A Day in Salzburg

Haus Gassner gave us many great things... a good bed to sleep in, a charming host, and a nice room. However, one interesting part was breakfast. You see, Maria (our host) was so willing to help us have a great morning and had a fantastic spread waiting in the morning... but we had no clue what half of it even was! Ha! There was bread, many types of cheeses, jams that smelled a little mysterious, five kinds of meat, and a few cereals that had been sitting out for a year. It was delicious! Maria really did try to be the best host she could...these German meals are just not for us. The last straw was the funky yogurt that arrived toward the end of our meal. After exchanging many grins, we headed out into Salzburg to explore.

First we got to be part of the most touristy event in Europe... the ORIGINAL Sound of Music Tour! Hooray. They picked us up with a carpool service from Haus Gassner and we were carted away to board a coach bus full of SOM-aholics. The best part about our trip around Salzburg, taking in the sights from the film, was the guide, a British woman named Trudy. Dressed in a traditional Austrian dress, ready and VERY willing to sing the tunes, Trudy took us along the 4 hour journey and made it seriously great. What a trooper. I can't imagine singing "Do-re-mi" 14 times everyday, but she was happy as a lark. We ended our tour at Mirabell gardens where we galavanted around singing "Do-re-mi" one more time for kicks and a few pics, all the while being laughed at by locals...I wonder why.

Next we took some time just to walk around the city. Salzburg is really gorgeous and seeing these buildings was a feast for the eyes. From tributes to Mozart to bustling, modern areas of town, we were excited to find Salzburg one of our favorite stops. We sat down for a traditional dinner in a medieval courtyard on the way to the grand finale of our trip through Austria.

The Salzburg Marionetten Theatre has been around since 1920 performing all sorts of productions with world-class puppeteers and beautiful puppets as their instruments. We knew Salzburg was famous for its nighttime entertainment, so we decided to go see "Midsummer Night's Dream" here. The production was in German, but had English plot points for us to follow as tiny puppets strung up with dozens of strings played out the story. From the very first rise of the curtain, our jaws were dropped. This was seriously one of the most fascinating, delicate arts I have ever seen. We couldn't believe how expressive a wooden puppet could be with just a few moves of a string, and when set in the dramatic lighting and very intricate scenery, it made for a great night.

We were bummed that we only had one night in Salzburg, but we packed our day with so many great experiences. This is a city we would both like to return to very much.

Love and miss you all,
Tripp and Laura