After our time in Munich, we hopped on a local train and made our way to Salzburg. We did not purchase our tickets in advance, since the trains run between the destinations regularly. What we did do, was board the train a bit earlier than normal, which turned out to be a great idea since we were able to get seats with tables. The train ride was easy and we made it to Salzburg with no issues. Our next task was to navigate to our hotel via the bus system. Salzburg isn’t very big, and the busses are great, but we did have a tough time figuring it out. Eventually we did and made it to our hotel. We stayed at the Star Inn and it was awesome. It has some of the biggest rooms I’ve seen in a hotel abroad. And with full rooms it was great to have the extra space. The shower and toilet were also separate from each other which was awesome when sharing a room with four people.

After dinner that night, we went exploring and enjoyed getting lost in the beautiful twists and alleyways that make Salzburg so enchanting.

The next day we rented cars to take a day trip to Hallstatt. That morning we caught the bus to the airport to rent our vehicles. They were manual transmission, so only thee of our group could drive, myself being one of them. In the end we split into a boys car and a girls car.

On our way to Hallstatt we stopped at a few places of interest and really enjoyed the scenery and having the freedom of our own cars. No one we were with had ever done that before, and I know all of us would do it again. Once we made it to Hallstatt we parked and walked into town to get some food. It is quite possibly the cutest town ever. We were there in October so sadly the ferry was not running but it didn’t impact us at all.

The one piece of advice I will give you is if you plan to go to the lookout point and the salt mines, do that first thing. We tried to do it at the end of the day but they close down the cable car much earlier than we had thought. Even without that, the day was fantastic. Driving through the mountains and just enjoying the country was something we will always remember.

While in Salzburg we also did the Sound of Music tour. Even if you don’t care about the movie, you get a great sense of the city.

The one strange part of the tour for us was when we were in this little town to see the church where Maria and the Captain got married. The air raid sirens went off. Supposedly they test them every so often, but it was truly terrifying.

Overall we had a lovely time in Salzburg, and the Austrian countryside was amazingly beautiful. We can’t wait to go back!