A Place for Fish

 7/7

Travel to Salzburg

I enjoy traveling by train. So I was excited to just hop on a train and get to Salzburg. And with a phone and Google, it’s even easier than it was when I lived in Italy 20 years ago and did it much more frequently. We had no issues getting to the station, no real issues getting the tickets, and no problems finding the train and getting on. Awesome. However, we were not prepared for how crowded they would be and how reserving seats is actually quite important, as the ones we plopped down in ended up being reserved and so we ended up fighting for random standing space. When traveling alone or with Sam, I wouldn’t even note it here, but it does add to the stress levels when a kid is involved, as things could go bad quickly. As it turned out, Sam got separated from us and ended up standing in the aisle of one of the cars, while Ava and I ended up standing in the exit area between the cars. Luckily she handled it well and was happy to have her headphones and music on while we stood for an hour plus when a couple of seats opened up that Sam claimed. We all ended up with a seat for the last stretch, though, the woman next to me ended up sitting in a seat that was reserved from this stop forward, and one cultural observation I’ll make that I saw a few times - Austrians seem to go from exceptionally polite to ‘do you want to take this outside’ at a moments notice. I don’t think they are actually angry, I think its just the performance they do, but its something we saw quite a few times that was a bit unsettling at first, though I grew to ignore it I guess.

Once we arrived in Salzburg, we walked to the hotel to check in and drop off our stuff. This hotel was nice, but also very not what I expected. The owners had a very strong catholic aesthetic to the place, which I think many people would see as uncomfortable. At the check-in desk, the guy had a little transistor radio and was listening to Mass. But hey, the room was nice, location was okay, and the price was great.

We walked to the city center and walked the full Getreidegasse, which was full of little craft stores for tourists, but was also a nice walk. It ends near the Salzburg Cathedral and a lovely square with an impressive fountain (part of the the Sound of Music experience here, but we’ll get to that later). Being the fan of churches that I am, we went into the cathedral . And with our new audioguide diversion technique, we spent nearly 40 minutes wandering around, learning about the history of Salzburg and the church and she loved every minute (as did I, but that wasn’t a question). Upon leaving the church, we grabbed something to eat - and drink - at Mozart’s sister’s house - the one who was apparently just as talented as him when she was younger (whom I feel I’ve heard a lot about over the past year or two, thought that is probably more due to a lot of me  listening to podcasts than new academic findings…). After dinner, back to the hotel to sleep.

7/8

Cooking and Theater

Today was the day with the most pre-booked plans of the trip. We had hard plans for doing 2 things. Plan 1 was an apple strudel making class over lunch and plan 2 was a matinee at the Marionetten Theater Salzburg. Given the packed schedule, we got up early to make sure we’d be on track. Well, actually, we all just woke up early and got out of the hotel quickly - early enough that we stopped off first at the Toy Museum.

I wasn’t sure what the Toy Museum would actually be - it claimed to have exhibits and such - which it did - but really, the main draw was as a kids play center, so Ava loved it. And we did go through all of the exhibits, which had their interesting moments. Plus, I found a Playmobil character that was clearly designed off of me - he’d make a return later in the trip as well.

On our last big trip, Sam and I had a Thai food cooking class that was a lot of fun as well as being delicious. I thought it was worth another shot - especially with Ava in tow this time around. She enjoys cooking with us, so this would be that, but better perhaps. The class was run by Johann and aided by Celine. Johann was Austrian through and through and acted like an Austrian. Celine was born in Turkey with one of her parents being from the US and was currently studying philosophy    at the University in Salzburg. Interesting lady. The class itself was as hoped, a good time. Apple strudel is surprisingly easy to make and egg-free. The best part was really that Johann would just keep saying, “its fine, no matter what you do, you will end up with apple strudel” (very Austrian). We would also then make a Salzburg Nockerl. This is essentially a soufflé that is meant to be served with three peaks to represent the three principle mountains around Salzburg. These were more complex to make - but Johann and Celine dealt with the truly complicated part of baking them right, as apparently soufflé    s are very difficult to time right. Johann again made us aware that, “You will ruin many of your early attempts, don’t try this for the first time with guests coming”. As they are just basically egg, I didn’t eat them, but Sam and Ava both said they were like eating clouds made of egg. That means nothing to me. After making everything, we all have lunch with our apple strudel and Salzburg Nockerl, plus a stew [NAME OF STEW ###########] that they made for us. Honestly, this was my favorite meal in Austria. The strudel was great and the stew was fantastic - we bought their cookbook so I could make it again.

