Day 9: Salzburg

Although we've only officially been situated in Munich for less than 24 hours, we took a day trip out to Salzburg to see what Austria had to offer. The answer, we found, is a lot. Salzburg is picturesque and charming and rich with history. In short, it's a little closer, I think, to what we all expected from Munich.

 We went with a small group tour, which mostly entailed being introduce to Salzburg by a very English Englishman over the course of the two-hour train ride from Munich, following said Englishman on a quick walking tour, and then being given a large amount of free time to explore the city. Surprisingly and somehow totally unsurprisingly, the tour focused on Mozart, food, The Sound of Music and the "darkly-- oops, deeply-- Catholic" nature of the area. Like I said, very English.

The walking tour started at the Mirabell Gardens, designed in Baroque style with swirling lines of flowers and exquisite sculptures, as well as an impressive (I guess?) unicorn fountain that, apparently, was featured in the Sound of Music. The amount of obscure references to that movie over the course of the day left me questioning whether I'd even watched the same movie as everyone else. Either way, the gardens were beautiful and despite the rain, very pleasant to walk through.

 

 

 

Then, we were led through an odd collection of archways, alleys, and construction zones to the historic shopping district, characterized by the iron signs that hang above the shop entryways. Unfortunately, mainstream retail has moved in, overtaking local shops and cafés at the rent prices went up, but there were still some authentic-looking places along the way. Fun fact: even though chains have bought up retail space, they are still required to hang an iron sign above the door. It was a little weird seeing a McDonald's sign in the style of old Salzburg.

 

We strolled through the rest of the city, which didn't take long, given its size. We passed tiny markets in alleys, old beautiful architecture, and a load of old churches (Salzburg was originally home to a bunch of bishops).

The Salzburger Dom (the cathedral) was particularly cool in its construction. The front of the cathedral is decorated with statues of saints and Gospel writers and Old Testament characters and so on, but as our guide pointed out, the Virgin Mary was missing, which is very unlike the Catholics. He led us around the courtyard to look at the building head on and we saw that part of the façade of the cathedral, a crown being held up by two angels, lined up perfectly with a separate statute of Mary, creating the illusion of Mary being crowned.

 

 

The end of the walking tour left us at the foot of the fortress of Salzburg, the Festung Hohensalzburg. The fortress was designed to protect the bishop in times of conflict and was built in 1077. We took a funicular up the mountain to the top and got to wander around inside the fortress, which was pretty incredible. It wasn't reconstructed to be as it was when it was in use, unfortunately. It was mostly filled with restaurants and gift shops, but the structure was impressive in and of itself, and the view from the top was amazing.

 

When we got down from the top, we had about two hours before we had to meet to get back on the train to Munich, so we decided to hit up some of the points of interested mentioned by our guide during the walking tour. Most of these were Salzburg culinary traditions, including Mozartkugeln (literally, Mozart balls) and "the best hotdog in the world."

We found the Mozartkugeln pretty easily, retracing our steps back through the city. They were invented in 1890 and only one place has been selling the proper, original and handmade ones since then. They're these little chocolates with a hard shell and soft chocolate and marzipan inside. They're pretty pricey, going for 1 euro apiece, but the general deliciousness and the novelty of Mozart balls make them worth the price.

Finding these famed hotdogs, however, was a disaster. The shop is literally a hole in the wall of an alley off the main street, visible only if you walk down the correct alley and happen to glance right at exactly the opportune moment. So, naturally, we were walking in circles around Salzburg, taking every possible wrong turn and even the right one a couple of times, though we didn't recognize it. Keep in mind, too, that by this time, we were running out of time. Missing the meeting time would mean missing the train home, and as we started to get more turned around and more hotdog-deprived, panic was rising. There must have been one point where it was no longer the quest for a hotdog, not even for the best hotdog in the world. This was a quest for justice, a personal vendetta, a battle for revenge. Just as we were about to give up, we limped down a dimly-lit alley and, though we thought them hallucinations at the time, smelled the faint aroma of hotdog in the air. We'd found it. We'd won.



 

 

 

 

It was a beautiful moment in time for us all. And actually, the hotdogs were pretty darn good. The "original" comes with parsley and onion and a hotdog rolled in curry spices, all served in toasted bread. Perhaps it was the joy of victory, or perhaps they were really that good, but I would say that these hotdogs are, in fact, the best in the world.

We boarded our train back to Munich and trekked back to the hotel, where we collected ourselves and had some down time. Then, we went out to dinner at a place called Lenz.

I have to start off my description of this place with a confession: this was not our first trip to Lenz. We went yesterday for lunch, and I totally forgot to include it in the blog, so I will give you the full scoop now. Also, yes, we went back to a restaurant twice in two days. I'm not even concerned. It's that good.

Lenz is probably the cutest restaurant of all time. It's laid back and friendly and staffed by the family of the owner, a hulking man who looks a lot like Gru from Despicable Me. Contrary to his appearance, he's the friendliest guy ever, chatting up everyone in the restaurant, customers and staff, and joking around with kids. The atmosphere of the place is great, but the food blew us away.

Yesterday, we tried plates both from the regular menu, including wiener schnitzel and a gorgeous roast pork creation, and from the specials, specifically the goulash and curry. All of it was intensely delicious and, especially after Paris, very reasonable, price-wise.

Today, we went couldn't resist going back. Both Dad and Matt ordered the wiener schnitzel, Mom got beef tenderloin, and I got a salmon fillet with potato pancake. Again, all of it was fabulous. This time, we ordered an array of desserts to try. The tiramisu (house specialty) and apple struedel were impressive, but the stars of the show were the chocolate mousse with strawberry sauce and the fresh strawberries in marzipan. I don't think Lenz could put out a bad dish if it tried. We may or may not be back tomorrow to collect more data...