Salzburg-Budapest - Road Trippin'

We slept in this morning. We must have been tired after all our walking around town. We woke up only about 9:30 AM. Since the Sheraton was a beautiful resort hotel on the shores of Schloss Fuchlsee, we decided it would be a pity to leave this place without even having a little walk around the place. After we got ready (Sheila took an extra long shower for some reason), we checked out and tried to drive down to the lake, where there is a luxury resort on the shore. We decided to drive instead of walk. We were stopped at the entrance by a guard who didn’t speak English. After trying some sign language that implied to him that we were guests at the resort (I think), he just waved us on in frustration. We drove all the way down to the lake front confidently, even though there was clearly some event (a Mercedes-Benz event since there were tons of Mercedes cars and people in Mercedes polo shirts) and parked on the side of the path and walked around the dock. It was spectacularly beautiful as, it seems, is all of Austria. After we wandered for a bit, some lady came over and asked if it was our car and when we said yes, she said cars are not allowed there and we had to move it. By then it was time to go and we gladly left. By the time we got up to the gates, we found several barriers had been set up to prevent car traffic down that road. We had lucked out.

We drove next to the beautiful lake village of St. Gilgen. This is where Nannerl (Mozart’s sister) lived and is also where some lake shots in the Sound of Music were filmed. We had lunch at a restaurant in the quaint little town (some of the best Wiener Schnitzel we have had) and then got back on the road to visit Mondsee Cathedral where the famous Sound of Music wedding scene was filmed. It was really quite beautiful and it must have been before the tour groups got there as the place was quite empty. Of course, just as we were leaving, hordes of tourists were arriving, so our timing was great.

We then started the long drive to Budapest. Since we were so late leaving (it was almost 3 PM), we decided to skip Vienna completely and head straight to Budapest. On the way, we got stuck on the highway at a massive traffic jam (our route was already extended since the GPS had rerouted us a couple of times due to “standstill traffic”). We were completely stopped for about 35-45 minutes. Still, we made it to Sam and Anita’s place in Budapest by about 9:30 PM.

Anita had a great Indian dinner waiting for us and we all ate together and reminisced for a bit. Tomorrow, Sam has arranged a half-day walking tour of Budapest. Rain is in the forecast (of course), but we’re determined to go ahead with it using our umbrellas.

It is again almost midnight. I need to get ready for bed and sleep (alarm is set for 7 AM), but didn’t want to skip writing my blog for the day.