Mozart's Birthplace

Our photographer didn't get the whole fountain, but we believe this is the fountain she dances past in The Sound of Music...
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It was exciting to be in Austria because our tourguide was so excited to be here. Stan is from Vienna, and we are in Salzburg, but he is still so excited to be back somewhere a little more familiar (although he spoke 7 languages, and pretty much got along great everywhere). It was sad because Salzburg was only considered a stop on our way to the Sporthotel we would be at for the next three days, so we had to make our three hours worth while.

The group walks through the streets, over the river and into the main part of the town where there are people dressed in costume, others selling gifts on the street (one with a small bird puppet that I couldn't resist for my younger cousin Griffin), and right there in front of us Mozart's Geburtshaus. We walk together as a group down to a large statue of Mozart where we are told our time limits and Stan suggests checking out the apple struddel during our time (me pass up a dessert? no way).

Wrought iron signs and adorable little country shops...

Mozart's birthplace...
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I decide to stay with Lindsay Mize and Pip for this stop of the journey. A lot of people just wanted to frollick in the Sound of Music gardens, which were great, but we wanted to see what the town really had to offer. We go through the streets lined with wrought iron signs and adorable little country shops to see what we could find. My favorite was a wine shop in which you could sample the different locally made wines and then choose what type of bottle shape and size you wanted to take it in. The prices were decent, however, since the wine hadn't been sealed airtight it would only last about a week and if I were to buy any I would want to be able to take it home for my mom. Lindsay wanted to find a German bier stein so we continued on shopping where she found a really cute one that played music for a decent price from a local shop with a really pleasant older woman owner who was very willing to work with Lindsay to figure out what she wanted.

A statue of Mozart...
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After some tiring shopping we decided we would have lunch at an outdoor cafe in the middle of town right around the corner from Mozart's birthplace. We ordered a pizza as our maincourse (had to give into the cravings as we smelled one at the next table), but we did get the famous Austrian apple struddel. It came with raisins and a whip cream like substance- not ice cream, but a frothy cream substance which was delicious. Stan was right in recommending this traditional treat.

Our time was already up, meaning I'll have to come back to Austria one day to really experience it.