Well, I won’t lie, we didn’t do a whole heap in Salzburg. It was hot, especially after about 11am, all the way to the middle of the night.
I combated the heat somewhat by soaking my T-shirt then rolling it in a towel so it was lightly damp. This technique keeps you cool for at least an hour outdoors. If it gets really hot I add a wet thin cotton scarf for my head and neck. By then I look like Lawrence of Arabia but with more dripping.
Every morning we started our day with breakfast in the apartment followed by a trip to Kaffee Alchemie.
We tried their cappuccinos, iced cappuccinos and affogatos. Their coffee was extremely flavourful and not bitter or burned, it had a light sweetness and their milk foam was thick, not like the styrofoam- consistency milk froth you get in the UK. If I had two I never felt jittery either, just perfectly awake. Basically I’m crying on the inside leaving it behind ;-).
We did do a few activities in Salzburg after the first day.
On the recommendation of our lovely friends from the Mozart concert, we went to the midday organ recital at Salzburg cathedral. It was worth the €6 just to spend an hour sitting out of the heat, the architecture was very imposing and elaborate and the organ music was… fine. Not my thing but kind of interesting to see live. They had two organists who moved around and played each of the six organs in the building.
At the end we saw our friends (if you’re reading this, ladies please leave a comment, I wasn’t sure how to spell your names!) and they took another photo and I wish I had too. It’s always nice to run into familiar faces in a new city.
We spent some time walking around the narrow alleys of the old town. Most of the shops were luxury brands and had tourist prices but we did go into one cheese store that sold cheddar style cheese but with lots of different flavours.
The most unusual was lavender, which had the colour of blu tac. I ended up tasting some the second time we went in and it barely had any taste beyond cheese, the colour was a bit off-putting though. We did buy some aged sheep’s cheese and used it for our dinner.
The cheese shop also let us try some of their white port, which we hadn’t had since Porto. We bought a small bottle of that too.
We had two meals that I cooked in the apartment – pasta with grated cheese, salt, pepper, olive oil and cherry tomatoes. I feel like it’s my travel go-to since it’s so easy and usually most of the ingredients are already in the cupboard if there’s a kitchen in the Airbnb.
The fresh fruit and vegetable stall around the city sell the most amazingly perfect produce. I bought a big tub of red currants – something you almost never see at home. Luke didn’t want any so I got to eat them all myself.
There were many stores around town selling traditional clothing. Much like in Munich, it’s not unusual to see people wearing outfits like this around town. At around €500 for a complete set, it was out of my budget. I would’ve loved a proper dirndl for multicultural days at school though, a connection to my German heritage.
Luke did a load of washing when we first arrived and repurposed the shoe rack into the worlds smallest drying rack.
We spent two nights eating at a beer garden just around the corner from our apartment. It was a huge setup with both indoor and outdoor spaces, but we preferred sitting beneath the chestnut trees.
The food was very Germanic – meat, gravy, potato-based sides or dumplings, beans or noodles.
We also ate (or rather I ate while Luke watched because he was feeling a bit hungover) at the Afro Cafe, which was also only a couple of hundred metres from our accommodation. It was recommended online as a good place to eat and something different from Australian cuisine. It was good for brunch – I had the shakshuka, admittedly something that’s pretty common at home.
We went back to the Mirabell Gardens and saw a bit more of them. We were interested in seeing more of the palace but only a small part was open… or we couldn’t find any other open sections. The roses smelled lovely.
Outside the university was a funny set of sculptures of giant gherkins. I had a student last year who was obsessed with gherkins so we took a few photos.
One thing that should be mentioned if you’re thinking of going to Salzburg, is the fact that they sell Mozart chocolates everywhere. They look very fancy but be warned – they are primarily filled with marzipan so just don’t bother unless you’re one of the 1% of the population that actually likes it.
There really isn’t much else to report about Salzburg. It seemed like a really nice city and there are several hills I would’ve loved to climb if it hadn’t been uncomfortably hot. I know no European Airbnb owners are going to read this, but for god’s sake please put some fans in your apartments. Just a pedestal or desk fan would make life more bearable!
The heat has convinced me that April to mid-June are definitely my preferred months for European trips. Either that or autumn. Go when it’s quieter, cooler, cheaper and just generally more pleasant.
Right now we’re in Frankfurt airport, which surely has to be one of the biggest in the world. Terminal B was approximately a kilometre from Terminal A and staff ride bicycles around!
Next stop: Belfast! Don’t let us down, Lufthansa, we have a dinner booking somewhere fancy.
