Day 6-whirlwind tour with my friend, best tour guide ever-almost 20,000 steps.! My vans held up but I was a hurting unit because I didn’t properly prepare for lol the walking. We saw the Schonbrunn Palace, gardens, street markets, looked for yarn-none local, favorites were the imperial crypt (my wife loves cemeteries with a history and I have caught the big, too), the national library and St Stephens. We had a light meal at a rooftop lounge with a killer city view called Skybar. We sat Above St Stephen’s and watched the sunset while the church bells were going off. Amazing! Great street food scene with delicious sausages and gelato. Saw so much in so little time!
Day 7-Sunday, slower start, train at 1130 am to Salzburg. I forgot my backpack during the send off because the lift from the apartment was small and I left it behind as we had to make multiple trips with baggie. Hint-PACK LIGHT! I read that several times on the forum and could have easily gotten away with half of what we packed. No question about it. We had an Open train ticket and it was a packed train to Salzburg so it was a big challenge with our luggage. I don’t think train seat reservations are typically needed, especially when we got to Switzerland, but in Travis case I would have paid extra for the comfort and reassurance if a spot. Once we arrived, we rushed to find a seat at a restaurant where there were tons of people standing. It was a busier weekend for travel.
We stayed at Hotel Elefant, which we loved. Perfect location, right near the old town with a solid restaurant and good staff and breakfast. We attended an incredible Mozart concert and dinner at the Fortress. It was Amazing-highly recommend. The quartet were so Talented and it was a great meal. There was a pianist who joined for two songs who was super entertaining to watch. Very energetic and got the crowd going. I suggest you Splurge for vip dinner. It was worth it. A couple that sat next to us kept commenting that our food looked better. I ended up sharing our dessert with them. Lol. For the concert, we sat Front row middle because I bought tix early. What an amazing experience and feat pics from the fortress during the day, sunset and night. Like most European hotels, there was No air conditioning. They said they had it but it wasn’t working. It stayed that way our whole time. We got a fan in our room and left the window open and it was ok, but since we are desert dwellers from Arizona, we missed our AC.
Day 8. We took off for Halstatt early, on our own. We Beat the crowd, arriving by train at 930. Woke up at 515 to be on train by 7:11. It was well worth it. The first couple hours before tour groups started to arrive were magical. What a picturesque little town. Not all the shops were open yet, but we didn’t mind. We walked around, took a cool boat tour (all in German). Just a magical place but it got more and more crowded by noon. The Bone house (beinhaus) was well worth the visit. The back story for that is Fascinating, they would dig up skulls and larger bones to make room years ago. They painted them beautifully with love and respect and labeled with names and death year. Got packed by 1 pm so we were glad we had done what we wanted to already and took off at 2:30. The train doesn’t take all the way across the river currently due to construction. A bus took us the last few minutes. So, don’t be alarmed if your train tickets list another stop and a necessary bus trip while they complete construction.