Information on Salzburg, Austria

Travel Log

Like the blooming edelweiss that greets the sun high in the Austrian mountains, the people of Salzburg, Austria, who make their living mainly by tourism and education in music and the arts, warmly welcome travelers and students from around the world. My traveling companion, Linda, and I recently discovered this on our trip there to enjoy the many charms of this restful city. Although Linda had previously spent a couple of hours in Salzburg on a whirlwind European tour-bus trip over a decade ago, it was my first trip to this beautiful place, and in fact to Austria itself. Our guidebook recommended the month of May as the perfect time to visit, and we were not disappointed. True to our plan, we spent about one week in Salzburg focusing on the sights and experiences that this city of Mozart and its surrounds have to offer at this time of year.

Salzburg is a small city, but for a tourist bent on a European vacation, this destination has it all. Its site was an early Celtic settlement, followed by a Roman town, followed by a Roman-Catholic town dominated by an abbey and a nunnery in about 700 A.D., and then, by the fourteenth century, a Church principality with residing archbishop dukes and princes of the Holy Roman Empire, who were in power for several hundred years thereafter. Today, the city's oldest buildings date back almost a thousand years. The Salzach River divides the city, with the "old town" on the left bank to the south and the "new town" on the opposite side. It most outward distinctive feature is the Hohensalzburg castle on a hill directly overlooking the city. The surrounding area has idyllic farmlands, forested hills, alpine lakes, and, at the time we visited, snow-capped mountains - quite possibly the most beautiful scenery in the world. The regional mining of metals and salt is historically an important industry ("salz" means salt). If that weren't enough, the locality is also the birthplace of Mozart and the movie "Sound of Music" was filmed there. Bus tours focusing on many of these themes are available. The city's museums and regular concerts are popular attractions. Shopping for ceramics and traditional costumes of the region, many bedecked with an edelweiss motif, is also fun.

From our home, Los Angeles, we flew United Airlines to Chicago, traveled the longest leg of the trip on Austrian Airlines jet to Vienna, and then made a short hop to Salzburg via a Tyrolean Airlines turbo-prop. The latter two airlines are mileage club partners of United, and so we stood to collect mileage for the entire trip. The total airfare was $679 per person, tax included.

The costs cited in this travel log are given both in Austrian schillings (ATS) and U.S. dollars. The May 2001 exchange rate was about 15 ATS per $1.

Day 1:

My first impression when I deplaned into open air at the small Salzburg airport was the faint smell of cow manure while gazing at the surrounding bucolic scenery in which the airport is nestled. The sky was overcast with the promise of rain. The distance from the airport to our hotel is only about 5 km, and our taxicab ride took us through scenery reminiscent of rural Japan. We entered the city by passing through a tunnel under a steep hill that acts as a natural southerly fortification for the "old town" part of the city. A few minutes later, we crossed over the Salzach River into "new town" where the Hotel Auersperg, which is only a 10 minutes' walk from river, was waiting for us.

We arrived around noon, and, unfortunately, our room wasn't quite ready. Since it was drizzling outside just enough to prevent us from taking a walk in the interim, we repaired to the hotel bar for tea, which was later given as complimentary recompense for our room not being ready, although our early arrival wasn't their fault. Generally, the adjoining hotel restaurant is open only for buffet breakfasting and private parties, but the barroom where we took our tea, with its bar and four booth-type tables, is available throughout the day and evening for drinks, snacks, soups, sandwiches, etc. ("small things" as these food selections were termed by the hotel receptionist).

The barroom atmosphere was relaxed and we made fast friends there with a retired couple from Missouri who had rented a car and drove from Vienna. They said the drive wasn't difficult, and, although they had had some trouble finding the Salzburg turn-off, they only had to stop to ask for directions three times to get back on track.

Since my mastery of the German language is limited to a few simple greetings and "Haben se liederhosen?" (Do you have short leather pants?), and Linda's, although better than mine, is far from the fluency level, I was concerned about the potential language barrier interfering with our vacation enjoyment. But unlike our past experiences in France, it seemed that most everyone in this German-speaking city also speaks passable English, and so it was very easy to get the day-to-day information needed to make the most of our trip. This included most the staff at the Hotel Auersperg, who were very helpful. The very personable Ms. Bettina Raschhofer, who took over hotel operations from her parents, later steered us to a close-by beer garden for dinner on Sunday, when a lot of business are closed or have short hours.

