"I maintain that the regions of Salzburg, Naples and Constantinople (Istanbul) are the most beautiful in the world."-Alexander von Humboldt
Just got back Sunday night from a quickie 3-day vacation to the neighboring country of Austria with our out-of-town guest. We went to Salzburg again, and while we had a moment's hesitation about returning to this small city for a second time in less than a year, we were rewarded yet again by the fantastic scenery, overall charm, and the genuine friendliness of its residents. Having only been to 1 city in Österreich (as Austria is known by its citizens), I can not presume to take its national pulse based on such a small sampling of people... but I'll readily agree with others when they say that Austrians are more relaxed and contended with their lot in life-- and they are far more concerned with quality of life than being the world's movers and shakers. Friendly too-- in contrast to the very private Germans, there have been two occasions where the folks at the next table at the cafe leaned over, politely asked where we were from, and proceeded to engage us in a jovial conversation-- something I daresay isn't common in the USA anymore. Bottom line: Be prepared to walk a lot ("compact" also means "streets closed to traffic"), but just go. It's a little bit of magic there.
2 comments:
One route we've done twice is:
1. Take a Bayernticket down to Salzburg for <30€ (love that).
2. Train it with ÖBB (like DB, but funner because of the Umlaut) from Salzburg over to Wien when you've had enough Sound of Music (really, you never get enough, but for the sake of argument...).
3. Get your Wien on until whenever and then fly home to NUE for 29€ a head (some fees probably still apply on top of that) on AirBerlin. You can even check your luggage in for your flight in downtown Vienna at the CAT (City Airport Train) station many hours before your flight departs, so you can still enjoy your last remaining minutes in Vienna without renting a locker or hauling (all) your gear around with you. Then it magically appears on the belt in Nürnberg when you exit the plane.
Cliff: Vienna is still on the "to do" list, along with the design mecca of Graz. I don't think we're done with Salzburg quite yet, so thanks for the tip! And I also found out that you can buy a Bayern Ticket at the ÖBB ticket machines just as easily as the DB dispensers (which had long lines). Thanks for reading!
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