Salzburg
Trip Start
Sep 02, 2005
1
2
32
Trip End
Dec 10, 2005
Salzburg,
Austria
Monday, September 5, 2005
After a great night sleep on the hallowed floors of Stansted Airport we rose early to make our 6:40am flight to Salzburg.
Clear skies and green rolling hills awaited us, as did the last half of the daily showing of The Sound of Music at our hostel. We decided to stay and watch to 'get us into the spirit', though I suspect I would have preferred the South Korean version (their President decided that the movie was too long (amen) and took it upon himself to delete all the musical scenes, hence cutting the movie's running time by half).
So with some do-re-me in our steps we ventured out into the utopian litter and grafitti free streets of this picture perfect town
01. Mirabellagarten
. A return to the German-speaking part of the world never ceases to amuse me, a land where everyone sounds hard and every sign seems to be shouting obscenities at you (fuchsberger, sparkasse and pissenburger being my current favs).Wandering around the cobbled streets behind tourbus-loads of grey haired nannas turned out to be the perfect way to make the transition from busy work-mode into relaxation mode. As much as I loved the views and pretty buildings my highlight was naturally beer related:
The Augustiner Brau is a brewery within a Catholic Monastry that has been brewing since the 17th Century. You enter through a small door up a side street and continue through a series of long marble hallways that more resemble a 5-star hotel than a brewery. All of a sudden you are passing a deli and various other random food stalls until you reach of doors to no less than 5 long beer halls (the kind you imagine with the 30m long tables and clinking steins). However the halls are empty, as everyone is downstairs enjoying their brew in a beer garden the size of a soccer pitch.
And let me tell you about this beer. It is the smoothest, freshest, most drinkable brew ever (me suspects they must make it from holy water)
02. Hohensalzburg Fortress
. Brewed by the connoisseur monks themselves in the room next door, the unpasteurised amber nectar travels in old wooden kegs a mere matter of metres to the bar where it is tapped immediately and served directly from keg to ceramic stein. The Brau is the only beer they serve year round, except at Christmas when they increase the alcohol content to 7% and at Lent when they serve their alcohol-free 'Fastenbier', complete with label showing a monk holding a stein with a little halo over it.Next stop is into slightly more unfamiliar territory, Slovenia, where Mel will bring you up to date on our happenings there.
Cheers.
