Tim & Jo

Well it was good to get out of Munich. Was good to see things that we could get to out of the town but neither of us really thought much of the place itself...

Got the train early on Tuesday and arrived in Salzburg mid morning, the weather was a little damp but nothing that our trusty 2€ umbrellas could't cope with, well for most of the day anyway, umbrella 1 of 4 fell to the cause a little later in the day

We decided against paying 0.7€ for a town map at the train station, betting that if we could get to the main tourist office in town we would then hopefully be able to grab one for nothing, great success! we found our way to the office just as we'd hoped without a map and picked the same map we had just been quoted 0.7€ for, for free. Wasn't much in the way of information at the information centre, and as we didn't want to book a ticket to a sound of music rip off later on that night we wandered out into the Altstadt and into a labrynth of alleyways and small streets. Battling against the continual waves of tour groups following flags, sunflowers, pink umbrellas and anything else that made the tour leader stand out, we found our way to the first nice cup of coffee since leaving New Zealand not exactly cheap at 2€ but not too bad...

We then headed back toward St Peters Kirche (Church) and headed inside, this place is awesome, its a Baroque basilica built in 806AD, thats quite old Beside it was one of the oldest restaurants in this part of the world, its connected to the church in a big sort of monastry building. (We knew these dates as we were pointed in the right direction by a helpful American man that saw us looking at the map in the rain and came up and had a chat. It seems that the Kiwi accent makes a bit of a difference as well, they always want to know where we are from and about New Zealand. All New Zealanders overseas seem to be unofficial tourism ambassadors, as we have been quized no less than 4 times in the last few days about where to go, what to do, how long to spend and when to do it...) Anyway back to what the church looked like, inside was all gilded in gold, try saying that 10 times fast. There were huge frescos everywhere and the most intricate carvings in every other space. Pretty cool.

Outside was a little graveyard fitted in between the church and the cliff, in the cliff was a small catacomb that was chipped out by monks apparently. Had a look in there and took some pretty cool pictures

Headed out and towards the funincular railway that takes people up to the Festung Hohensalzburg, this is a huge castle complex that was built over a long period of time by successions of Arch Bishops of the Salzburg Bishoporific (sic). Being on a tight budget we decided to forgo the train and started the walk up, luckily it wasn't too far and we had arrived before too long. Looked around the museums that they had set up (cost 7€ to enter the castle, this covered everything we did). Was pretty strange looking at a museum with old Axis fighting uniforms and weapons, saw panzerfausts and other heavy artillery as well. We also had a look around the Court Chambers which were really lavishly decorated with blue velvet with gold studs, this continued all over the roof which represented the stars in the sky... There were crests of other allies of the Salzburg arch diocesse.

Just before leaving went on an audio tour of a section of the castle, this was the only way to head up the tower, and also found about the history of the castle. We also went through the prison cell that they had set up, not the most inviting of places, heaps of shackles on the walls and a big wheel that they used to drop on prisoners limbs to smash the bones, then they would strap the prisoner to the wheel and leave them there to die...

Caught the train to Innsbruck at 4:30 and arrived at 6:30, spread out on the beds and then another New Zealander with her boyfriend from the UK arrived. Was pretty funny cause a little later on she said as they were coming up the stairs they heard american voices (next dorm room) and were hoping that they wern't in that room (see munich entry), when she said hi to Jo and recognised the accent she was very relieved

Went down the street to a little cafe and had spag bol for dinner with Chris and Jo, yip that was her name too . Had quite a few beers and headed back to the hostel latter than intended

Next day in Innsbruck was a little slow, the weather meant that we couldn't see the mountains and didn't really want to pay to stand in the clouds. Went and saw a bell factory that had a museum attached, was alright but not worth the 4€ they charged... Oh well. We got the laundry done on the way back, just so happened that the local ethnic (maybe slovenian or hungarian) gang seemed to be doing their washing that day. We hung out for the 30mins we had to all the while getting rather odd stares, grabbed the washing as soon as it was reasonably dry and boosted back towards busier streets Went and had dinner down the road from the hostel at another little cafe type place then called it a night.