Happy birthday to Flick

It was flickums' birthday. So we got up and I gave Flickums her birthday presents and cards. The card had dinosaurs on it.

We'd already done the sound of music tourso this time we went on the Bavarian mountains and salt mine tour. And Crepes. Gotta have crepes! Then I bought myself a hat, which does make me look a bit like Where's Wally, but does keep my head warm.

The tour took us into Germany (Salzburg is right by the border) and into the mountains, where we saw Hitler's holiday resort. Then we were taken to the salt mines.

The tour started with us donning stylish and tasteful overalls. Then we got on the train and we were taken deep into the mountains. This took us to a wooden slide that allowed us into the mines. Flick was too scared to use the slide so she took the walkway instead. I think she missed out. So, the tour continued, with an audio guide that seemed a little out of sync with the actual tour, but gave us the information about what we were seeing or had just seen. There were UV lights that made the white lines on the overalls glow. Tour went to a salt filled lake. It was hard to tell it was a lake, the water was so still. They had a barge going across and a light show to keep us entertained. We then went down another slide. I nagged flickums to try this one. She was very brave and did so, so I promised her a reward.

We stopped at the gift shop and bought gifts, then the tour took us to a pretty litte tourist town called Bad something or other. I bought Flick a goat as a reward for her bravery. She called it Monty. We then had hot chocolate and drove back to Salzburg where we got stuck in traffic.

Finished the day with aother trip to the restaurant we went to on Sunday. Flick wanted to try the chocolate pudding.

I had fun. And I think flick enjoyed her birthday, which is what's important :)

There's a mountain , here before me

...And I'm going to climb it with strength not of my own.

Instead I'll use the cable car.

The Untersberg cable car costs almost as much as the 24 hour Salzburg card, and the salzburg card gives 24 hours free public transport, plus a morning of visiting other places for free. So buying the card seemed a good choice. So we caught the bus to the mountain. I was worried that I wouldn't know which stop it was but it turned out it was the last one, so that made it easier. We got into the cable car. Quite a journey. Not been on such a long cable car ride before.

At the upper cable car station there are signs on the wall describing the place. Apparently Emperor Frederick Barbossa is asleep in the mountain. The mountain is also notable for being used at the start and end of the sound of music. It's no surprise Maria was late back though since they filmed from the German side. Also - the mountain is nowhere near Switzerland so not a good escape route.

Trudged up the slippery slope and there's a nice little cafe where I ordered a gluhwien and soup, and flickums ordered ham and bread. We then swapped food halfway through because I already had a hot warming gluwein, and flick didn't seem to like her nibbles all that much (possibly because of the horsradish). I like horseradish so was happy to trade.

We then walked a little further up. There's a cross right t the top of a mounain and some fantastic views, so I made it all the way top thetop of the mountain! I played with the panoramic mode of my camera app. Flick threw snowballs at me. I threw some at her. They weren't good snowballs but it was fun. We strolled down and just missed the cable car. Fortunately there was one more. It ocurred to me that I hadn't paid attention to when the last car was.

Stopped on the way back to get photos of the correct Von Trapp house (the one used in the movie, not the real one, which is miles away). Took more photos. Now we need to find somewhere to eat.

Braü haus.

Finished the day going to the Augustiner braüstübl. A brewery and collection of beer halls.

Was a little bemused at first because the entrance looked like the entrance to an apartment building, but heading down the stairs we heard the bustle of people.

We found a tale and I tried to figure out how to buy beer. It's a bit of an odd setup. Collect mug. Pay for beer. Acquire receipt. Exchange receipts for beer. There were two beers listed but I only worked out how to buy one of them.

Food was a little simpler. A series of stalls in one of the rooms. There didn't seem to be a lot of option for a complete meal though.

Decided to buy some souvenir mugs. And some souvenir beer. The mug purchasing system was similar to the beer purchasing system, but the bottled beer purchasing system was the simple prices of exchange money for crate of 6 beers.

Happy with my purchase, we returned home.