Sound of salzburg

Wednesday 17–Friday 19 September 2014

The great australian pilgrimage

The train journey from Ljubljana to Salzburg was a bit frenetic. Nobody seemed to know where the train was going from or which platform to go to when we changed, and there seemed to be a whole host of travellers (mostly other Aussies) heading in the same direction on their way to Munich for Oktoberfest, same as us. So we exchanged hurried and puzzled words of advice with a few other groups, and made it onto the right sequence of trains in the end.

The views of the lush countryside between Ljubljana to Salzburg were just spectacular.

Changing trains at Villach.

One of these other Aussies we met on their way to Munich via Salzburg was Craig, a former marketer from Sydney (for companies like Mortein; but don't worry, he wasn't behind that awful 'Save Louie the fly' campaign) who was an Oktoberfest veteran with some great stories to tell. We shared a compartment with him and parted ways when we disembarked in Salzburg.

For some reason we were under the impression that the directions we had to our hostel wanted us to find the local metro, which we couldn't locate anywhere, mostly because it didn't appear to exist. In fact, the directions wanted us to take a bus to our hostel, something we only worked out after approaching some helpful teens outside the station. 'Hello, do you speak English?' we asked. 

'Yes, of course,' they replied. We did presume they'd be able to, but it also seems rude not to ask. But then do you look stupid/ignorant/offensive by acting like they probably can't? The Anglophone traveller's dilemma.

We could really feel how close we were to Germany at this stage, as the bus was impeccably clean, punctual, efficient and legible (it's a well-known fact that Germany emanates an aura of efficiency that impacts every other country proportionate to its proximity), with an LED display helpfully listing the stops as we passed them, accompanied by a cheery automated announcement.

At our enormous and impersonal hostel, we were sharing a room with two other Aussies, Cam and Josh (of course, on their way to Oktoberfest), but we were starving by this point, so we went straight to the Spar Express to see what we could rustle up for dinner. We ended up taking home a simple yet surprisingly delicious combination of crusty bread, tomato and glorious, glorious hummus (something we'd been unable to find for quite a while on our travels).

Seeing salzburg

The next morning we headed out to a vegan cafe, Heart of Joy, for breakfast. I was feeling very vegetable-deprived, however, so I opted for a tasty tofu salad instead of a brekkie option. I picked up the camera to record my meal, as every Gen-Y traveller is mandated to do by the laws of the universe, only to realise that I'd left the battery charging in our room back at the hostel, a forty-minute walk away. 

Til and I proceeded to debate about what to do, with her experiencing a powerful bout of Hostel Patron's Reluctance (HPR), and me arguing that we only had one day to see beautiful Salzburg and I wasn't going to waste all that sightseeing on a crappy iPhone camera. So in the end she ordered something else from the cafe so she could continue sitting there while I went back for the battery.

My vegetabular breakfast (and battery-less camera).

On the way back from the hostel I managed to run into Craig again, too, which was pretty crazy. After that I met Til at a bridge for a wander through the town to the funicular and up to the castle, and I was very glad I had the good camera with me, as the sample of the many photos I took will attest. We were lucky to have gotten a long list of tips from our friend from exchange Barbara, so we could squeeze as much as possible into our one day (but not enough!)

The castle in the distance overlooking the town.

An art installation (not an actual egg)

Water fountain at the foot of the castle hill.

The incredible view from the castle.

An inventive and dynamic way to display weapons and armour.

Some punitive instruments used for torture/humiliation.

An actual chastity belt. The teeth!!!

Another fountain in the castle square.

Climbing the walls.

Next up we did a beautiful walk from the castle to the Richter Postmodern Art Museum (named along with a park up there for the inventor of the Richter Scale) further along the hill.

Art.

Dancing?

In the museum we were able to take an elevator down through the hill back to the city, which was kind of trippy. Our next stop was to check out some (frankly underwhelming) catacombs in a small graveyard before a walk down the main street and a lunch of pretzels.

Catacombs.

Cool old-style signs.

Riverside picnicking

The weather was fantastic that afternoon, and we noticed a lot of locals picnicking on a verdant grassy slope by the river, so we decided to do a little food and beverage shopping and join them.

Mmmm. Loser rice.

Lock bridge.

