Hop on

Two of the places travelers recommend to see are the Hellbrun Palace and Mirabell Gardens. They're in another section of the city and are both stops on the Hop On bus. We had mixed feelings about the bus because it gets a lot of bad reviews but we finally decided to use it since we'd have to take a taxi or city bus with transfers to two different  places. That turned out to be one of our many wise decisions because we saw a lot of the city we wouldn't have seen from a bus or taxi. People complained that the audio guide has corny Sound of Music music and that the drivers are rude. Our driver was very nice and the music on the City line tour was Mozart. I thought the mountain tour may have stopped running for the season but we did see a Sound of Music bus. It travels in the mountains outside the city. They probably have karaoke on that bus.

The bus wasn't crowded at all. In fact, there were just two other people on the first one we took. The driver did a 3 minute picture stop at Schloss Leopoldskron. The palace sits in front of a large pond with a walking paths around  the grounds. 

The palace was built in 1736 by one of the prince-archbishops and purchased by the theater director/producer Max Reinhardt, in 1918; he used it as an international meeting place for  cultural and artistic communities. It was a shooting location for that famous movie. 

The next place we got off to tour was the Hellbrun Palace which was the residency of prince-archbishop Markus Sittigus who ruled Salzburg from 1612 until 1619. The palace and grounds are huge but there are no bedrooms because it was designed as a day residence to be used only in the summer. 

The interior of the palace is interesting,  not too ornate but it has some interesting paintings and artifacts like a globe showing the countries recognized at the time. One room has an ornate ceiling but you don't have to look up to see the paintings.  Instead, you can sit on a round moving sofa where each seat has a screen showing the pictures above or maybe reflecting them or maybe having no relation to the ceiling. The quality was poor so it was hard to tell. But it was a fun ride.

Markus was a jokester and developed what tourists think is the highlight of the place, the Magic Fountains. Everyone says you will get wet if you go there but we were trying to avoid that since it's not really warm. The first stop on the fountain tour was by a gigantic table where guests would be eating and then, all of a sudden, drenched by water spraying from the ground. No one on the tour got wet there because they seat you away from the table. In other areas, we tried to avoid standing under what were obvious sprayers, only to be hit from the ground. One spray occurred right behind me, soaking the butt of my jeans. Lola was hit in the front. There were two areas of arched sprays that you could walk under without getting wet. There were probably five separate spots where surprise waterings occurred. It would have been more fun in the summer. Luckily, it was sunny today, after being cloudy the other days we were here so it wasn't too bad. 

On the grounds was a zoo we didn't visit, grottos with statues of gods, fountains that don't spray you, and a miniature scene of townspeople who are moved by water, set to music  by an organ played by moving water. The mechanisms to run all the fountains are 400 years old. You could watch the guide flip a switch to set off the sprayers but you didn't know how much delay there would be or where the water would spring up and/or rain down. 

The last place we wanted to see was the Mirabell Palace and gardens. The palace is mainly used for some administrative offices although there are a couple of rooms you can see. We just walked the gardens which are still in bloom. There are loads of park benches where a lot of locals were sitting.

After that grueling day, we went to the closest chocolate shop which we discovered close to the hotel. It turns out there are shops all over town. The chocolates are outstanding and cheaper than in places like London and Paris. 

For dinner, we went to the Gasthoff Goldgasse. I had deep fried chicken that had been marinated for 24 hours but the menu didn't say in what. It was quite good but it was served with German potato salad that was nothing special. It's their most famous dish. The recipe comes from a cookbook that was published in 1713. Lola had wiener schnitzel with a cucumber salad and potatoes. She didn't like the sides. The dessert menu wasn't in English so our server explained it to us but much too quickly. We got pear dumplings which turned out to be fried dough with a vanilla sauce and lemon ice cream on the side. I searched but didn't find anything resembling a pear.

Tomorrow we're off to Vienna on a noon train. Salzburg was a nice break from the big, busy cities.