After the class we had just enough time to while away half an hour at a playground. As this is my first big trip with a kid, the accessibility of playgrounds in Austria and Germany is astounding. Maybe its not. Maybe all places are like this? I don’t know - it just seemed like we went to a LOT of playgrounds overall on this trip without ever going out of our way to do so…

Next on our extremely tight plan was a marionette performance. It was a ‘best of’ show taking numbers from Mozart’s opera, The Magic Flute, and Bernstein’s score from The Sound of Music. Basically the same shows really. Joking aside, the staging of it was great. Not only was it fun to see, but at the beginning and end of the show they pulled you more behind the scenes to see how it all worked. At the beginning, they had projections to the sides of the theater stage of the puppeteer’s working above the set, so you saw a little of the inner workings. And then again at the end, they lifted up the main valence that covered the top of the stage to allow you to see them directly controlling the marionettes and the crazy amounts of coordination involved for the big ‘group’ numbers that involved them passing the marionettes off between each other. It was really neat to see.

After leaving the theater, we wandered over to the Mirabellgarten - a picturesque garden created in 1687 (though with ongoing refinements since then). The garden is lovely, with great views of the city available and a curious dwarf garden as well. It’s a famous site of the city, and well worth the time you spend in it (and we were there for a while).

Leaving the garden, we wandered to St Sebastian’s Cemetery. I very much enjoyed it, though I’d say that if you’ve been in an abbey cemetery before, it won’t seem all that different. However, that doesn’t mean it isn’t great. Its also still very much in use, I wonder how one gets a plot here.

Finally it was time for dinner. During the strudel class, Celine had mentioned that the Augustiner biergarten was worth going to for a real biergarten experience, as it was loved by locals and tourists alike. Who were we to question her? We walked over and eventually found the entrance (mostly due to my confusing path to get there) and wandered in. I’d never been to a proper biergarten (something that would be thoroughly changed during the Munich leg of the trip), so this was something new. And it was absolutely overwhelming. The place is enormous (though we would learn that part wasn’t unusual), and is apparently the largest beer restaurant in Austria (for what that’s worth). It was built in an old monastery built around 1500 and the brewery was started in the early 1600s by the Augustine monks living there. We had great food, great pretzels, and giant 1L steins of beer that was delicious. What a great way to end the day.

7/9

The hills are alive

Of all the things I wanted to see and do in Salzburg, this was absolutely something that I had no desire to do at all. I saw the tours and the ads for them in my research, and I ignored them entirely. At least until one of my co-workers basically demanded I do it. Yes, we took the Sound of Music bike tour through Salzburg. It seemed like having Ava watch the movie ahead of the trip would help build excitement and give her things to look for during the trip, plus she loves riding a bike and it would be a unique outing. In the end, it was 3.5 hours of fantastic. It really was a good time, even if it was ridiculous. The tour started early in the morning and while Sam got her own bike, I got a bike with a tag-along seat for Ava and I - she’s a good, though still learning, bike rider, and NYC is flat while Salzburg is not. Johann from Sweden was our guide (perhaps all male guides/instructors are Johann? However, since he was Swedish, it was Joe - hann with the J actually pronounced) and he led the 10-15 of us through the city with fun facts (Christopher Plumber was drunk for much of it, the actual Maria von Trapp appears in the background of one scene because she showed up on set and asked to be in it, etc.). The ride takes you through ############ QUICK DESCRIPTION HERE ############. We also went into an 800 year old bakery (Stiftsbäckerei St Peter) that we would have missed entirely (again, not always great planning on our part). The bike ride itself was a blast too - if not through a tour, get a bike and take a ride in the city and out to the surrounding areas. It’s beautiful and good fun.

After a quick lunch, we took the funicular up Fortress Hohensalzburg - the fortress that basically dominates the Salzburg skyline and is in just about every picture of the city. The fortress itself doesn’t have a ton of history on display, though it is central to a lot of its power. The arsenal room was very interactive and occupies kids well; the museums are definitely meant to introduce you to things more than as a research center of what happened here. But overall it's enough to keep your interest and the views are fantastic. We ended the day with dinner overlooking the alps from a cafe on the castle wall. It was nice.