Goulash soup and hot chocolate with rum - a perfect lunch for a rainy day in Salzburg. It's always raining when I come to Austria, but having hurried through by car and by train in the past, this time I am staying for whole a week with Helen. We're hoping that statistically speaking, we should get a dry day or two.

In the meantime, there are plenty of indoor things to do, particularly if it's related to Mozart. We visited the house where he was born, attended an afternoon piano recital in St. Peters Church and dined in a restaurant where opera is performed between the courses. It's hard to escape Mozart, but who can fail to be impressed by someone who could play complex piano pieces by the age of four, and was composing by the age of five.

This blog entry actually covers two visits. OK, I admit that there wasn't that much rain on the first weekend, but it was quite dull so we decided to save the outdoor stuff for the following weekend. When we returned, that's when we got the rain, but continued with our plans anyway. But even on the one-hour river cruise, we couldn't escape Mozart. The boat was called Amadeus and they get it to perform a waltz in the middle of the Salzach.

We took to the hills above the old town and walked high above the city, descending to Augustinerkloster Bräuerei. This is part of a large monastery where the resident monks really know how to brew beer. The food was very good too.

Posted on October 24th 2015.