i met becks at blackfriars (wearing oddly the same outfit...), coffees at the ready that wednesday morning, and we set off to gatwick with a few hours to spare. we cleared security and made our way to the wetherspoons in the departure lounge for a quick bite and a... not a quick bottle of bubbles to celebrate! it was my birthday moon after all! it was almost 11am, and but the only menu we were allowed to order from was the breakky one. so weird that they were serving hard liquor, but not brunch. priorities. our gate was due to open at 12:30, so we figured we had plenty of time...
at about 12:20 we realised we still had a quarter of a bottle left, which we guzzled in haste, then dashed to grab our in-flight magazines, before powering our way through the long halls of the airport, headed for gate 112. one hundred twelve. we heard them call the flight as boarding, and upped our speed; imagine being left behind over a £20 bottle of prosecco! it wasn't going to happen.
we made it! we boarded! we were off!
the flight was just over an hour, so felt like nothing. once we'd landed and cleared customs, we jumped in a cab and made our way to the hotel. it was drizzly and overcast, but instantly we were smitten with salzburg; the tiny city had so much charm, character and pretty details, that we were sat smiling in our seats and we wove through the back streets of our first austrian city.
the first hotel of the trip was motel one, which is like a european premier inn. it was comfortable and basic, but very clean, modern and pretty central. plus, we had an amaaaazing river view despite the cloudy day. we were smitten! we recharged the phones and had a quick read of the room junk, then headed out to explore. it was about 3:30 at this stage, so we knew we had a fair bit of day left to see all the things. first stop: mirabelplatz, to the mirabell gardens - home of the 'do-re-mi' montage!
the gardens were so beautiful, and so very, very busy with people re-enacting the infamous scenes, posing with the fountains, running up and down the walkways... i was in heaven. and thankfully, the rain stayed away. it wasn't even cold - so far salzburg was everything i'd wanted it to be!
after that we wandered down to mozartplatz as that was the meeting point for the sound of music tour the next day - we wanted to acquaint oursleves with the walk so we weren't late to the most important part of the trip! mozart platz is in the old town, which is renowned for its colour and architecture, so obviously we were distracted by all the pretty things! we wandered the long cobbled streets for what was essentially hours, but didn't feel that way, before stopping for a drink with the locals.
well, that was the plan. except the locals were... hard to understand, and not very willing to stop their general chit chat and obvious talking about us in german while we stood at the bar looking like we clearly weren't from around there. funnily enough, we got that look a lot of the trip. that, or people would naturally say "hello" to us, rather than the german halo. do we look english? we must do.
we finally got our biers sorted, and we sat outside in the street until it turned cold, and we turned hungry. we headed back to the hotel and stopped on the way for the first wienerschnitzel of the trip. there was no gravy, much to my dismay, but there was cranberry sauce, much to becks' joy. my god the schnitzel was amazing! we were stuffed and content after our first afternoon in salzburg, and finally made our way back to the hotel a bit fuller than before, but certainly a whole lot smiley-er.
day one was a success on all counts, and we were really excited to get our tour on the next day!
i love salzburg!
