Brief trip reports Vienna/ Salzburg and Budapest part 1

, with only 2 months to plan our trip to Vienna/Salzburg and Budapest, this forum gave me so much help. It was almost like having a group of friends I never met who are so willing to share their experiences, informaHitions and advices. Thank you to everyone who generously shared their time and advices in helping me plan our trip.
Our trip was 10 full days not including the arrival and departure days. it was our first time to the 3 cities.
Vienna was a good first stop to get over our jet lag.The free walking tour was a big help to us get oriented with the city ( Inner city). They are free but expect a tip at the end. They deserved it as they worked very hard. I just googled free Vienna walking tour. We stayed at Hotel Austria which was recommended here. Location is very central with lots of restaurants closeby. We walked to St Stephen's cathedral, Opera, Hofburg palace. There were shops all around. Weather for July was very warm. our highlights was the guided Opera tour. Too bad that the opera was closed for their summer break. Schonbrunn palace was very beautiful. We got it as a package combined with the Sisi museum as suggested by RS book. We particularly loved the gardens. We took the horse carriage with a few people on it. It gave slight commentary. If we were to do it again, we would have taken the small train as it went up to the viewing Gloriette. We didn't know so we walked all he way up on a very warm day. We ate lunch inside the cafeteria but really nothing special. View was a lot better just sitting outside the stairs in front of the cafeteria or cafe.
From Vienna, we took the westbahn train where we just bought our tickets on the train.It was very clean
and convenient. We got there early to pick our seats close to our luggages and only to learn 10 mins before train started that the seats were reserved. We were able to moved to a seating area close by.
We loved Salzburg. Stayed 3 nights but would have stayed 3 more nights. We stayed at Hotel Elefant in the old town which was a vey good location. We watched the violin concert up in the fortress. View up in the fortress at night was very beautiful. It came free with the concert fee. We took a walking tour from the TI office.Cost was 10 euros. As Rick mentioned kind of dry but still ok.
It was raining while we were there so our raincoats and umbrella came in handy. We decided a day before that we should just do SOM tour. Bob's tour was sold out. It was our one full day and we wanted to squeeze in Hallstatt too. I know the forum did not recommend this but we just have to do it as we are not sure when we will be back again. We were recommended to Edelweiss tour. It was a private van as there were only two of us, We paid a little close to 300 euros. Driver talked while driving but once in Hallstatt and Mondsee, we were just told when the pick up time was. We did SOM and Hallstatt. Needless to say it was very rush. If I were to do it again, I would spend the night in Hallstatt. We were only given 2.5 hours in Hallstatt. We took the funicular up and view was spectacular even if it was overcast. We didn't even get to do the salt mines as there was no time :( We walked to the salt mines but knew we would not have enough time.
We paid for reserved seats on our way to Budapest which was a good idea-about 3.5 euros each. It was a 5 hours trip. It was a full train and midway, there was a mother and her teenage daughther who insisted that the seats we were on were their seats.We took out our tickets and showed them and they moved to another area.