May 2018 – Austria Part 2

Barb and I traveled to Vienna and Salzburg in Austria.  This post covers our time in Salzburg, including Sound of Music tour and Hallstatt.

Austria Part 1 | Austria Part 3

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Day 5 Monday 5/14/18 – Vienna to Salzburg

Frances headed off to work before we rose, but she left us with a key and directions to the train. We got a slightly late start but made the 10:43 train to Salzburg after starting off in wrong direction on the subway, which put a dent in our plan to grab a sandwich along the way. A word about the Vienna subways and transport system: it’s great (two words). Frances purchased two-week tickets for us which gave us unlimited rides, just walk on, walk off.  No one checks tickets. Easy to ride just one stop if you want to save a few steps. Trains are frequent and clean. Trams and buses seem to work the same way; we took just a couple of trams but they were equally easy. Frances says her annual pass cost about 350 Euros, or just about 1Eu/day, a bargain and great piece of social engineering. There are cars on the street, but traffic does not seem choked.

I had been confused about the train options to Salzburg but with Frances’s help the night before we sorted things out. There are two main train lines, the OBB which is Austria’s national rail service, and Westbahn which is a private company. We finally figured out that we could either pre-purchase one-way fares on OBB for 20Eu or pay 27Eu for open service on Westbahn (open service on OBB was more than 40Eu). Also, the Westbahn trains originated at the Westbanhof station, while the OBB trains made through-stops at Vienna’s larger Hauptbanhof station. All in all, it seemed easier to go with the Westbahn service.  

Fortunately, the Westbanhof train station was easy to navigate and we got on the train with a few minutes to spare. The train conductor spoke good English, helped us select upper deck seats and we settled in with free Wi-Fi.  We found packaged sandwiches on the train. The ride itself was two-and-a-half hours through gentle green countryside. Barb napped; I stayed awake to see the views and make sure we didn’t miss our station. Only near Salzburg did it get rainy, clouds obscuring shadows of the beginning of the Alps in the distance.

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We caught a cab ride from the Salzburg train station to our hotel, the arthotel Blaue Gans. Happily, our room was ready and was nice. We settled in for a bit, then headed out to explore old town Salzburg. The hotel is on the main pedestrian shopping street, Getreidegasse. We window shopped then did the Rick Steves walking tour of old town to get oriented, hitting a few Sound of Music sites along the way. We would get into more Sound of Music sites tomorrow, but this afternoon we checked off the Residenz Square and Fountain, Saint Peter’s Church Cemetery, and the (outside of) Rock Riding School and Toscaninihof (that’s site numbers 9, 8 and 7 in the Big Boy Travel overview of Sound of Music Locations, for those of you keeping track). There’s some real history to these places as well; we read a bit about it but (sorry) the real attraction for us was the Sound of Music connection. The cemetery was quite lovely — not nearly as forbidding as they recreated it in the film. The graves were lovingly tended with lots of fresh flowers. Evidently if you don’t tend to the grave, they boot your ancestor out after a few years.

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On first impression, the town of Salzburg is very touristy but not horribly so. Kind of a model of what a touristy old town area should be: navigable, clean, lots of nooks and alleys, lots of different shops and restaurants, some local and some chains. The entire Aldstadt, or Old Town, is a Unesco World Heritage site. It doesn’t feel like there are many Salzburgers in the area, though, other than the ones tending to the tourists.

We checked at the hotel about dinner reservations. The desk clerk sneered at the Gasthaus zum Wilden Mann which was recommended by Rick Steves and Yelp.  Instead, he suggests the nicer restaurant at St. Peter’s church. We take his suggestion and dinner turns out to be very good.  Schnitzel for Barb, roast lamb for me, along with asparagus soup. The restaurant claims to be the oldest in Europe (“Charlemagne ate here!”).  We’re not sure about that, but it was nice, even though they rather obviously sat us in the American tourist dining room.

Day 6 Tuesday 5/15/18 – Sound of Music Tour and Hallstaat

We enjoyed a fine buffet breakfast in the hotel. I’d been sure to get the breakfast included in our room rate which makes life much happier for both Barb and me. Lots of choices of bread, cheese, meats, fruits and other healthy things (which we ignore). They also make very tasty omelettes.  Altogether a fine, calorie-laden start to each day in Salzburg.

Today was our combined Sound of Music and Hallstatt tour.  I think it’s worth a small explanation of why we did this. The Sound of Music musical, film and soundtrack were part of both Barb’s and my childhood (Barb famously played a nun in a high school production in Dusseldorf), and we foisted it upon Allie as well. We’ve participated in more than one Sound of Music singalong screening together. We know the film includes many cliched and inaccurate bits of history, both about the Von Trapps and about Austria, but the music is fun and there are some beautiful scenes of the Salzburg area. So tackling some of the sights was always a big reason for us going to Salzburg. Another big reason is that Salzburg is the gateway to the Alps, including the lake district known as the Salzkammergut, of which Hallstatt is probably its most famous town. I considered various ways to explore both, and came upon this combined Bob’s Tour.  So we booked it ahead of time, knowing that it might not be ideal but would be an introduction to both topics, and we had another day or so in Salzburg to see anything we wanted in more detail.

