Munich & Austria - Part 5 of 5

Today was our last full day of the trip, and we spent it exploring Salzburg. First on our agenda -

THE SOUND OF MUSIC TOUR!!!!

I was raised on old school musicals, so I was VERY excited about this tour. We all were, actually. It really helped that we watched the movie before doing the tour - I suggest everyone rewatch the movie before you do the tour. It's more fun when you know exactly what part in the movie the different city landmarks are from.

One thing that we didn't realize until we got to Salzburg - Austrians HATE the Sound of Music. They won't watch the movie. You can't even find SoM souvenirs at any of the shops. Our guide (who was actually from Denmark) said all of his Austrian friends make so much fun of him for being a SoM tour guide. Sad.

There is a bus tour you can take for the Sound of Music highlights, but we chose to do Fräulein Maria's Bicycle Tour.

I'm not gonna lie - I was more than a little nervous about going on the bike tour. I had not ridden a bike in 15 years (Josh hadn't ridden one in almost that long). But, the website, as well as all the reviews of the company assured us that we'd be fine. It's a long tour - over 5 hours. We arrived at the meeting point a little early, so we could all practice with the bikes.

It's true, you never forget how to ride a bike. But, you do forget how to make sharp turns & brake in time. At least, that was my problem at first. But, I got the hang of it after a little while (somewhat - the turns never really got easier).

But, at least the bikes were super cute!

Our guide’s name was Jonas - he was really funny, and would sing along with us and do all the corny things that all the SoM fans wanted to do. He also took a ton of photos of everybody, and put them up on their FB page afterwards.

We went from Mirabell gardens, up to Old Town, up to the fortress that looks over the city, out to Hellbrunn Palace. We went everywhere!

Our guide also went over some of the history of Salzburg. We checked our Europe’s oldest restaurant, a statue of Mozart, a horse washing station (basically a fountain with a ramp to lead your horse into the water, so you could wash it). We stopped at Hellbrunn for a 20 minute rest/bathroom break. Really - you need to bring your own water! It was a cool, cloudy day, so we didn’t really think to bring any water. After about 45 minutes, I was dying of thirst! Thankfully the city fest was still going on, and we were able to buy drinks from the vendors.

I was worried about falling (and Josh was worried about me falling) but, I was good. Actually, there was only one casualty on our trip. This dude wearing flip-flops and shorts flipped over his handle bars. He ended up pretty bloody, but I had a hard time feeling bad for him. Who wears flip-flops on a 5 hour bike ride? It did kind of spook us, though, and we all went a little bit slower after that. (to be fair, we were going down a steep hill at the time, and the guy pressed the wrong brake - which is what sent him over). There was one BIG hill we had to bike up. No no, let me rephrase. There was one BIG hill that I had to walk the bike up. To be fair, though, most people ended up walking the bike up the hill. Our guide said that he had an Olympic swimmer a few weeks ago, and even HE had to walk the bike up. However, Curtis was able to make it up, and Karen *almost* made it up. But, they're weirdos.

Yep, that's right. I'm as in shape as an Olympic swimmer. Ha!

I will say - the biking was a little rough on me. Curtis estimated that we went about 15-20km. If I hadn’t done the crazy hike to the Ice Chapel at Königssee the day before, I think I would have been in much better shape for the bike ride.

The thing I really didn’t prepare for, though? The beating my vagina ended up getting. And that is not in a good way. My bajingo was SO COMPLETELY SORE by the end of the day, I just wanted to sit on a block of ice. It. was. ridiculous. You think I’m playing, and you think I’m just saying it because it’s funny.

Nope. My vagina was killing me.

I know people get used to it - otherwise there wouldn’t be people that call themselves “bicyclists” (or, as my family likes to say, “bicycle perverts). But, how in the bloody (almost literally) hell can you get used to that? My vagina was screaming at me by the end of the 5 hours. She was so mad at me, and I felt so bad for her, but I couldn’t do anything about it, except fan myself every time I went to take a pee (which, fuck all, IT BURNED). My vagina gave me a faux UTI just for putting it thru the trauma of a bike ride.

That’ll teach me to try and be more active. :/

But, really, I’m glad I did it. It really was a lot of fun. And, totally worth it just for the photo ops. :)

We finally made it back to our starting point, and even though certain parts of my anatomy were ready to commit hara kiri, we still had a lot more exploring to do. One of the girls on our bicycling trip tagged along with us while we went hunting for a lunch stop (Really, after unsuccessfully hitting on the two single guys in our group, we were her third option. She was a nice girl from Australia, but after awhile I think we started to bore her, so we parted ways).

We stopped for lunch at Zirkelwirt, which was recommended by Rick Steves. It was really good, but that may have been because we were all starving after the bike ride.

Josh was really happy about his food.

After lunch, we did some more exploring. We walked down to where the city fest was going on. K&C wanted to go off one way, so we decided that Josh and I would just do some shopping & hanging around the city fest, will K&C went off the other way. That was only for about an hour. We met back up, but it started drizzling at that point. The guys ran back to the car to get our umbrellas, while us girls stayed at the biergarten. That's where Karen discovered grapefruit radlers! Radlers are part beer, part soda. So, we had a good time at the biergarten waiting for the guys to get back. ;)

I'm glad they went and got the umbrellas, because it then started to POUR. It was getting dark out, but we weren't done yet. We stayed for a little while & listened to some polka music. I went to a schnapps tasting to learn how it was done, and some very nice Austrians taught me the proper way to drink it.

Schnapps in Europe is NOTHING like schnapps in the States. Austrian schnapps was like drinking slightly flavored turpentine. That stuff could grow hair on anything it touched.

It was realllly starting to pour, but we still all wanted to go to the Augustiner Bräu. That's the brewery run by monks. It's on top of the hill in Salzburg, and apparently there is a funicular that takes you up there, so we went searching.

At this point, it is REALLY raining. I also discovered that my umbrella is not waterproof. We all had soaked pant legs. After about 40 minutes of walking, we were all getting cranky. We found what we thought was the funicular, but we couldn't figure out if it was the right one. So, we just kept walking. I swear it took well over an hour. Finally, Curtis ducked into a nearby pub, and asked where the brewery was. We were close! We just had half a block and a hill to go up.

Finally, we made it!! Suddenly, everyone was happy again. :) The brewery had an indoor biergarten, and it was all self serve. You grab your own mug, then stand in line to have it filled with whatever beer you want. You're also in charge of washing your own mug when.

If you want food, you have lots of options. Surrounding the biergarten was about 10-15 different food vendors - just like going to the food court in the mall. They had all kinds of meats, fried foods, sandwiches, pastries, etc etc etc.

BUT, the traditional thing to eat when you're drinking beer in Salzburg?

Spiral cut salted radishes. These were huge radishes, more the size of turnips. They were peeled and verrrrry thinly sliced, then sprinkled liberally with salt. I HAD to get a batch (only a euro or two). I went to a couple different stands and also got a pickle & a pretzel. I think Curtis bought some sausages, Josh bought some fries. We noshed & drank beer & had a great time.

After our Austrian biergarten experience, it was time to go back to our apartment. It was such a long day, and we were all tired (and still soaked from the rain). Luckily the rain had let up in time for our walk back to the car.

We all slept really well that night. But, we had to get up at a decent hour, because we had to head back to Ramstein the next day.

In the morning, we decided to run up to a nearby lookout point, to get one last look at Salzburg & the Alps before we went home. I LOVE Austria, and cannot wait to go back to this area.