We started day 3 (this is Wednesday now) with the delicious free breakfast at the hostel. Just as a reference, we stayed at Jufa. That’s the hostel name… it’s a hostel in Salzburg… that’s the city name. Anyway, after breakfast we got all checked out and re-stowed our luggage in the luggage room.
We headed back into the main part of the city, passing by the big church we had just seen the day before.
We were headed a little further in to see the cemetery and smaller church we saw the last time we visited. This time we took a slightly different route and ended up seeing a “working” water wheel.
The area around the wheel was pretty non-descript, but there was a little sign explaining how the wheel used to be used, the water system, and whatnot. There was a little statue there that caught my attention.
I’m not sure what it is about these old designs, but they just creep me out. Oh wait, let me zoom in again.
Yeah, not weird at all. Moving on, we found our way into the cemetery. Some of the decorations in there were also not weird at all.
We walked around the cemetery a bit. The graves there are just like the ones we found in Linz: raised, multiple people per plot, lots of vegetation, and actively groomed (at least in some cases). We even had a guy come up and ask us if we knew where Mozart’s grave was. He was under the impression that it was in this particular cemetery. We gave him confused looks.
We found plenty of pretty graves, but none with Mozart in it.
We sent Dennis and Pam into that same little pathway leading up the inside of the cliff that we visited the last time we were there. Pam took my camera – oh side story. Pam’s battery had died and we didn’t have the proper charger for her camera with. All we needed was a powered USB port, but I didn’t bring my laptop, so we were out of luck. It was high on our list to find one of those things you plug into the wall and it just provides a powered USB port. More on that later.
Anyway, Pam took my camera up in there with her and she got this shot of the cemetery. If you click it for the larger version, then look straight in the center, you can just baaaaaaarely see Joni and I looking at the camera.
Once they got back down, we headed out of the cemetery. We noticed something odd though. What time do you think this clock says?
Did you say 11:55? Almost. It says 11:00. Yeah, I know. If it hadn’t starting binging and we all looked at our watches, we wouldn’t have thought so either. Now you know – watch out for that clock when you’re in Salzburg.
We saw another church, then got into the little street stores that are ever present in Salzburg. We stopped at a little food stand and got some strudel. I finally tried Topfenstrudel. Topfen is kind of like cream cheese, but it’s not as sharp and is more solid-cheese-like. It’s OK. After we bought that, the guy told us to come back in 10 minutes for a sample of Baumkuche – tree cake. We’d never heard of it, so we planned on returning.
We went around and looked at a few shops and checked out another church that was right there.
Joni found this weird chicken toy. It’s hard to explain, but I took video so I wouldn’t have to explain!
By this time 20 minutes had passed, so we went back to try this tree cake. He started by wrapping a wood cylinder with bread dough. He then buttered it, rolled it in sugar, and put it in an oven that rotated it. Every few minutes he’d move it one slot up on the oven. Once it was done, he pulled it out, buttered it, then sprinkled cinnamon on it and slid it off the wood, leaving a little pipe shaped treat. It was really good! It was crunchy on the outside, but had a soft bread texture on the inside. We bought one to snack on.
We decided to go see the garden, but we made a stop at a photo shop to check for a charger. They didn’t have one (well, they had one, but it was 70 Euro for a 10 Euro thing), so Pam bought a disposable to at least have some kind of camera. We continued toward the park and ended up walking along the river for a bit. Joni spotted a park and had to take a short break to play on the monkey bars.
She couldn’t really do it, so Dennis hopped on!
Those two are silly!
We got up to the park and took a little rest, then walked through it. That big slide we saw last time was closed down for painters to work on the whole play ground. We wandered through, then decided it would be a good idea to get back to the hostel to get our stuff. On the way back though, we stopped for one more picture next to the big cathedral.
We grabbed our stuff, then started the 500 mile trek back to the train station. On the way, we saw an appliance store. I went in to see if they had a charger. This is where it got weird. I went in, and asked the guy (in German) if he spoke English. He said back something along the lines of “No, but you have good German!”, to which I replied by getting all blushy and stuttery. I think I managed to say I have bad German, but I don’t really remember. I did manage to ask for a USB power adapter, but he didn’t have any and recommended I go to a computer shop.
Weird experience.
A little ways down the road I found another place that sold TVs and stuff. Dennis and I went in while Joni and Pam looked at a bee store next door (they had soaps and candles and whanot). We actually found a 15 Euro adapter that was perfect! We bought it, but Dennis had the idea to tell Joni and Pam we didn’t find anything. We did, and they were none the wiser.
We got back to the train station and hopped a train for Vienna. We were all pretty pooped by this point, so it was a fairly quiet ride. We got into Vienna and got checked into the hostel. This was the time to spring our surprise. Remember that USB power adapter we found? Well, the girls had pointed out a few more places we went by on the way to the hostel. We had them fooled. After I got into the room with Joni, I told her about it. She recommended that we claim we found it on our bed when we gave it to Pam, so that’s exactly what we did! We had her fooled for a bit too. It was pretty creepy how someone just left exactly what we needed waiting on our bed!
We got her camera plugged in, then started thinking about food. We saw online that there was a Wienerwald right up the road. MJ had wanted to eat at one, so we walked the whole 2 blocks there… only to find it closed. Dejected, we wandered down about half a block to a place called Mariahilferbräu. Not to give away what we thought of it, but here’s how to get there:
If you are in Vienna, EAT HERE. Dennis, Pam, and Joni all got this combo platter with different meats, a knödel (dumpling), and sauerkraut. I had their “meatballs” with mashed potatoes. Oh. Ooooh. Ooooooooooh, it was good! We all thought so. My “meatballs” were actually two small meatloaves, and they were scrumptious. We even came back the next night just to try something new. Really, this is the place to eat.
Also, for Dennis:
We didn’t get done eating until 11 or so, so we went back to the hostel and promptly went to bed.
Was that St. Peter’s Cemetery? I went on line and checked that cemetery. It said that Mozart’s sister was buried there, but said nothing about Mozart himself being there.
Well now we know.