Austria : Salzburg & St Anton

The best people I have met in Europe have been Austrians! Very friendly (in the non-artificial way), know English well, are generally more intelligent to talk to, and with a good sense of humour too! They are not the most famous Europeans, the French, Italians and Spaniards overshadow them but for sure they are the most intelligent and sensible Europeans I have met. Its so much easier to strike up a conversation with them, about politics, sports etc. And they have a very pretty country too. Very similar to Switzerland, similar hilly area, small wooden houses... Reminds me again of DDLJ, the romantic movie of our generation (yet again!).

Have been to Austria twice. Once was to the city of Salzburg. This had actually been a surprise find, as its not as well-known a place to go to. Its a small city, but surprisingly lots to see and do. The city has two castles, one of them is shown here. Its perched on top of a hill, and gives a good view of the city below.

The city is famous for two things, one is that its the birth place of Mozart, second the famous movie 'Sound of Music' was filmed here. Suprisingly, not as many people in the city know about Sound of Music as much as people outside the city!

The Old Town of Salzburg was nominated as a World Heritage Site in 1996.There is a river which flows through the city and on both sides of the river are the places to visit. There are lot of places to spend time in :







The gardens of Mirabell are beautiful....














There is Mozart's House to visit.......













The market lane of Getreidegasse is a good place to timepass...and go shopping!

The Leopoldskron Castle is where the movie 'Sound of Music' was shot. (We actually crash-landed there at a wedding party! And as I said Austrians are good people, they involved us in the marriage feast!).

There are regular Mozart concerts in the castle, you can book one of those. There are also a couple of cathedrals, and baroque style churches to see.

Next day we went to the Konigsee lake which is actually in Germany. You can take a boat to the centre of the lake. Its a good place for a picnic. There is a cathedral also there and some trekking points. On the way to Konigsee also lies the Eagles's Nest which we could not see though. It was supposedly Hitler's resting place in the old days.











Austria is famous for skiing too. Our other trip to Austria had been for skiing. We landed in Salzburg (technically not, as we landed somewhere in Wein and then drove to Salzburg) and stayed in a youth hostel with a view of the castle. A good place to stay if you travelling to Europe on a budget. For skiing, we drove towards St Anton, and on the way, stopped at Kaprun. Did some skiing at Kaprun, and then off to St Anton.

St Anton is a very popular ski resort, so please always book rooms in advance, otherwise you may not get them later! In fact, you can also stay in villages near St Anton, and go for skiing, as there are regular buses which ply between the ski area and the ski slopes. On thing to try out is Apres Ski, where you can party on the ski slopes while coming down on your last round of ski. People get quite high, with all their ski gear, drinking, and dancing and jumping and their last ski down the slope is all about falling topsy turvy.

We even spent a new year in St Anton, which is supposed to be the party area of Europe in winter. Well we spent time watching Tam movies:)). Anyways each village also has its own display of fireworks on New Years Eve, which is quite good.

The trains in Austria run like clockwork, you can actually time your watches to the trains. Another place to visit in Austria, is Innsbruck. Been through it many times, but never managed to stop there. The Austrian landscape is picturesque, its an amazing country, and definitely I would like to go again and again.