C*ckblocking cam

After that it was pretty much time to head home, and that would be about it for our time in Salzburg, because we had to leave the next day for Munich. That night though we hung out a bit in our room talking to Cam and Josh, and the former revealed himself to be a total ass. He was only eighteen and he'd clearly destroyed himself by drinking and smoking and partying too hard too consistently since he'd been away, boasting the worst smoker's cough you've ever heard, but all he did was complain. He didn't like Austria, didn't like Sydney, was over travelling but was going to keep doing it for another six months. And he kept going on and on, trying to let us know how rich he was. Later that night he was hanging out with this British girl in the room and didn't say a word except to get us to reiterate in front of her that we hadn't woken up the night before when he was having a coughing fit (clearly building a case to the girl that they could do whatever they wanted later and we wouldn't wake up and hear it). They went out and didn't get back till twelve, when he was clearly disappointed to find us still awake. When they left again after five minutes I said to Til, 'You watch, they've gone downstairs hoping that we'll be asleep by the time they get back. Bet you they come back at 1am.' So we stayed up, half because we were busy and half out of spite, and at 1am on the dot they came back in and went to sleep disappointed. Sucked in. Should've gotten himself a private room if he was so rich. What a schmuck-bitchler. 

Here's a short video of some footage from Salzburg:

'Cómo están, bitches!'

 Yes, this has very little to do with anything ...

The following is based on actual events. Only the names, locations and events have been changed ...

Barcelona was one of the victims of travel disaster number six, in that our stay there was drastically shortened as a result of it. We basically only went there to catch our flight to Venice, but we did get to do and see a few ... well, two ... interesting things while we were there.

As I mentioned towards the end of my last post, the train trip from Granada was twelve hours. Because of the also-mentioned sub-four hours of sleep we’d gotten the night before this trip, we spent the first two or three of it sleeping. This was good because it made the journey seem shorter, but bad because when we awoke the train had stopped, we presumed, for a food break, as no food was available on the train itself.

Because we woke up halfway through this break, we had no idea how long it had been going or how much longer it would last, so we judged it best (despite not having eaten breakfast) to stay on the train and get off at the next break. Little did we know that the train would stay at that platform for another forty-five minutes (with us saying at ten-minute intervals, ‘It must be about to go, surely’), and WOULD NOT BREAK AGAIN TILL WE GOT TO BARCELONA.

Obviously, when we arrived we were ravenous, so we went into the first place we saw – a Maccas – and gorged ourselves.

The next day we checked out of our hostel and went wandering around Barcelona. Unfortunately I don’t have any pictures (except those taken on my phone) of the day's activities due to a bout of HPR we suffered.

One place we went to see was the Sagrada Familia, a modern cathedral that has been under construction since 1882, originally (or near-enough) under the supervision of famous architect Antoni Gaudí, whose idiosyncratic touch is most clearly present in the statues of gigantic fruits and vegetables sitting atop the spires of the structure. Til went in, but I opted to keep my 11.90 thank you very much, my interest in abbeys and cathedrals and churches long too depleted to allow me to spend that much (half the day's budget under travel disaster–incited restrictions).

Besides, we'd already seen a more interesting Gaudí complex that morning for free: Parc Güell. It originated as a purpose-built estate for the wealthy of Barcelona, a playground for the rich. It was, however, too ahead of its time and not a single apartment was sold. Eventually the property was turned over to the city, and it's been a public park ever since. The architecture was freaking amazing – it was so interesting to walk around. Til and I ended settling down somewhere with a picnic and just staying there all day eating and talking in the sun. I know we probably should’ve been seeing more of Barcelona, but I can’t imagine a better one-day experience of the city than that for free. It was a beautiful setting with a beautiful view of the city and the ocean and I thoroughly enjoyed every second of it. If you go to Barcelona, you MUST visit Parc Güell.

 Earrings on an umbrella.

 The Parc Güell view.

Our flight to Venice left the next morning at 6am, early enough that we couldn’t face having to wake up in a hostel and make our way to the airport. So instead of doing that, we stayed the night there. At first it looked like it was going to be fine. We had a sweet little fort set up in a shadowy corner of the airport where we wouldn’t be disturbed, but unfortunately, we were. By security. The airport had a policy of not allowing people to sleep on the ground, which SUCKED.

I mean, I totally understand why they wouldn’t let people make little beds on the ground in a secluded spot – you could have any homeless person come in there and claim they were waiting for a flight – but to not let flight passengers sleep on the ground right next to the seating area, to wake up people sleeping on the ground RIGHT next to the seats their bags and families are sitting on, or people sleeping UNDER the seats? It’s excessive. What’s the difference?

Luckily I devised a way to sleep comfortably on the chairs. Armrests prevented stretching out along the row, but we were able to pile our bags and jackets onto trolleys, align them with a seat, and stretch out with our heads and shoulders on the seat and our torsos down on the trolleys to get a semi-decent sleep. I highly recommend this tactic if you ever find yourself in the same situation!

 'Great story. Compelling, and rich. Well, that's gonna do it for all of us here at Channel Four news. You stay classy, San Diego. I'm Ron Burgundy?'