Salzburg

We enjoyed der Boglerhof and Alpbach for one last morning -- I went for another short run, on a less hilly route, and was delighted to see larger mountains make an appearance in the cloudless sky. (They'd been hidden the other days we were here.) Liesl and I got one last dip in the swimming pool. 

And then we hit the road, heading for Salzburg. Our Liesl needed to see where famous Liesl from the Sound of Music movie was from (fictionally) --

The city is gorgeous, with many old buildings (castles, churches, monuments, town halls, museums) gathered in the area around the old town and riverfront. We really enjoyed touring the Mirabel gardens, walking through the narrow streets, taking pictures of the many clock towers (Liesl's obsession this trip), and seeing the well-preserved buildings.

We went to Cafe Tomaselli, which says it was founded in 1701, to eat apple strudel and apricot strudel, with ice cream and whipped cream, to mark our arrival in town.

We are staying at the Hotel Schloss Leopoldskron -- the facade and gardens of this hotel served as the setting for the outdoor scenes in the Sound of Music. The house/castle belonged to Jewish filmmaker Max Reinhardt before the Nazis seized it, and the rooms are decorated in the most baroque and beautiful fashion. If you stay in the hotel, you're allowed to roam freely on the grounds and in the castle, and we loved wandering around the red room, the library, the chinoiserie room, the ballroom, and more. 

In the evening, we returned to the Mirabel castle to hear a classical music concert in the marble room -- Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Boccherini. We had to grab a very quick dinner en route - and the pizza place didn't cut the pizza into slices!