Day 3 - Salzburg

Dec 16th - I woke up completely exhausted this morning. Figured I had beat jet lag since I had such a long sleep the first night, but not so...I could not get to sleep last night, literally hours spent looking at the ceiling. I should have re-thought the decision not to bring the melatonin along when we were packing. With daylight, we discovered we have a balcony in our room & realized we have a fantastic view of the mountains.

After breakfast, we caught the bus back into the city of Salzburg to explore for the day - a rainy, drizzly day, but very mild. First up was finding our way to Festung Hohensalzburg - a fortress high up on a hill overlooking the city. We just had to look up to know what direction to head in, so a short walk to the funicular, passing Mozart's statue in the Mozartplatz and Mozart's Geburtshaus (birthplace). The fortress is huge - wikipedia tells me it's one of the largest midieval castles in Europe. Amazing to think they started building it back in 1077. We meandered through the various rooms & exhibits - staterooms, torture chamber, and museum. I have to say, it probably wasn't the most exciting fortress from the inside to tour other than the vastness of it all. The most impressive part was walking around the outside of the fortress, taking in how huge it is and the excellent views of Salzburg from up there - great vantagepoint!

All the reading & exhibit looking made us hungry, so we crossed over the river to the new town, to seek out Die Weisse brewpub for a bite to eat & sampling of some local beer. Mmmm, on both fronts (Laurie, I think you requested beer pictures, we defintiely have a few for you today). Sufficiently full of bratwurst, sauerkraut, and beer, we meandered back into the old town to check out the Christmas Market at the Domplatz - at the head of this square/plaza is a beautiful cathederal.



Last stop for the day was at Augustiner Müllner Bräustübl (brewery & beer hall) - this was our first experience at a brew hall, most impressive. This place sits below a monastary, and the beer made by the monks (I'm not 100% sure if this is still true). Whoever is making the beer, certainly knows what they are doing - well, I guess after almost 400 years you have time to get it right :) At first I thought we must be in the wrong place - to get to the beer hall, we entered a building & walked down several sets of gargantuan marble stairs...felt like we were in a, well, monastary I guess. But then we saw the hall of food stalls, followed by the spot you pick up your mug - you have 2 choices a 1 liter or 0.5 liter mug (can you guess who got the one liter & who got the half?). Then you give it a rinse in the fountain - not that the mugs need it, but seemed to be the thing to do :) Then you pick your beer - again 2 choices Martzen or Bock, and step up to the person pouring out of the barrels. Last step is to find a seat at a table in one of the big halls, and enjoy! Quite a fun experience from start to finish.
We finally finished up, hopped on the bust to make our way back to the B&B where Rob had to dial into a couple of conference calls for work (boo!). By this point we were starving, and managed to get a table at one of the other restaurants close to the B&B - Reiterhof Moos,a great spot that we could not get a table at the night before. I decided to have my second Wiener Schnitzel of the trip, this time was a Salzburg Schnitzel...stuffed with mushrooms, onion & bacon, delicious! By the time we got back to our room, it was blowing a gale & the rain was coming down sideways, but still very, very warm out.



Beers for the day: Die Weisse Max Marzen, Die Weisse 1901 Original, Die Weisses Weihnachts-Bock, Mullner Marzen, Mullner Bock