Being a native Salzburger, she also assured us with confidence that Salzburg is a very safe city, and it is no problem for a woman to stroll about the city alone all night. Indeed, we heard an emergency vehicle siren only once during our entire stay in Salzburg, in stark contrast to the frequent rasping of this sound on our ears and nerves back home in Los Angeles.

I had reserved a non-smoking "junior suite" at the Hotel Auersperg for ATS 1,660 ($111) per day via e-mail (info@auersperg.at). I found e-mail to be a very convenient (and cheap) tool for negotiating the particulars of our accommodations. Our guidebook gives this hotel the grade of four stars; while it cannot compare to say, the 5-star Le Meridian Hotel in Beverly Hills in terms of spaciousness and bellhop-service, our room was neat, clean, and comfortable. Our junior suite had a room just big enough for the two twin-size beds and night stands. It also had an adjoining room with a desk, a love-seat-sized sofa, and a lamp table, but no chest of drawers. There were, however, two good-sized clothes closets, and one was even equipped with a small safe. A mini-bar fridge with a small color television on top occupied a space between the two rooms; by rotating the TV, it could be watched either from the bedroom or the sofa in the adjacent room. The entrance to the suite had a small area for laying out a suitcase, and to the right and left of the entrance were separate bath/shower and toilet/bidet rooms, each with its own wash-up sink, which is very convenient for two people sharing a room. The beds had comfortable pillows and down comforters -- Linda and I both slept very well every night of our stay.

As we were settling into our room, jet lag crept over us, and so we decided to finish off the day with something less than ambitious. We walked to "old town" and ate dinner at a fast seafood place called "Nordsee". The nice thing about this eatery is that you see what you are going to eat before you order it (no pun on the name intended). Given our apprehensiveness over the European food scare, and that we were tired and not feeling our best; this arrangement suited us just fine for the moment. For 359 ATS ($23.93), we each had a breaded fish filet, potatoes, rice, stir-fried vegetables, and tea. Considering that the food probably spent a significant amount of time sitting under a heat lamp, this is not a great deal, in my opinion, and so I can't recommend eating at this establishment. We also encountered here for the first time to the proclivity of businesses here to itemize costs of insignificant items that we Americans take for granted as complementary: the small plastic cup of tartar sauce cost 9 schillings (60 cents). Undoubtedly, the relative expensiveness of eating at this place is due to its prime location on the "shopping street" of old town - right in front of the main bridge across the Salzach River that separates the old and new towns of the city.

Window-shopping on this street offered us a non-committal diversion while our dinner digested. It also gave us a chance to scope out the uniquely Austrian products purveyed to the masses by the merchants here, such as the country's traditional costumes with elaborate embroidery and stag-horn buttons, as well as the "Mozart" chocolates that we later learned pervade the city.

Since it had been more than 24 hours since we slept had in a bed, we called it a day and returned to our hotel room. We turned in at ~6 pm local time.

Day 2:

Our room is on the first floor and has a nice view of the small but tranquil hotel garden. We opened the windows to let in a cool morning breeze under a blue sky. The weather ultimately proved to be very cooperative throughout our stay. While it had rained intermittently on the day we arrived, we made no further use of our umbrellas, which we carried in our backpacks for the next couple of days, but gradually offloaded them to languish in our hotel room. For the remainder of the time, the days were warm, sunny, and pleasant, and occasionally breezy, especially towards the evenings - in other words, perfect spring weather.

After 14 hour's of sleep, we were ready to start our vacation. We decided to have the buffet breakfast at the hotel (150 ATS or $10 per person, not included with the room). The buffet was a veritable smorgasbord, offering almost every kind of breakfast item that and American tourist might want. There were several tangy fresh fruits: pineapple, grapes, kiwi, orange slices, and melons, not to mention a choice of orange, grapefruit, and apple juices. There were several kinds of breads, cheeses, cold-cut meats, and cereals. The small hot-food area offered scrambled eggs, bacon, ham, small spicy breakfast sausages, and toast. To top things off, Linda had English breakfast tea, and I had coffee and cream, elegantly served in personal pots on our breakfast table. I steered clear of bacon, which looked more fatty than lean; however, the breakfast sausages were irresistible. (My declaration to abstain from meat on this trip, owing to the mad-cow and farm-animal foot-and-mouth diseases in recent European news, had been forgotten by this time.) The eggs were tasteless, which I think has to do more with the diet of European chickens than the quality of the buffet; I found similarly bland eggs were served at the Paris Hotel Lutetia on a past year's trips to that city. Salzburgers apparently like their coffee strong, so much so that I could not help taking cream with it, despite my normally drinking it black.

