While the novelty of it has worn off a bit, having a walking district part of town is quite nice. Like other cities we've been to, salzburg's walking streets are very cute with many historic buildings and lots of shopping. There were also some magnificent churches, statues, and fountains.
We got up early the next day to get to our "Sound of Music" bike tour. We rushed through what was the best hotel breakfast we've had yet only to look outside to see a downpour. We decided to postpone the tour till later. At first we weren't sure we could reschedule for the same day and thought we might have to extend our stay in Salzburg. After all, this tour was what prompted us to make the stop in Salzburg. Luckily, we were able to get it scheduled for later in the afternoon.
The rain subsided so the girls went to check out the shops and Sam and went exploring. Sam and I turned up a little alley that headed up a hill. And up and up. Lining the path every 100 yards or so were these religious alters. And part way up the hill, was a church and also a great view of the city. We continued on into an urban forest. The path continued to climb, but it was very pleasant and the map said there was lookout and historic building in a kilometer and a half. The view was quite something even if it was starting to cloud over a bit. With those clouds came a few drops of rain so we headed back and took a slight shortcut. The slight drizzle quickly turned into a downpour. The tree cover protected us at first, but then the rain broke through and we quickly got drenched. We did some trail-running on the way back and got showered off and into some dry clothes. We met the girls for lunch at "BioBurgerMeister", an organic style burger place. The fried chips were pressed and fried fresh. I had a veggie burger and everyone else had regular burgers and they were all delicious.
By this time the weather had cleared up again and it looked we'd have nice conditions for the tour. But conditions change quickly in Salzburg and on our way to the meetup spot it started raining again. And by the time we got there it was dumping cats and dogs (and probably some chickens and cows). But we had all said we wanted to do it, rain or shine. So, after getting setup on our bikes we headed off with one other family (a mom and daughter) on our Sound of Music tour. Our enthusiastic guide was from Ecuador but seemed to know the city well. This was his summer job while he goes to university. The tour focused on sites from the movie but was an excellent way to see some other attractions and the city and surrounding area. We stayed on nice bike paths and there was only one short hill of note, that we all walked up. It was interesting to hear bits of trivia from the movie. The rain let up briefly until I made a comment on it and then it started raining again for the rest of the tour. We stopped by a lake midway through. After noting how wam it was and how wet we already were, Sam decided to jump in. The mom/daughter were from LA. It was nice to talk with some native English speakers again. They had come from Prague, Vienna, and Budapest and we got some good tips for our Prague stay coming next. One tip was to watch the price of bottled water at restaurants. Many of them charge the equivalent of $10-12 per bottle. They said they $70 of water on their bill. Otherwise they really enjoyed it and recommended the Segway scooter tour. Sam and the daughter hit it off and chatted for much of the tour. She just graduated HS and will be heading off to Washington university and will be playing soccer there. I think it was nice for Sam to have someone else besides his family to chat with. Despite the rain we all really enjoyed the tour. I would definitely recommend it even if you're not a big fan of the movie.
The next day it was up early again (for vacation that is) to get a quick hotel breakfast and catch the long train trip to Prague.
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