Friday 27th September

I’m trying desperately to cut down on the number of photos that I’m putting up on the blog, I’m just over half way through my data allowance for this month and we still have over two weeks to go.

Our grand-daughters love peperami type sausages so I bought a packet the other day. Sorry girls, nanny got the nibbles, you’re not having them.

last night we slept on the main car park with half a dozen other vans, always best to overnight with others. Would have been fantastic if the emergency services didn’t need to use the klaxons at 4.30am to warn of their approach. The church played merry tunes all through the night and some of the locals start work very early indeed.

I’ve programmed Stella to take us to a Stellplatz just outside Salzburg, I’m reading a book about the history of salt and it seemed appropriate. I don’t know a lot but one thing I do know is that you have to pay to travel on an Austrian motorway. Descriptions of how to pay look far too complicated so I take the easy option, tell Stella to keep off the motorways. There really should be an option to avoid narrow twisty, uppey downey roads as well but it made the journey more interesting. So interesting that at one point we had to navigate through one of those tower gates that I keep taking photos of. We then got to a point where we had to turn left and then through a very narrow, low tower gate. Traffic was backed up just trying to do the left turn since the traffic coming through the gate had priority. It gave me time to zoom the map out and see that we could just turn right and cross over into Austria 10 miles downstream. That’s just about when Stella started having a hissy fit. She insisted that we turn round immediately and by the time we had worked out that she was just trying to avoid us travelling on a motorway it was too late.

And then we saw the Salzburg motorway signs. I’m pretty chilled but Lucy was getting more anxious by the minute. We crossed the border and there were signs about tolls and something but by the time I had translated them it was too late and there was so much traffic about making it too hard to dither. Just go for it, get in the queues and barge in where we can.

All of a sudden we were crossing over the motorway and Stella became normal again. She took us straight through the middle of Salzburg which was crowded, the road markings were all over the place, lanes kept changing about and there were traffic lights everywhere.

Overhead there were the electric lines for the trams, this wasn’t a bad junction but some places it really didn’t look very good at all.

Eventually, we got to our stellplatz which was much further out of town then we expected. It’s €22 per night with electric and to be honest the pitches aren’t that great. On the plus side the services are the best I’ve ever seen and the toilets and showers look very good.

We can catch a bus into Salzburg (every 15 minutes) for €6 each return or buy a 24 hour Salzburg card which gives us access to most of the museums and attraction in the city and a free bus, it’s €29 each for one day so we come up with a cunning plan. Bearing in mind we hadn’t seen anything in Salzburg worth looking at so far and time was getting on we opted to catch the bus, have a wander round and then decide wether it was worth spending another €80 to stay for one more night and look at all of the attractions.

Luckily, we did find the better part of Salzburg, castle, churches and even a cathedral.

We crossed over the footbridge which was covered in padlocks. Lucy doesn’t like them much which is why I’ve made them picture of the day.

It all started looking much better.

And then we found the Hurdy Gurdy man, what a racket he made belting out all the latest hits from Mozart and Simon & Garfunkel. Did I tell you Mozart was born and bred in Salzburg? He’s now doing a roaring trade in designer gear, t-shirts, mugs, keyrings, chocolates, cheese, wine, lederhosen – you name it he’s got his name on it, one of the original branding entrepeneurs.

Not sure what he did for a living but I think it had something to do with designer label shopping, possibly the first factory outlet shopping street in the world. If you can think of a fashion label, it was down this street. Salzburg is obviously on the tourist route, we heard one American declare that Salzburg was another European capital knocked off his list.

The signs above the shop were very attractive, designed to show the shops trade when reading was reserved for the upper classes. This sign decorated with hops is one of the beirkellers we were marched past because someone didn’t need a comfort break.

Some shops hadn’t really tried but I was impressed with this one. A big M surrounded by two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce and cheese.

Emma, what size does Lacey take. Nearly bought her a dirndl until we turned the label over, €135!!

This is the plaque in front of the house where Amadeus was born. Couldn’t see the house itself, it was hidden by Japanese tourists taking selfies. A Japanese man asks his neighbour where he went on holiday, the reply was “I don’t know, I haven’t looked at the photos yet” – boom boom.

And then we burst out of the shopping mall into huge squares with fountains and very large buildings.

We gradually made our way towards the castle, I knew we weren’t going up there, Lucy was still worn out from the other day.

Eventually, ending a comfort rest, we were able to sit down and discuss our plan of action. It was getting on for 3pm and the decision was made. Go up to the castle and then move on tomorrow thinking that once you’ve seen one museum, you’ve seen them all.

Anyway, the beer was very good and this was the view from the beer garden.

One thing that made “our” mind up was that someone had seen the funicular railway, this is from the top, takes about 30 seconds. Only on the way down did I realise that there were two drivers, one in each train. The money’s good but it does have it’s ups and downs, boom boom. Thats it, all my best jokes used up in 2 minutes.

The view from the castle was breathtaking. The old city of Salzburg is nestled into a space alongside the river Salzach and protected on three sides by high cliffs.

There are traces of habitation dating back to 500BC but it was the Romans who first started building fortifications – literally salt castle.

Entry to the castle was rather different to usual. There was a tour with direction pointers inside the buildings but other than that you were left to get on with it, look for a door, if it’s unlocked go in, if locked move on so you never really knew if you had seen everything.

This is part of the state rooms, we only had cheap tickets so weren’t allowed in here.

There was a lot of history dating back from the initial occupation of the site right up to World War One and everything in between.

It took us a couple of hours to mosey round the place which made it comfort break time, luckily I had spotted an ideal place to visit.

Right at the top was a lovely terrace with the required items necessary.

And I was in good company too. I think this guy was on a holy pilgrimage because this castle was home to a Capuchin Monastry as well.

After a couple pints Lucy was giggling and trying on just about anything, this was the least worst thing she tried.

I had promised myself not to be tricked into any more churches, Lucy insisted we try out the Cathedral and even I liked some bits. This is the big domey bit near the alter.

And this is what we think might have been a font. The lid doesn’t come off but there is a little trap door in the top – do they chuck the kids in and let them have a little swim? Giorgio will know, he’s the font of all knowledge, watch the comments.

Outside there was another demonstration, was it really only a week ago that we were in Bamberg?

Heres another photo for the poor kiddie winks at home who won’t be getting any peperami, chorizo, sausage wotsits. Must be the added tourist tax on these that makes them so unappealing to buy.

In the last five minutes it’s started raining hard. Our visit tomorrow is to a place that got rained off three years ago, just our luck that it will be rained off again.