After breakfast, we were drawn toward the lovely green grassy and tree-covered hills to the east of new town. On the way out of the hotel, we stopped at the reception desk and asked a staff member to reserve us tickets for a chamber-music concert at the Schloss Mirabell, which is the palace connected with the famous Mirabell Gardens. The palace was built in 1606 by the Archbishop of Salzburg for his mistress, Salome Alt, who eventually bore him 15 children! Concerts are given here six nights a week, usually by music students in recital mode. Linda packed an evening dress and I a suit expressly for this purpose. We purchase non-reserved-seat tickets for 350 ATS (~$23) per person, entitling us to sit in row 6 or greater.

Anyway, from the hotel, we walked south along Auersperg Street until it dead-ended at the very steep and wooded Kapuziner hill, and then east along Schallmooser Haupt Street to the outskirts of town. This direction is completely opposite of where all the tourist sights are located, but our agenda for today was to see how ordinary people here live. When I travel, I like to visit the local grocery stores and check out the every-day products that are available to the residents.

We discovered a large supermarket along the way, and found it was clean and modern, just like back home. There are both European brands, of course, but also many American brands, such as Pampers. I was surprised to find that the shaving products are completely dominated by U.S. brands, produced in European factories: Schick, Gillette, and Remington. Interestingly enough, there were also little differences from what you most likely are normally used to. One such difference is that the shopping carts are chained together and to use one you need to deposit a 5-schilling piece (33 cents) into the coin-lock box on the cart to free it from the others. You get the coin back if you return the cart and reattach it to the others. This is not unlike grocery shopping in Japan. Another difference is that you have to pay for any grocery bags you need, usually 2.5 schillings (17 cents). As a result many residents bring their own shopping bags or baskets from home. Yet another difference is that you have to weigh and tag your produce before you come up the checkout counter. Our failure to follow this protocol caused the line to stagnate while waiting for the clerk to take our veggies back to the produce section and rectify the problem.

We had lunch at a restaurant/bar located in the shopping-center complex. I had beer and sausage pizza, and Linda had a shrimp salad and Coca-cola (they don't say Coke here). Now, I usually don't drink alcohol for lunch, but since this seems to be a revered local custom, I decided to follow the adage "When in Rome, do as the Romans do." The locals usually have a large (0.5-liter) glass of beer, but since the alcohol content of many of the Salzburg beers is 4.5%, this works out to be just slightly more than the alcohol content of a 12-oz. (0.33-liter) American beer. Salzburg has several breweries, and I sampled many local beers over the next several days and all were delicious. Did I mention the pizza was good, too? As for Linda's salad, the hot shrimp arrived on a bed of cold vegetables, and in full armor with head still attached; she would have preferred the shrimp peeled and cold.

We walked to outskirts of town, crossing a bridge over a network of railroad tracks along the way. We walked back to the hotel taking another route. It was good exercise, and we got to see how the middle-class live, which is apparently comfortably. We passed several music students on bicycle and foot carrying their instruments on their way to their lessons. We walked by a dance studio, a building with a piano in each street-facing room, and a playhouse. We did not happen across a single movie theater during our stay (nor were we looking for one).

As I often due in my travels, both to save money and experience the local sandwich fare, especially the breads, we purchased food at the grocery store to take back to our room for dinner. We also bought yogurt and fruits for breakfast the next day.

We dropped our stuff at our room, and then walked to the Schloss Mirabell on reconnaissance to locate the concert hall within. After completing the mission, we then returned to our room, ate dinner there, dressed up for the concert, and went back to the concert hall. This back and forth was easy to do because our hotel and the Schloss Mirabell are within a 10-minute walking distance.

We arrived an hour before the 8:30 start time of the concert to secure our seats in the sixth row. The large room was packed; latecomers were seated in chairs crowded around the musicians - there was no stage, per se. The concert was heavenly! Imagine listening to that most familiar of Vivaldi's violin concertos in Salzburg of all places. The "Ensemble Crescendo", led by Cordelia Hofer and made up of what appeared to be a handful or two of her students, played flawlessly. After Vivaldi, works by progressively later composers were presented: Handel, Haydn, Mozart, and Sarasate. Saskia Roczek, the violin soloist for Sarasate's "Airs Bohemiens", stole the show with her energetic playing of this seductive Spanish piece; after receiving no less than five rounds of applause, she and the rest of the ensemble replayed the last movement of this piece as an encore. I have never attended a classical concert with a more enthusiastic audience or one where an encore was given. Linda and I enjoyed ourselves so much, we decided to attend another concert here a couple of days later.