We had to wait quite a while for pick up from our hotel, but finally connected with our guide, Rosemarie.  We shared the van for the day with three Asian ladies. It takes a while for us to figure out that one is a Vienna-based translator for the other two, who may be from Thailand but speak Mandarin…or they’re from Taiwan. In any case, the tour is in German for them and English for us. It’s a small world, after all.

We drove in the vicinity of various SOM sites in Salzburg, then headed out of town. Rosemarie had the basic stories down, but skipped over several sites even though we drove right past them, including the horse fountain (site #6) near our hotel. The lakeside villa, Palace Leopold (the lakeside rear of Von Trapp mansion in the film, site #12) was very impressive, now a hotel. We then went to Hellbrunn Palace to see the gazebo (#14) and the tree lined driveway leading to the house used for the front of the Von Trapp house (#13). We didn’t have enough time to see the trick fountains or the actual palace at Hellbrunn, however.

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We drove through some very pretty countryside farmland which evoked the high mountain meadows of the film’s opening sequence. No stopping, though, and these were not the actual meadows, but they were very lovely and we saw some cats in the fields looking for mice. Evidently the real meadow used in the opening sequence is on someone’s private property and they’ve shut it off because they had too many wandering tourists. Understandable. We whizzed by the headquarters of Red Bull, incongruously set in the middle of nowhere, then stopped briefly for a look at the lakes near St. Gilgen. I’m sure it’s gorgeous in the sunshine; it was rather moody and mystical in the clouds but still quite a view.

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We drove to Hallstatt for the second part of our day-long tour. I’d heard what a lovely site this was, and knew that it had become a major tourist destination. Unfortunately, the weather got even more misty with low clouds so we couldn’t see the mountains well. Still it was very lovely and the rain was not too hard, so it was easy to walk around. Barb was very jealous of the flower boxes in many of the windows. We don’t know how they managed to keep them looking so nice. We also wondered where all these flowers come from. Does everyone have grow-lamps and seed farms in their basements? We didn’t see a lot of plant nurseries along the roadsides.

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What we didn’t expect in Hallstatt were the overwhelming number of Asian tourists in the town, a far higher percentage than we’d seen anywhere else. Turns out that Hallstatt has become one of the top European destinations for Asian tourists, and there’s even a replica town in China. I’m curious about how this started and who’s really promoting Hallstatt in Asia, but haven’t really gotten to the bottom of it. The Hallstatt replica was built quickly in 2011 as a real-estate development not far from Hong Kong, but that doesn’t really explain how the real town became such a popular destination. Honestly, the first I’d heard about Hallstatt was through Rick Steves who has featured it as a favorite “back door” destination for decades — by 2006 it was already “well discovered” according to Rick.  So I guess I’ll blame Rick, but that doesn’t really explain the current Asian fascination. Here’s another interesting take on Hallstatt from a fellow blogger. [Here’s a later BBC article about Hallstatt during the Covid-19 pandemic.]

We had about two hours in Hallstatt and Rosemarie suggested we take the boat ride across the lake to the train station. We waited a bit at the dock, then as the boat pulled up the captain announced we weren’t going to the train station but he welcomed us aboard anyway, along with what turned out to be a group of about 30 tourists from Vietnam. We did a nice little circuit of the lake. It was a pleasant alternative to taking the funicular up to a viewing platform over the town that was both more expensive and threatened to be socked in with clouds.

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After the boat tide, we had a snack of frites from a stand near the boat. We noticed that the Asian tourists had down the practice of taking a picture from a sign board of the item they wanted to order, then pointing to it on their phone, thereby avoiding any language barrier. The attendant at the stand also demonstrated that he could could count to ten in Chinese and knew a smattering of other words. Everyone seems willing to make it easier to spend money.

We nearly gave in to the impulse to buy a silly sheep hat or neck pillow for Allie but resisted. Turns out that was a mistake as Allie says she would have loved the hat. We spent the rest of the trip looking for something similar, but no luck. Oh well. Barb is convinced Allie would not have worn it because it was made from some dubious fur.

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Hallstatt is definitely a Disneyfied tourist town and not an “authentic” experience at this point.  On one hand, that’s a shame, but on the other is it so bad to create a tourist zone attraction that pulls in money and day-trippers?  It’s not real clear to me who makes the money. Tour guides, the hotels and shopkeepers in Hallstatt, for sure. But there are not enough hotels to handle a whole lot of overnight stays, and it’s not really someplace you bring a family for a week of activities. I’m torn, and clearly daytrippers like us are the core of the problem. It’s exploitative ruination of a beautiful place, especially if you lived there. Or it’s a reasonably well managed and maintained tourist destination that gives the tourists just enough to see and do for a few hours, spend a few dollars or euros or yuan, then get on the bus and leave. Hallstatt is a quintessential example of the tourist overload dilemma (here’s a good summary article — nice to know brighter minds a thinking about the problem…and there’s lots more on this topic, including detailed analyses, fodder for more thought and future posts), and I’m still conflicted for being an gullible consumer of tourist traps. But I went and feel glad, if a bit guilty, that I saw it.

