Today is Day 99 of our trip. Tomorrow we depart Salzburg and head back to Italy for the final leg of our journey. Salzburg has been our longest stop – 16 days in total. In that time, other than ticking off most of the tourist destinations, we feel like we’ve really gotten to know the town of approximately 150 000 people. We are very familiar with at least 4 bus lines, shopping centres, corner shops, parks and supermarkets. Our apartment has felt like a home, which I think was particularly important during Christmas.

New Year’s Eve

Many times Rod and I discussed the various pros and cons of attempting to get a babysitter so we could go out New Year’s Eve. Salzburg offers a big NYE line up, such as: classical music concerts, multi-course dinners, fireworks over the castle, street music, food stalls…We stayed in. We played cards, drank Mozart liqueur, listened to music, drank champagne, ate a few snacks. You know how it goes.

The purchasing of fireworks in Austria is legal, so in the days leading up to NYE, (and I mean days, not just nights) there was plenty of noise from fireworks in our neighbourhood, which in the current European climate can be a bit disconcerting. Actually Christmas Eve as we walked to the bus stop, we heard a number of explosions, however they were not followed up with emergency services vehicle sirens, so we felt we were OK.

From about 5pm NYE, there was constant noise from fireworks. This is no exaggeration. As the night progressed, there was more evidence of fireworks with the colours exploding into the sky. However, this was no match for the relentless barrage of fireworks which started really cranking up at about 1145pm. We headed outside to the backyard (1 degree and light drizzle) and were entertained for the next 30 minutes. It was amazing. At times it was difficult to tell which fireworks were from local backyards and which ones were from the Castle – these Austrians like to celebrate and I am sure there was a high level of one-upmanship between many of the Dads in the neighbourhood.

We had a late night and woke up early thanks to Hamish, with headaches reminding us that we had no right to have so much fun at our age.

 

Doe, oh dear…

Yes, we went on the Sound of Music tour. Hamish received the DVD courtesy of Santa and has watched it 3 times in a week. He likes it. He sings the songs, he repeats the script. He particularly likes the end of the movie: escaping across the border, hiding from soldiers, soldiers with guns, soldiers in cars…I was already sick of it before today and I would live a complete life of happiness if I never saw it again. Clearly I am in the minority. The bus was full with eager non-Europeans (mostly Australians) waiting to be driven around to the various filming locations, listening to an out of work actor being annoyingly flamboyant and unfunny. Once the music started I wished both my sister’s had been there to experience this reality, rather than just insisting I ‘do the tour’. It was quite hilarious (well, for me anyway, other people were singing along). We parted with 100 Euro for the privilege of seeing many sights we had already visited, plus it was 1 degree and foggy.

 

12 days to go

We have two destinations left before we fly home. Our first is Mestre – Venice and our second is Bolsena, Lake Bolsena, about 2 hours N of Rome airport. Hamish is very excited to be going back to Italy, but I am not convinced it’s due to actually being in Italy, I think it might be because we are starting to talk about being back at home in Australia.

Because some things are more difficult in Italy, I purchased travel sickness medication in Salzburg. After being offered a herbal alternative suitable for children and me responding with, “Oh no, I want real medication”, I purchased some in chewing gum form (because even anti travel sickness treatment in Europe is way cooler than Australia) so as not to have a repeat of the flight from Melbourne. Our trip home is 3 separate flights of 6, 7 and 8 hours, hopping from Rome to Dubai to Malaysia and back into Melbourne at 2am. I am not sure if this will be better or worse than the solid 14 hour, then 6 hour flights to get to Rome, however, it is better for our wallets, saving us over $1000.