Day 3:

After eating breakfast in our room (we had stashed some yogurt in the mini-bar fridge after temporarily removing some of the stock), we walked to the Mirabell garden to see if we could recognize some of the garden scenes shown in the classic movie "Sound of Music". At a kiosk in from of the garden entrance, we signed up for a 4-hour "Most Unique Sound of Music Tour", a bus tour that would show us some of filming locations around and outside of the city; this cost 400 ATS ($26.67) per person, not counting the requisite tips for the tour guide and bus driver. The tour was not scheduled to leave until 2:00 pm, and so we had a few hours for other activities.

While taking a turn about that beautiful garden, we were regaled with music played by a live brass band to a small Sunday crowd, probably consisting more of locals than tourists, near the garden's central fountain.

In one of the buildings flanking the garden lies the Baroque Museum, which has a couple of floors of oil paintings with Roman-Catholic biblical scenes painted by the likes of Giordano and Rubens during the Baroque period of roughly the seventeenth century. The Britannica aptly describes paintings of this type as sensuous and spiritual -- they were commissioned by the Church as a form of propaganda to bring to life the drama of the bible pictorially. Indeed, they touched a chord with my Catholic upbringing. There were also sculptures by Bernini, Zurn and others. This little excursion took only about an hour and is definitely well worth taking. The museum admission fee is 42 ATS ($2.80) per person.

As an aside, I should mention that it is possible to purchase a 1, 2, or 3-day "Salzburg Card" at hotel front desks and Information Offices throughout the city, which entitles one to get into 25 different museums and historic buildings for a fixed price. The price of the Card ranges from 230 ATS ($15.33) to 410 ATS ($27.33), depending on the number days desired. We decided to forgo the Card, as we did not think that our lazy pace would allow us to see enough sights during the card's term to recoup its full value.

We noted a number of Chinese restaurants, but enigmatically no Mexican restaurants (a business opportunity here?), while walking around Salzburg and decided to try one. We chose the "Happy Chinese" Restaurant in new town near the Salzach River, ordering our favorite hot & sour soup, beef & broccoli, and Kung Pao chicken. This lunch was edible, but not the greatest. The soup was passable, but could have been sourer. The beef dish was good, but the chicken dish was way, way too salty and had stale peanuts. To add insult to injury, it was relatively expensive: 450 ATS ($30), not counting the 10% tip (to avoid propagating the image of "ugly Americans" abroad, I tip regardless of the quality of food and service, which anyway was generally quite good in Salzburg).

After lunch and many glasses of water, we headed for the tour bus stop in front of the Mirabell Gardens to start our Sound of Music Tour. For the next four hours, we drove past several film locations outside of Salzburg proper and even made a few stops (a good thing after all that water). One of the most memorable was the Collegiate Church of Mondsee, located in the picturesque mountains & lakes region to the east of Salzburg, where outdoor scenes of Maria and the Baron's weddings were shot (we were told that the lighting wasn't good enough to shoot the wedding inside, and, instead, a Hollywood set for the church interior was used). We also got to take pictures in front of the gazebo at the Palace of Hellbrunn where Liesl and Rolf sang "I am 16 going on 17" and Maria and the Baron sang "Something Good". During the bus ride, music from the movie was played to "get us into the mood" (I wonder if Julie Andrews and her costars are entitled to a cut from this enterprise?). The tour guide wore a traditional Austrian dress and finished the tour with a yodeling demonstration. Our bus driver, Martin, entertained us as well with his precision maneuvering through crowded parking lots and turning around at narrow intersections. It was a fun and informative tour.

For dinner, we ate at a beer-garden restaurant, called the Weissbierbrauerei, located just a couple of blocks from the hotel. The evening weather was perfect for dining outside, but unfortunately all the garden tables were taken and we had to settle for a table inside. The receptionist at our hotel had informed us earlier that Salzburgers love to eat outside when the weather is nice. We had a traditional meal of sausages, fried potatoes, sauerkraut, beer, and chocolate cake for desert. Although the fare wasn't fancy, it was Austrian comfort food at its best. The cost was about 400 ATS ($26.67), including the tip.

