Salzburg, Austria

After sorting myself out, planning and organising some trips whilst in Salzburg, and having some dinner, it had gotten to late to go and check out the castle and Abbey, so instead I went for a walk, to check some of the pubs down by the river. It was pretty quiet, but I ended up having a kebab and a couple of beers with a couple of Austrian guys before heading back to the hostel.The following day I did a sound of music tour, that I had booked. It was alright, but in retrospect I would have done the biking tour, as it would have covered some of the sights better, in closer detail, for example not as we were driving by -that's where the scene where xyz was filmed. In saying that, there was a majorly hot Australian girl on the bus, whom I managed to capture in this picture (not the one with the baby!). As you may have guessed, this is the pavilion where they did the 16 going on 17 song and dance, it looks a lot smaller in reality.

Afterwards, I walked back to the hostel with the foxy girl and another attractive Australian girl.

The next day I went to a place called Werfen - by train. It is famous for it's ice caves and a castle. To get to the caves, you must catch a shuttle bus that takes you high into the alps, then they drop you at the ticket counter, you purchase the ticket for the caves, and if you wanted included - the ticket for the cable car - which I opted for, the French Canadian couple I got to know in the mini-bus decided to walk it instead. It was a 15 minute trek to the cable car, then a 1000 metre ascent, and probably another 15 minute trek to the cave entrance - this picture is taken from outside the cave entrance looking back at the last part of the last walk. The tour inside the cave took about an hour - it was OK, but really was just a cave with ice in it (funny that). They seem to prolong the tourist season by keeping the door closed on the cave (hence it stays cold in there.) By the time I had come out of the cave, the Canadians had reached the entrance, which was a good effort. On the way back I met 2 older Texan couples who were by the ticket office, and asked how to get to the caves, after telling them that it involved quite a bit of uphill walking, they thought better of it. I got the minibus to drop me off at the castle on the way back, and then met my Texan friends again there. The castle was interesting, it had a load of military equipment, torture equipment, and on the way back to the station, I passed all their falcons as well. I managed to met the Canadians again at the station, so we travelled back to Salzburg together.

The following day I went about checking out all the film locations that I missed on the walking tour - such as this bit of path, which we only saw from a distance- which I think is a fundamental part (the Von Trapp house would be on the left, this is where Maria skips down singing 'I have confidence in confidence in me...' as she is on her way from the Abbey to the Von Trapp's for the very first time. Similarly the next photo is the fountain she passes earlier in the song just as she has left the abbey. One of the houses used as the Von Trapp house (the opposite side from that which you would see in the above picture - in this picture you will see a terrace - this lake is where the children and Maria are in the boat and it tips out, similarly there is another scene where the adults are drinking pink 'lemonade'.This is the church where the Captain and Maria get married, which is a little way out of Salzburg.

The following day, before leaving Salzburg, I went to the airport, as there is a Hanger there called Hangar 7 - which is where the Red Bull team have all their planes and racing cars etc - and you can check it out for free.