Two days in the city of Salzburg

We only had two full days in Salzburg so we wanted to make the most of our time. This is how we spent our afternoons and nights. 

I mentioned before that we saw a lot of the sites when we first arrived on Wednesday. Having checked a lot of the sites off our list allowed for a nice relaxing pace while we're in town on Thursday and Friday.  We also had to get our ride over the border and train tickets set, but that's not as fun to write about. 

On Thursday we got back from our tour of the Eagles Nest around 2 so we headed back to the hotel to relax for a few minutes. This turned into me taking a much needed nap. Around 3:30 we decided to it was time to head back out. We had made reservations at one of the older restaurants in town, Stiftskeller St. Peter, for 7:30 and we wanted to see Festung Hohensalzburg (the main fortress) before dinner.  Dressed as nicely as we could we headed out for the fortress. 

What had started as a beautiful day was quickly turning into strong constant winds and darkening clouds. We stopped for a few pictures on the way and made it to the railcar that took us to the top by about 5:00. 

As you might expect the wind was even stronger at the top. We decided to take a guided tour of the some of the rooms and eventually made it to the highest point today the castle. The view was incredible. We could see all the back to the Eagles Nest in Germany (south) and well into the mountains to the North. The wind made it tough to hear the audio guide but the view was worth it, especially as the clouds rolled in and the sun continued its battle to peak through on the valley. We continued to tour and to walk around the grounds, around 6:45 we decided it was time to take the tram back down and head to our reservation early. 

The rain had just started and luckily they could seat us. The place was much larger than expected with a huge courtyard and lots of different dining rooms ranging from one table to 15 or 20. The menu was fancier spins on some traditional dishes and everything was devoured thoroughly. The restaurant also had a "Mozart" dinner concert that night in another of its halls. A very cool place with great food. 

Friday afternoon we didn't really have any plans, so when we got back from the Sound of Music tour we grabbed lunch and took our time. We strolled around Old Town and even took a horse drawn carriage ride. We also needed to get our Oktoberfest costumes together so we spent some time going in and out of stores to find Ashley a dirndle. We found a relatively cheap one that needed a little resizing. We dashed over to the drugstore, Ashley found some needle & thread, then it was back to the hotel for some tailoring. Ashley knocked it out in about 20 minutes. 

We had decided that we wanted to got back to the Loyal Ape for dinner so we sat outside with some beer and pretzels until there was a table ready. Dinner was again amazing. Very simple food that is done well. Ashley has the Wienerschnitzel and I had the Affensteak (basically pork loin with zucchini melted cheese and speck on top served over hashbrowns). The Affensteak was so good I forgot to offer Ashley a bite. That might be the first time I have ever done that so it had to be amazing (or my stomach is getting greedy as it grows).

After dinner it was time to pack and get to sleep. We had an early car coming to take us into Germany.