Day 4:

We walked to the Residenz, the residence of the archbishops, in old town for a tour of its interior chambers. The admission fee is 100 ATS ($6.67) per adult. An audio-tour wand is provided with admission, which gives explanations in a half a dozen or so languages of choice, including English, of course. The ceilings of many of the rooms were ornate with molded white plaster forms, some covered with gold leaf, and paintings of Alexander the Great's glory days. The doorframes of many of these rooms have elaborately carved red marble facades, which are important architectural focal points and indicative of the type of marble quarried in the region. Each room had a curious 6-8 foot cylindrical structure in one of the corners, which we learned were wood-burning stoves, used for heat in the winter. The interesting thing about this type of stove is that servants were able to stoke its fire via a hidden door in an adjacent closet to the room, unbeknownst to the room's occupants who were most likely engaged in less practical pursuits.

The Residenz also has a large art museum on another floor, which is included with the paid admission. We had a very interesting time viewing its moderately sized collection of oil paintings. Many of the paintings had Greek/Roman mythology themes, which interested me greatly, as I had just finished reading the Folio Edition of Robert Graves' The Greek Myths I. As a souvenir, I bought an art book containing many of the paintings we saw, with explanations in both German and English.

The Dom, or Italian-style cathedral, which is adjacent to the Residenz, is well worth having a look inside. Also, the large Residenzplatz, or plaza next to the Dom and Residenz, has an interesting fountain sentineled by four sculptures of half-horse, half-fish creatures.

The city is teeming with art students, and some sell their work on the street, mainly to tourists. For 600 ATS ($40), I purchased three inked watercolors of three different views of the city by resident artist Yong Chen (Kaigassz 27). I have since framed them and they look very nice on my bedroom wall, a permanent and esthetically pleasing reminder of the trip.

Later, we stopped at an outdoor caf� in the Residenzplatz for a late lunch. The weather was pleasant and, consequently, our break was very enjoyable. I had a beer and a sausage sandwich, and Linda had tea and cake.

We then walked to the Monchsberg lift and rode the elevator to the top of the hill for a spectacular afternoon view of the city. We paid 33 ATS ($2.20) per adult for a roundtrip lift ride, plus a tip for the elevator man of 10 ATS (67 cents). After taking several photos from the lookout area, we decided to walk down instead of returning via lift. The footpath took us to the hill's bottom on the bank of the Salzach River. From this vantage, we saw that the long biking/walking paved path running along river on both sides, just the place a resident might go for a daily jog to keep in shape.

On our way back to our hotel room, we stopped at a grocery store to buy a few things for our dinner. We made sandwiches in our room and drank some wine, a cheap German red wine called "Blauer Zweigelt", which was good and slightly sweeter than a favorite of ours, the French "Cotes du Rhone".

After dinner, we watched a little TV in our hotel room (CNN news in English and an Austrian drama). We then decided to go for an evening walk, ultimately covering a rather long distance, from the hotel, across new town, crossing the river bridge into old town and then up the Salzburg-castle hill to as far as the castle entrance. The road to the castle forked with the castle to the right and the famous Nonnberg Nunnery to the left. We actually walked along the left fork for a while until we encountered what we interpreted as "Do Not Enter" signs; we then high-tailed it out of there, as we had heard on our previous day's tour that the nuns don't take kindly to disturbances from the outside world. Invigorated, we walked back to the hotel and called it a night.

Day 5:

We spent the day shopping for souvenirs, like hicks in the big-city stocking up on monthly provisions. I won't bore you with the details of this time-honored activity, except to say that you can find here the latest French and Italian, not to mention German, fashion, American shoes, and, of course, traditional Austrian costumes, which can be very expensive indeed. To the resolution that I looked, don't expect to find any great deals on Montblanc pens, either; however, it's poorer German-made cousin, Graf von Faber-Castell brand, is a good alternative. I also noticed that there were an amazing variety of small porcelain figures, although I don't really go for that sort of thing.

There are many sidewalk cafes and lunch counters along the pedestrian-only shopping street called "Linzer Gasse" in new town near the river. Our lunch at one of these was cheap and simple: a fried sausage wrapped in a roll with mustard. We ate comfortably outside at an umbrella-covered table.

