Salzburg, Austria

Elizabeth Straße: We stayed next to Ella's street

My parents both majored in music in college, and they studied for a bit at the Orff Institute in Salzburg. And one of the things my dad remembered from his time there (and rightly so, he having been a college student!) was the StieglKeller Biergarten and their signature brew. He's looked for the beer in the states since then, and he's sad to say it's not to be found in Ohio with its state-run liquor stores.  Make sure you go, he said, and the kids will have a great time, too: overflowing beer steins, dirndls and lederhosen, folk music...come on, what's not to love?

Our train ride from Zürich was five hours long, but because we left so early we arrived just around 2:00.  The hotel that we booked online turned out to be, well, odd, consisting of one floor of a residential building. But it was across the street from the Hauptbahnhopf. When you're packing for three children for a week (including winter clothes), baggage is a problem. Ella lugged a duffel bag as big as she.

We didn't plan on spending much time in those rooms, anyway. I had a head to clear, and walking around Saltzburg seemed a good way to do that.

Thank you, everyone, for your condolences, by the way. They were heart-warming and help so, so much.

Our hotel was also quite close to Mirabellgarten, a beautiful, formal garden that is featured in the Do-Re-Mi song in the Sound of Music. But we saved that for tomorrow, skirted the garden in favor of the adjacent playground, where the kids completely ignored how rain-soaked everything was and had a great time.

We were hoping for an early dinner, train lunches not being the most sustaining things. When we're gray and retired in Florida, Dennis and I are so going to rock the 4:00 PM early-bird specials.

So we gathered the kids and started south, across the beautifully named Salzach river (make sure you cough up plenty of phlegm as you pronounce that second syllable), through the center of old Salzburg, bumping into Mozart's birthplace.

Crossing the Salzach

Somewhere between the Salzach and Mozart's
birth house, Joey decided it was naptime

No love from StieglKeller

The SteiglKeller is in the far south of the city, about a mile and a half from our hotel, but the kids still ran the final 100 meters up a steep street, ready to destroy the soft pretzels and hot dogs we'd promised.

Oh, my father is going to be so sorry and mortified when he reads this, but Dad, please don't worry.  Not your fault at all, and we found it pretty funny, actually.  StieglKeller re-opens on the first of May. Sorry, Grizwalds.

Well, right then.  Our little tourist map from the hotel had all kinds of biergartens listed. And since we were already on the far side of town, every single one was along the way back. Except...this one was closed for renovations, that one was doesn't open for another two hours, and that one...oops, it was condemned.

So our hungry kids trudged behind us, thankfully able to see the humor in the situation, joking that the next garten would probably be on fire, and maybe the one after that would be a pile of rubble.  Finally, about two blocks from our hotel, back where we started, we found PitterKeller, where we got our fill of Austrian kitch.  "This is about the fanciest restaurant we've every been to," breathed Alex. His tastes apparently run to dried flowers, lace doilies, and mismatched linens.

But, since it was scarcely 5:00, it was all for us. So our waiter (mit lederhosen) gave us his undivided, and Dennis and I relished, at last, our on-tap Steigl. Und noch eins.

Dad, it was just what we needed.

Proscht, Dad!