzburg.
Grabbed a couple of croissants with hotdogs in them - kind of like Chinese hotdog bun, but European - at the train station before hopping on. After dozing for an hour, wolfed down the croissants and went back to dozing until we arrived in Salzburg at 8 am.
We bussed from the train station over to Bob's Special Tours office in the city centre and settled in to wait for our mini-bus to pick us up at 9 for he Sound of Music Tour.
Jeurgen came driving up in a grey taxi mini-bus just after 9, and at first I though this was one if the tourist scams that Pete was telling me about - Salzburg is very big on the tourist dollar and some tours will pose as other tour companies to get you ton jump in and pay. Anyway, this wasn't the case, so we paid and hopped into the VW Caletta TDI - a stick shift VW the size of a small delivery van! How cool!
On the bus, we met the only other tour guests - Peter and Barb, an older couple who was biking Germany and surrounding area for 5 months. How cool! They are from Ottawa, but Peter is German and Barb is Australian.
We had an awesome time with Juergen, who not only took us to some of the movie's film sights, but also gave us a city tour, with views of the beautiful lakes and countryside, and also some history points of the city. To top it all off, Juergen was also dressed in his new Lederhosen, matching shoes and hat, which he was breaking in for his wedding in June :) When I checked the trip log at the end of the tour, I noticed that we had drives all around the perimeter of he city.
Pete and I were booked for Hitler's Eagle Nest Tour with Bob's Special Tours in the afternoon, and it turned out that Juergen was the guide for that tour too! Since Peter and Barb had such a good time in our morning tour, they decided to join the afternoon tour too. Yay! We drove back to the office briefly to pick up the other 3 people going on the tour, and off we went.
Our first stop, the Eagle's nest. We drove to the base and got out for the bus ride up the mountain. The Eagle's Nest is situated on the top of Obersalzburg in Breteschgaden and only took 13 months to complete - in time for Hitler's 50th birthday. This not only included the construction of the fortress, but also the manual digging and leveling of the mountain to create tunnels and roads to get up to the base. Interestingly enough, it was only called Eagle's Nest by the Allies, but this base was called a tea house in German for Hitler to entertain guests in.
We took in the views from the bus, up on the Base, and from the point slightly higher up away from the base, and then rode the last bus back down. We made a quick stop in the town of Breteschgaden and got dropped off back at the city centre.
After saying our goodbyes to everyone, Pete and I did the Rick Steve's walking tour if Salzburg. At this point, most stores were closed and we were so tired and hot from the day that we went through the walk quickly. Thank goodness it was late, b/c that meant that the funicular to the city fortress (Hohensalzburg Festung) was more than half price! Score! I was all for not doing the 20 minute climb, but didn't want to shell out the €20+ it normally costs. But I was okay with shelling out €7 ;b
We rode up, saw the city sights and the deserted 'town' in the wall (b/c it was never used - when Alexander the Great came to conquer, they just surrendered) and rode back down.
It was then time to train back to Munich - got in at about 10:30, exhausted from the long day!
- comments