Tim & Denise Tiner Travels: 2014 Austria (Vienna, Salzburg) Day 5

We stayed in the Sommerhotel last night. It is a college dorm during school terms and a hotel during the summer, holiday season. The price was right. But it was a simple room and only had wifi in lobby areas. But we did find wifi on our floor so Denise stood there surfing the web while she greeted people coming off the elevator! Funny....

I ended the previous post by saying that I we found out that the hotel I picked was not by the train station where international trains go. So we asked the young lady at the desk how to get to the right train station. She whipped a map out and gave me detailed instructions to take the metro or the tram system to get to the station. So we got up, ate breakfast (the standard faire) then checked out around 9:30 AM. We headed to the metro. Once we were ticketed and under ground, we started looking at the signs. The whole plan that I interpreted was backwards. I was leaving the location that I thought was my destination. We asked a man that validated our concerns. So quickly we reversed our route....and it worked. So quickly we bought some very expensive train tickets to Salzburg. But the odd thing was that the tickets did not call out a particular train or loading platform. So again, the dumb Americans were asking questions. We eventually found the train that was the next to go through Salzburg and got on it. It was a 2.5 hour ride to Salzburg from Vienna. I think our ticket was good for the whole day on any train that went Salzburg's direction. And, for the first time, this train had wifi the whole trip! But there was no one to text with in US...all were sleeping. So I took a nap!

We arrived in Salzburg at 12:50. This apartment is through airbnb.com....not a hotel. We were given instructions to walk to the room. They went like this....go up stairs, turn right, turn left, go straight, cross road, go through park and look for pink house. I sent the owner a note and asked him to put street names with it. He did. Made our 10 minute walk with bags in tow a bit more securing! The host is on holiday. So he sent us the lady who cleans the place...her telephone number. I called her before we left the Vienna train station. As we came up on the house, she was waiting for us and let us in. While on the train I researched the Sound of Music tour. I found out one left at 2:00 PM. By the time we were free to leave the apartment, it was 1:30. We grabbed my Ipad with a map loaded and off we went. We actually found it with 8 minutes to spare. The hills then became alive with the sounds of music as we toured key sites that were involved in the making of the movie. It was a great tour as we spent the 1st 1.5 hours going through Salzburg. We then headed into the mountains for the remaining 2.5 hours. Oh my goodness....this region of the world is so beautiful. At one point, we stopped for 55 minutes at the church where their marriage was filmed. There we had strudel covered in a marvelous cream sauce! Oh so good. Once we returned to Salzburg, we walked around the Mirabell Gardens. We then started our journey home looking for a place for dinner. We found a cafe that was really, really good....except for the $5 liter of water (no gas). I say, if it is going to taste that bad, put the gas back in it! It was gourmet water too!

We finally arrived back to the flat excited to FaceTime everyone....but no internet! It was working when we left but not when we returned. I started hunting down the owner...who is on holiday himself. He eventually called me back. Turns out that he owns the apartment above this one and that is where the router is. So, with Martin's permission, I went upstairs and knocked on the door. A young guy came to the door and between our hand motions and common words, we came to terms...he plugged the router back in. All is well....maybe I will sleep better tonight!

Our 'hotel' in Wien (Vienna).....