Contiki Tour in Salzburg

This is the next instalment in the publishing of my diary of my Contiki tour of Europe in 1980. In this short entry I describe the quick visit to Salzburg and Mozart’s birth place. I am listening to Eine Kleine Nachtmusic while I edit this text.

SATURDAY, 6th September. Left the camping site at 7.30 heading for Austria. The morning was quite misty and we watched a very orange sun through the clouds. The land was very flat and corn and grapes were the main crops. The grape vines were high and bushy with big bunches of purple grapes.

We stopped for our morning snacks at a small village just before the border in the Dolomite mountains. When we reached Austria the air was quite cool and brisk, making it absolutely invigorating. We stopped for lunch next to large mountains with forests and a river valley.

Finally we arrived at Salzburg at about four o’clock and had a rushed walk from the Mozart memorial to Mozart’s birthplace which is a museum of manuscripts, instruments (pianos, harpsichords and clavichords) and opera dioramas.

I bought some chocolates which our courier dubbed as “Mozart Balls” – about the size of a squash ball and most delicious. [These chocolates are readily available here in Sydney]

The evening at camp was about the coldest we had experienced so far. Before we arrived at camp we stopped across the lake from the house used in the filming of “The Sound of Music” as well as seeing the pagoda used in the film as a backdrop to “I am Sixteen Going on Seventeen”.

A few of us went to a bar just over the road and tried out some “schnapps” – the local firewater!

SUNDAY, 7th September. Fortunately the day was clear after a very cold night, and warmed up very quickly. Our first visit for the day was the Hellbrun Water Palace and Gardens.

Picture from Wikipedia – I don’t have any postcards

This was built by an eccentric Prince Archbishop and had beautiful gardens with concealed water jets that could be used to wet unsuspecting guests. I bought a guide book to find out about its history, as well as taking some photos.

Then we headed for Germany where at the border we had the German police come aboard and inspect our passports.

To be continued…..
If you missed the earlier instalments of this diary please go to this page and start reading from the beginning.