Day 3 - Salzburg - 25 Sep 2016

It was an eventful day but an extremely exhausting one.

We had our breakfast at the hotel. Nothing much to shout about - just some typical buffet-styled international varieties that offer scrambled egg, bacon, sausages, bread etc. Next, we walked to the beautiful garden at Mirabellcastle. As it was before 9am, there were only a few people, and perhaps some tourists, and it made photo-taking quite a breeze.

We joined the Fraulein Marias Bicycle Tour which started at 930am. Tom was our guide and he was really fantastic. A group of us selected our bicycles each and off we cycled to the various scenes where the Sound of Music was filmed. The trip up the Nonberg Abbey was the worst; only the guide cycled his way up to the top while the rest of us were overcame by its steep gradient. We were all huffing and puffing when we joined him at the Abbey. We managed to catch our breath before we continued our journey.

En route to the countryside, we frolicked in the open grass area and some of our fellow cyclists were just attempting to re-enact the scene where Maria belted out "The hills are alive". It was fun and just felt to me as though everybody was free to be a child once again. And of course, the Leopoldskron Palace (the back facade of the von Trapp residence that faced the lake) and the Frohnburg Palace (the front facade of the von Trapp residence) were all very memorable locations that the guide brought us to. And one more - the gazebo - the scene where Liesl sang "I am 16 going on 17".

The tour ended at 1pm and then we had lunch at Salzach Grill at Hotel Sacher. I had Salzburger and a glass of wine. And we topped it off with Sachertorte - the famous Austria cake.

After lunch, we joined Maria at 2pm, our walking guide for the afternoon. She was an old lady, donned in dirndl, so that we could recognise her at our meeting point. She took us to many parts of Salzburg and was very kind in explaining its various background and history so that we could be appreciative of the many architecture and sights that we saw.

After the tour ended at about 415pm, we joined in the fun at Saint Rupert's Fair. It is one of the tradition that the locals celebrated. There were so much to see at the fair and the entire square outside the cathedrals were packed with many people. One of the local joked that 150,000 people were at the fair (that was the entire population in Salzburg).

We walked back to hotel at 530pm. At about 610pm, our horse carriage arrived to pick us up from our hotel to St. Peter Stiftskeller. It was a very pleasant experience to be riding on a horse carriage with my missus.

The oldest restaurant in Europe, St. Peter Stiftskeller. Mozart dinner concert. These were what made the culinary and musical experience interesting. We were seated among a group of diners. We didn't know beforehand that the tables were arranged in such a way. Anyhow, it was quite a relaxing evening listening to Mozart's music (though the singing was in a language that we couldn't comprehend), chatting with an ex-diplomat and his wife who were on the same table as us, and enjoying the delectable food.

The dinner concert ended at 1015pm. While walking back, we saw a cab and decided to catch it because it was too late plus, my legs were almost breaking from the cycling and the walking throughout the day. It was 11pm when we hit the sack.