So here I found myself in Salzburg. The first time being back on my own after nearly 2 weeks of couch surfing. Felt kinda freeing in a sense. As much as I love couchsurfing it is nice just to be on my own again. Of course this feeling usually only lasts about a day if that before I want someone to hang out with and have meals with. But there is something completely different about hanging out with fellow travellers rather than couch surfing hosts. It would turn out though that most of my time in Salzburg was by myself.

Salzburg was an amazing city. From pretty much anywhere in the city your view was dominated by the fortress up on the hill in the middle and the mountain in the distance behind it. One of the best looking castles I've seen, just so perfect perched upon the hill. It looks almost exactly how you would picture a medieval fortress to look like. You could walk most of the way up the fortress for free and from there, there were some pretty awesome views of the city and in particular the cathedral and the Capuchin monastery and old city wall. To go inside the fortress was I think 7 euro or so, I paid and this also included a section where they took you on a guided tour and explained the history of it and also took you up to the top of the tallest tower. From up here you go not only a great view of the city, but also the other direction of the mostly free land and then the mountains father in the distance.

The most prominent mountain in the range is called Untersberg. It takes about 30mins by bus to get to the base of it and then you can catch a cable car to the top. I had paid for a 3 days Salzburg pass which included this making it extremely good value. Up the top you could take a short hike to a viewpoint which gave amazing views. For a rather long hike through quite deep snow and tough slopes you could get to a higher view point. In both cases the view was crazy. The Alps in one direction and Salzburg and the surrounding plains in the other. There was also a restaurant up the top here, so I grabbed a beer and just enjoyed the view.

Other things I was able to do which was included in the price of the Salzburg card was the Salzburg museum, a natural history museum, the zoo and an aquarium. There was some interesting stuff in these, but overall nothing amazing. There was of course still Christmas markets around too, but honestly, these were nothing special anymore really. Near the zoo was also a palace. Apparently they have some cool trick fountains here, but they were closed during the winter. Walking around the palace grounds was kinda nice though.

On I think the second night there was a Topdeck tour staying at my hostel. The hostel had a bar downstairs so while I was down there having a drink they came in. They were there for two nights so I ended up going out with them a couple of times.

Oh, the hostel also played The Sound of Music in one of the common areas every single night at 7pm. I was there for 5 nights, still haven't seen the movie. I did wash maybe 20 or 30 minutes of it though.

The photo that I have used for this entry was taken standing somewhere along the old city wall. I walked up to the Capuchin monastery one day and then from there decided I would walk along the wall. Was a nice walk. I think it would have been even more amazing in the Summer though when the trees actually had leaves. I do think I might come back to Austria in the Summer. There are still a couple of places I want to go, one of which is only an hour or so away from Salzburg, but I just didn't find the time before having to go to Kirchdorf for my ski tour.

Ands that's where I was off to next.