sound.of.music

you made a day trip to salzburg, austria. it may sound far, but in reality it's just about 30 min drive from your b&b.  it's your second trip to the 'sound of music' city but you're still unimpressed.

your first stop is mirabel palace as its near where you parked your car. although its a nicely maintained garden, somehow it's not as grandeur as the garden you've seen in vienna. perhaps it's the heat of mid afternoon or perhaps it's the mass of tourists that flooded the same place like you at the same time.  you just couldn't feel the charm....

you move on, cross the bridge, the bridge is full of locks... literally locks which must be symbolizing something or it's just a tourist trap... the view of the salzburg castle atop the hill is impressive.

salzburg is not big, you walk into the old town in no time despite the heat.   then you opt to hike up to the fortress and not talking the cable car.  you need to sweat and burn some energy before you devour in the sweetness that you intend to devour at cafe tomaselli ....

you like the walk, despite the fact that it's steep and some parts of the route is over 24% incline, you just love it as the view of the old city unveil in front of you and better still you are off the beaten track with only the adventurous ones who are willing to walk up to the castle.

you reached the castle but didn't want to get in. sometime it's about the journey and not the destination.

you explore further at the top and took another route descending to the old town, you passed by some houses, had a peep of their gardens.

the route lead you to the same outlook but from a different perspective, before long you are back to the old city square, joining the massive troop of tourists that walk past you in every random minute....

you found your inner court, a shady one and had your lunch.  you only had a vegetable strudel as you want to allocate some space for something else.  he had a vegetarian soup and a turkey schnitzel.   despite a small inner court, plenty of passing by... that you had a very close proximity of people watching, while eating your light lunch.

you ended up at the street where morzat's birth place is located and that has caused the bottleneck among the tourists that want to pay a visit, tourists that just want to snap a photo outside, and along with other that waiting for people from shopping... all in all - chaotic, you are one of them waiting for him to finish shopping at a store @_@.

you had an ice cream to cool yourself down, from the only gelato outlet on the same street.  honey melon, amaretti kirsch and a low calorie milk flavor.  

despite of the extreme heat and overcrowded human traffic, you manage to find something delight to your eyes by observing the elegant signposts of the shops.  they are lovely!
in short, you didn't really enjoy that much of your day trip to salzburg, it's just for a change to a bigger city since you have been hiding in the quiet village for awhile.