The hills are alive with the sound of mozart

Ive been having a lot of trouble actually publishing these posts after I write them, so these are all out of order. :P

Our last full day in Austria was spent on a day trip to Salzburg, where the sound of music was set, mozart was born and the "silent night" carol was written. The entire area is just beautiful, with a wonderful little town, surrounding alps and lakes, and many natural areas and gardens. The train there took about 2-3 hours. The scenery was great, and as soon as we stopped we started looking for breakfast, which we found at a little cafe where they had these weird little mario-esq monster pastries. I still regret not trying one.

Our first stop was the Mirabell palace gardens. With the alps in the background, violinists and harpists playing, and the crisp air and detailed landscape it was almost fairytail like.

We then wandered around town where we saw the house where mozart was born, some beautiful churches, and one of the fanciest mcdonalds signs Ive seen.

We eventually found a lift to take us up the local Mönchsberg hill range, where we split up so I could go hiking around while Andrea and Gerd did the lakes and mountains bus tour. The area has a ton of history and beautiful walking paths, and is the home of the Hohensalzburg castle, which I walked though. One thing we heard a lot about was how much of the city changed during the 30 years war, which the city majorly boosted its defenses. Most of the buildings on the hills surrounding the city were built as fortifications and watch towers during this period. And they provide excellent views.

Stove from inside the castle

I then headed down though down and over to the Kapuzinerberg hill (eventually, and getting lost along the way) for a higher view and more nature. 

One of many mozart-themed things in town, yet another mozart statue

And mozart bridge too

Guess who this is a statue of.

Very nice drinking fountain

I accidentally went all the way to the top of the mountain, and was nervous about getting back to the train, but everything turned out pretty good and I got an amazing view out of it.

Finally we met back up at the train station and headed back to our Vienna hostel. We were all pretty exhausted.

The next day we said goodbye to Vienna to take a morning train to Prague!