Happy Monday, May 7
Written by: Susan

Well we made it into Austria and our first stop was Salzburg for 4 nights. Mozart Haus, Mozart gelato, Mozart symphonies, and Mozart balls. See a theme here? Yes, Salzburg is the home of Mozart and I would have to say they definitely milk it and all the tourists definitely buy into it. We did too. Paid good money to see where Mozart was born (one of the lamest museums so far - how many pieces of Mozart´s hair can we see underneath a magnifying glass?). Mozart´s other haus (where he grew up) was much better and the audio tour was actually kind of nice with some of his more famous symphonies playing in the background. Gave us a greater appreciation for his music. Then we got suckered into Mozart's balls. Not his real ones! Although I´m sure if we had looked hard enough they might have been displayed somewhere in his haus along with his hair. His other balls are actually chocolate covered concoctions with marzipan and nougat in the middle. They sell them EVERYWHERE, it seems to be what Salzburg is now known for. I didnt care for them, but Brian liked them. I did quite enjoy the Mozart gelato which was a variation of his balls except a little softer and ice creamy. Anyways, enough about Mozart and his balls, That wasn´t even the best part of Salzburg.

I´ll start with the 4 star hotel with the 1 star price. I was a little nervous booking it since pictures you see on the internet aren´t necessarily all they appear to be. It was half the price of all the other decent hotels in Salzburg. I warned Brian as we were walking towards the hotel (that´s what we do now that we are on a budget. We walk to our hotels, hoofing our packs, and try not to get too lost) that it might be kind of sketchy. To our pleasant surprise, it was pure luxury. A full size bath and down comforters to boot. Great start to Salzburg!

Our next great adventure came with visiting the world´s largest ice cave. I have to say this is one of the coolest things I´ve ever done. 42km deep, 32 degrees fahrenheit, 1641 m (about 5500ft) high is the world´s largest ice cave. We also had to take the world's steepest cable car to the top. Check that one off our list. We toured around the cave for an hour with a guide. The coolest part is that the Oodle family who runs the ice caves (on lease from the government) wants to keep it as natural as possible  - or I guess as natural as letting 150,000 people go tromping through an ice cave will allow (seems sort of paradoxical?). I digress. Anyways, so they give you these lanterns with flames on them (Brian attempted to singe me a few times - is he trying to tell me something?) He even convinced me to touch the ice and I almost slipped and fell. He´s beginning to be a dangerous travel partner........So there was no light in the cave except for the lanterns that we carried as well as this magnesium strip that the guide kept lighting that would fill the whole cave with light. So cool.

The Festung Hohensalzburg is a gigantic castle that overlooks Salzburg (which by the way 'Salz' in german is salt and the city was named after the tremendous amount of salt present in the area - which then allowed the people who lived in the castle to have food for a longer period because they were able to preserve everything which meant that they didn´t die when they were under siege). There were two ways to get to the top. Take the cable car (brilliant idea) or hike up about 20 minutes (not so brilliant idea). According to our guide book, they said it cost an arm and a leg to take the tram. Well we don't really have an extra arm and a leg to spare....so we went with the not so brilliant idea. No way were we going to be lazy tourists. We are young, fit and ready to take on the steep trail to the castle! And it is STEEP. So we got to the top, all out of breath, and feeling quite lame that we were all out of breath. Bought our ticket and lo and behold, things have changed since the guide book was written. The tram price is now INCLUDED in the ticket price. We felt jipped, we were definitely taking the tram down. The castle was very cool. A double moated castle with fantastic views of Salzburg and the Alps, I could have stayed there all day just looking at the view. Brian enjoyed the swords and the torture chambers. I think he's trying to tell me something.

Last but certainly not least is a place called the Augustiner Braustubl that our friend, Jeff aka Tush, reccommended to us. It's a little walk out of town and you come upon this building on a side street that is dark and quiet (we would later find out that there is a main entrance). We seem to like to do things the hard way. There are signs that point to this beer house so we open the door to the hall and come into this great room that is totally silent. Kind of creepy. Just arrows pointing to the beer house. What kind of beer house is this? So we keep walking and seeing these bronzed monks on the wall staring down at us. Made us feel like delinquents and we haven't even had any beer yet! Finally we turn this corner and laid before us is this hall with all these food vendors and tucked into these gigantic rooms (that are capable of seating hundreds of people) are people smoking and drinking beer out of these ceramic mugs. The thing to do is to go get a ceramic mug from the shelf, rinse it out (although I do think they clean it before hand) and then go to this guy and he fills up your mug with beer. So basically you could just sit there all day and eat tasty salty austrian treats and drink beer out of a huge mug. Not such a bad life.