We stayed in a fairly ritzy hotel restyled a hostel by means of adding bunkbeds, next to Kapuzinerberg a small hill with a great forested walk above the city. Atop were a small collection of cottages, with a really old wooden cart and pulley system which appeared to be used nowadays for lugging groceries up the hillside. There was also a friendly old lady there where we heard our first Bavarian greetings. After a small hike we ended up at a Mozart memorial and statue, rather unassuming just off the path, and we continued onto the old town.
Within the old town was a really old water spout which was constantly flowing. It was bizarre. My Google-fu has failed me, but I imagined this was fresh water flowing down from the mountains. We filled up our bottles with the ice cold water, and that's still stood out as the highlight, while strolling through nooks and crannys in the absolute quiet of the night along damp and eerie cobblestone paths.
The prominent feature of the Festung Hohensalzburg (literally "High Salzburg Fortress") looms over the old town below, a historic castle which adds to the well preserved enchantment. We pushed through the first few days of seemingly-continual rain until a slightly better forecast which allowed us to explore the castle grounds and enjoy the very windswept views through the fortress' cannon arrow holes, and outer battlements. We ending up sheltering within it's courtyard to escape the howling Alpine wind, with a good number of Bavarian brews and a warchest of vagabond styled sandwiches, before further exploring the Golden Hall and chambers, full of artifacts going back to the fortress' origin in 1077 and pieces of the settlements and surrounding areas lengthy history. The German "Shame Masks" were both fascinating and creepy, which were used in the 17th and 18th centuries, forced upon people that had broken trivial social rules. The snow capped Alps on the horizon made for a great backdrop as we spent a couple hours around view points looking out to the distance as well as down to the old town below.
From the Castle we walked to Austria's largest beer inn, within the monastery of Mülln, Augustinerbräu. We crammed into the beer hall along with 500 locals, sitting with a group of older Bavarian speaking gentlemen with our giant steins, being taught the in's and out's. These were filled with beer made from a closely guarded recipe and old brewing techniques going back to the monastery's original monks and brew masters in 1621. There are shelves of the stone-made pitchers from which you select, and beer is then poured straight from the large wooden barrels. From a selection of one item, grunting "eine maß bier bitte" doesn't require much effort, no matter how many steins have been emptied.
Had another run-in with police, although this time far less terrifying. Someone in our room unfortunately had some expensive things stolen, so we had our details taken down at 2am while four or so armed police mulled about the room. Despite seeming to be the key suspects, the manager didn't kick up much of a fuss the next morning, so we managed to avoid a good bit of hassle. What we didn't realise is this sort of attention was the start of a pattern that seemed to follow us for the next handful of countries, so we've now got a collection of interesting stories specifically with European police. All part of the experience I suppose.
Still sharing a camera with Sergey, he managed to snap quite a few of the photos on this trip.
