A Near Disaster Narrowly Averted

Monday September 13th

In the night Mary had heard rain on my roof and realised that the awning wasn’t tilted to take account of this so told Alan, who got up and tilted it. Because it was dark he didn’t realise that it had been raining a while already and there must have been a considerable amount of water already accumulated in the awning. When Mary got up she realised that they had created a water reservoir and the awning was almost collapsing because of the rain that had collected in it. It needed both of them to get it so that the water would pour off onto the ground creating a flood all around me.The photo is of thebus about tents. Guess they got really wet!

Mary goes off to have a shower, followed by Alan. Mary comes back and finds me locked. There must be a reason for this, she thinks. Perhaps Alan thinks there are just too many people around. They had got pretty slack about locking me when they were they were just going across to the ablutions block as it was so close. But it is raining and not particularly warm and Mary has wet hair that she wants to dry. She looks inside and her heart sinks. There on the bench are the keys to open me and every door is locked and her keys are in her backpack. Panic starts to set in. Not only is the hair drier in me, but everything else, food, money, phones, clothes and shelter. She is starting to think this will need a call out and probably take ages and cost heaps. She takes a walk around me and looks at all the possibilities. The feathers and fur brigade are completely oblivious and useless. There is a sliding window by the bench that she opens when she cooks. It locks shut, but by chance she has not pulled it completely shut. She pushes it and it opens! She can reach in and get the keys! Alan arrives back and she is sitting in me drying her hair as if nothing is unusual. You locked us out she says. Of course he can’t believe this as she is sitting there with my door open. Somehow the sliding door latch was set up to lock when he pulled it shut and this locked it automatically. Because they always use keys to lock me to stop this sort of thing happening, this really surprised Alan. So a major disaster was averted, and extra care will be needed to make sure it doesn’t happen again and that they don’t leave windows open so that others can get in just as easily.

It was a grotty day outside and Monday, when lots of places are closed. The little kiwis and Berlin opted to stay back with me today and let the big people go out in the wet and tell the story today.
Actually we were all museumed out, so decided to go into town and get Alan the haircut he has been needing for ages. On the tram ride yesterday I had seen a sign that said men’s haircuts for €11 which was the best price we had seen; some are €40. So we took note of how to get there. We had got off the underground train and got on a tram, when I looked across the road and saw a place with haircuts for €9. We quickly got out of the tram and went across. There was no waiting and Alan got a great cut for €9. I was reluctant to let them loose on my hair so it is getting longer.

A rainy day calls for a bit of retail therapy and I had an overwhelming desire to shop. