Bridget blog - Saturday july 2

We had our first full day in Salzburg, and we had better luck with the weather over all. It was still a little cold, but there was significantly less rain. We woke up early since we only had one full day here and we wanted to see as much as possible. The breakfast here was very nice, and for the first time on this trip we had access to nutella.

We walked down the main road to the Mirabell gardens. Here we met up with Fraulein Maria's bike tour with whom we would be viewing the city. At first, we had some difficulty since the bikes were a little wobbly, and it was hard to maneuver through the streets with such a large group; but most of us had the hang of it by the end of the tour. Salzburg is known for two things: The Sound of Music and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The tour was at first a little redundant after our self guided tour yesterday but once we left the downtown section of the city, we saw a lot of new things we had not yet seen. Biking through the countryside of Salzburg was lovely: we would be alongside trees and rivers and fields with beautiful mountains in the background. The cast of the movie did all of their filming in Salzburg in just 2 weeks. We saw both of the houses where they filmed, the lake into which they fell, the park where they sang Do-Re-Mi, the theater where they competed in the singing contest, the abbey where Maria was trying to become a nun, and more. Another cool location we saw on the tour was the Hellbrunn Castle and Gardens.

After the biking tour, we walked through a two day music festival that was called Linzergassefeste. It was fun, and we tried some of the local food. We then went to the Mozart museum, located at the Mozart residence. We went through the listening tour, and we got to learn about his family, his travels, his struggles as a composer, and his life in general. We also were able to actually hear some of his music. Later in the evening, we went to a Mozart piano concert at St Peters Abbey. It was about an hour long, and the music was beautiful. I think we all appreciated being able to hear some of Mozart's music in his hometown, even though he did not spend much of his life here. My dad was literally moved to tears (which he indignantly denied) and it really made me miss playing the piano. We had dinner at a nice restaurant up in the mountains, and we got to watch the sun set over the city. I'm very glad we came to Salzburg and had a very nice time here.