Fall Break | Salzburg

Between our two days in Vienna, M and I traveled by train to the southern city of Salzburg for a day. Salzburg is small town boasting large claims to fame. Hemmed in by mountains, that are alive with the sound of music, Salzburg is both the birthplace of Mozart and the filming location of Roger and Hammerstein’s classic musical.

I wrote in a letter to a friend during the three hour train ride from Vienna to Salzburg,

“The sun is shining through the window and resting on the folded pages in my lap. I love the colours of shadows and sunshine on clean paper. We should be in Salzburg soon, and though four hours of sleep last night has left me exhausted, I am high on excitement to see this beautiful city. Melissa and I are getting into the spirit of things by listening to the entire Sound of Music soundtrack from start to finish, before we arrive and we begin our own self-led tour of the musical locations. It is an excellent thing that we have this train compartment all to ourselves, for we randomly burst out singing at various places in the music and considering the fact that our ipods are not playing the songs at precisely the same rate and I have a cold and therefore sound dreadful, I am sure that we would be a terror to anyone who happened to sit beside us on this train...”

We had a lovely day walking around the city of Salzburg. The green domes roofs of the city's Cathedral shone brightly in the autumn sunlight as leaves drifted from their dying branches high above our heads. We thoroughly photographed ourselves posing in various Sound of Music stances in Mirabelle Gardens, the Nunnery atop the hill, in Residenzplaz square and several other locations that required no entrance fee.

Our day ended by visiting Mozart’s birthplace and then sitting inside a small café eating crisp apple strudel and drinking tea and hot chocolate to warm ourselves from the cold air. It is amazing how chilling the city can be once the sun has set. Yet Salzburg was beautiful. I've never seen such beautiful gardens, nor such old streets and buildings covered in winding red vines and roses even when all other colours have begun to fade. The streets smelled of pretzels, red geraniums and horses and yet the air was crisp and bright.

As we waited on the platform outside the train station, expecting our train and seeing nothing on the horizon but mountains and white city lights, I wrote,

“A large man is eating a sausage roll on the bench beside us and a trio of teens are smoking cigarettes by a large advertisement. My left hand is numb form the cold and its is hard to write with my right. Melissa and I have only one pair of borrowed red gloves; we each wear one at a time, switching the “warm woolen mitten” from one hand to the other to keep our fingers from going numb. The cathedral bells are ringing in the distance but the sound of train wheels grinding against metal tracks is drowning out their sweet sound…”