For dinner, we ate at the Zipfer Bierhaus Restaurant in old town, next to the thirteenth-century Franciscan Church. We again sat at an outdoor table. The adjacent street had only moderate foot traffic, and so the setting was very relaxed. I ordered the beef rump-steak, French-fried potatoes, mixed vegetables, and a 0.5-liter glass of beer, and Linda had sausage, sauerkraut, fried potatoes, and beer. The food was delicious. My steak was tender and of high quality. The meal for two cost about 450 ATS ($30), and I left a tip of 50 ATS ($3.33). It was slightly breezy, but the evening temperature was very pleasant and so we lingered over dinner a while.

This could have been the perfect end to another perfect day. However, we had tickets for another evening concert at the Mirabell Schloss! We had made reservations for the concert the previous day, and paid a little extra this time, 440 ATS ($29.33) per adult, to get reserved seats in row 2. The concert was a flawless exhibition of the piano virtuosity of Philipp Kronbichler, a twenty-year-old lad, with long hair and glasses, who played an impressive program of Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, and Franck, with not a single note of music in front of him.

Day 6:

Our last day was very busy. There were many sights that we still wanted to see.

In old town, we paid 87 ATS ($5.80) per person for a roundtrip funicular ride up the hill to Salzburg Castle, also known as Festung Hohensalzburg. One family we met there decided that this was too expensive and elected to walk up instead. We assured them that this could be quite easily done in 15 minutes, having done it ourselves two days prior, albeit during the day it would be a sweaty proposition.

The castle is relatively unadorned with relatively smooth walls and traditional corner towers. Its construction was started almost a thousand years ago and took more than five hundred years to complete. All vantage points from the castle have unparalleled views of the surrounding city, rural and mountainous regions, which gives it a major strategic advantage as a fortress. We took a very interesting tour of some of the inner chambers for 49 ATS ($3.27) per person, which came with a multi-language audio wand that provided us with explanations of the different rooms. In the last room of the tour, we learned that a cannon ball had visibly damaged one of its marble columns during a battle, but both column and castle successfully withstood the attack. The tour was concluded at the entrance of the castle's military museum, whose admission is included with the tour. The museum contains weaponry dating back to late 1700s, as well as World War I and II uniforms and photographs, a requisite stop for gun nuts and military buffs, alike.

We had a memorable lunch at the outdoor castle restaurant, where every table has a spectacular view of the Bavarian Alps to the south. Lunch for two costs about 550 ATS ($36.67), including tip, but the little extra for the atmosphere was worth it.

Late in the afternoon, we caught a southbound, number-55 bus and rode about 30 minutes to the base of Mt. Untersberg. Our purpose was to ride the cable car there high up on the mountain for a panoramic view of Salzburg and the surrounding valley. During the 7-minute ascent, I used my wristwatch altimeter to measure elevations of about 1000 ft at the lower station and about 5600 ft. at the upper station. From this great height, Salzburg castle looked rather insignificant. The cloudy haze on the horizon prevented us from taking very good photos of the surrounding snow-covered mountains, but the view was still pretty spectacular. We did not stay long, as we had to catch the last cable car ride back to the bottom. It would have been better if we had gone up early in the morning and allocated enough time to hike from the upper station to the ~6400-ft. summit and back. The more ambitious hiker might even forgo the ride down and do the 3 or 4-hour hike to the bottom instead. The bus ride cost 20 ATS ($1.33) one way per person, and the cable car ride cost 225 ATS ($15) roundtrip per person.

We returned to the city for dinner after enjoying the breathtaking view. Being a scientist, I wanted to see if the high quality of our meal at the same restaurant as we had eaten dinner the day before would be reproducible. So we went there again and I ordered the same meal. I was impressed with the results.

Epilogue:

Upon checking out of the Hotel Auersperg, we were presented with a nice little parting gift, which was intended as a practical reminder of the hotel: a CD entitled "Chamber Music Impressions from Salzburg" and containing selections of Mozart, Haydn, and Bach. On its cover was a collage of thumbnail images of scenes from the Hotel. Now if I were running a hotel, this seems like a good way of generating repeat business.

Final advice: For this time of year, it would be prudent to pack a fleece jacket; ours proved useful during one of the evenings. Also, you can leave your bug spray at home.

Looking back, we accomplished quite a lot during our week in Salzburg, and had a very relaxing time, as well, because of our free schedule, the clean air, good weather, and relatively little traffic and few tourists. But we hadn't quite seen it all. We missed seeing the house where Mozart was born, his residence there, and the Mozart museum. This may be like going to Paris and not setting foot in the Louvre (true for me, actually, and I've been to Paris twice), but it will be a good excuse to return someday.