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It was a long drive from Hallstatt to Mondsee where the movie’s wedding scenes were filmed. We both fell asleep, to the evident consternation of Rosemarie who felt she had to repeat some of her stories to us later, out of sequence. The Mondsee Church is the only place where there were actual interior shots for SOM, and Barb enjoyed the gift shop postcards that show the film crew. We had time for a strudel and a little shopping in Mondsee, then back to Salzburg for final stop at Mirabell Palace.

The Mirabell Gardens is where several bits of Do-Re-Mi (and My Favorite Things?) were filmed, including the steps, fountain and arbor. Barb did her best to hit Julie Andrews’ high note at the end of Do-Re-Mi. We bid adieu to Rosemarie who gave us instructions to walk back to our hotel, explaining that it would take her longer to drive us back. After a few photos we headed back across the river and it was indeed easy and quick to find our way. Lest it be said we were outrageous Sound of Music nuts, there were several other statues in the garden that were featured in the film but we didn’t seek them out. 

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Back at the hotel we checked the menu for the hotel restaurant where we made a reservation and decided it was a little too fancy and fussy for our tastes for that evening. I wanted a good wurst dinner, so we headed to Barenwirt about 15 minutes walk down the river. I got the Salzburg grilled wurst, Barb got schnitzel again, and neither of us could finish our plates. We evidently hit our limit. We waddled back to the hotel and passed out.

Day 7 Wednesday 5/16/18 – Salzburg

It was a wet, rainy day.  After our breakfast we wandered across the bridge and did some shopping in the newer old town (Neu Aldstadt?).  This is a slightly less touristy area and has more of the hallmarks of a town where real people work and live. But there was still a fair amount for the wandering tourist to enjoy. We encountered a shop dedicated to gummy bears, with a shopkeeper intent on having us try every possible flavor of gummy. I’ve never seen someone so enthusiastic to give away samples and we bought a small bag of gummies for Allie. We found a grocery store nearby and stocked up on Mozart chocolate goodies for Barb’s work.

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After an hour or so of low-grade touristing and window shopping, we decided to try proper Sacher torte and coffee (melange mit schlag) at the cafe in the Salzburg outpost of Hotel Sacher. Barb contends that the famous cake is too dry. I found that it a perfectly good vehicle for Austrian whipped cream, the star of the ensemble. I gave the coffee a try as well, figuring that with enough whipped cream it would be good, too…but I still find that coffee is just not to my taste. That’s OK — it gives me more money and calories to spend on alcohol. We did enjoy lingering in the Sacher Cafe for a while, and can see the appeal of making it a regular habit.

We crossed the Salzach River via the Mozart Bridge, knocking off one more Sound of Music site (#10). As Barb sped ahead of me over the bridge, I learned that she is afraid of heights and bridges, a fact I had somehow missed all these years. There’s always something new to learn in a relationship.

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We hit a couple more shops for chocolate gifts (Barb’s work folks were going to have a very extended sugar high). We eventually got back to the hotel for a rest. I napped in the room while Barb read in the hotel library. Then Barb napped while I scanned through the hotel TV channels, mostly in German. Light rain continued all day. We could have been more ambitious and gone up to the Salzburg Fortress on the hilltop overlooking town, which had been the main plan for the day, but it seemed easier and more comfortable to have a day of mostly rest and relaxation. 

It occurred to me that the third day in a location is often a good one for taking it easy. The first two days are usually spent getting specific tasks/sights done. The third day is good for slowing down, catching up on things not yet done or just resting and recuperating. It finally began to dawn on me that downtime is an important part of vacation planning and a key benefit of taking time off from the everyday. I felt bad for skipping the Fortress as I normally crave anyplace with a vista and it’s the #1 thing to do in Salzburg. But with the weather being what it was, and the appeal of a down day, I could live with it. Maybe someday I will be back in Salzburg on a clear day and get a chance for a do-over, but if not, I know it was my own decision.

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We also found that we are over schnitzeled and generally overfed. For dinner, Barb decided on shrimp and chips from the Nordsee shop near the hotel. I shared chips and a beer, then we headed over to a well-reviewed Burgerista which is a European chain that does a very good job with hamburgers. It was not elegant food by any means, but it was more that we needed for the evening. We were also anticipating our return to Vienna where Frances had already planned out meals for the next three days, so it was good for us to take a little break.

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Austria Part 1 | Austria Part 3