Back on Track to Salzburg, June 23, 2010

We are heading for Salzburg a day earlier than planned due to our cancelation of Munich. Rita was able to change our booking at the hotel to allow us to arrive tonight. The weather has broken and its hot and sunny today. Because of the fine weather and no deadlines, we have chosen to take the secondary roads to Salzburg. The scenery is stunning as we pass through lush, green valleys with lots of small farms, villages and alpine lakes all surrounded by mountains. Before arriving in Salzburg we stopped and toured the alpine ski town of Berchtesgaden and its fjord-like lake Koenigssee (Kings Lake).


Berchtesgaden has been in existance for over 900 years but is most famous for its mountaintop Nazi retreat (Hitler's Eagles Nest). The oldtown is not that large and is full of sidewalk cafes as the area is a very popular bus tour lunch stop. We roamed around the town and had a lovely traditional lunch (Rita had a Leberkaese sandwich and I settled for a more sedate pork roast sandwich). We then got back into our car and headed for Koenigssee (Kings Lake) a few minutes drive away. Its a beautiful emerald green colored lake surrounded by mountains. Again, a lot of bus tours come here to drop off their clients who take a 35 minute boat ride on one of the silent, electronically propelled boats around the lake. As you can imagine, where there is bus tours there are souvineer shops and Koenigssee has them in abudance situated on the only street coming and going to the lake. It cerrtainly takes away from the beautiful, natural setting.

As we had chosen to take the slower but very scenic secondary highway route, we only took a walk around part of the lake before heading back to our car as we wanted to be in Salzburg for dinner. Had no problem finding our lovely boutique hotel, checked in and walked to a nearby Biergarten for some local specialties and there in-house brewed beer . Again Rita was more adventurous and had the special called "die gescnittene Gaertnerin" (a large cold sausage sliced in half with a mustard/relish sauce inside) that came with the local white raddish. I again wimped out and went for the pork ribs with cabbage salad. Mine was definitely delicious.

Tomorrow we tour Salzburg


The Abbey Church built by Augustine monks sits next to the Kings Palace in the huge Schlossplatz (Castle Square). Both were built in the 12th century

The sightseeing boat cruising the emeral green Koenigssee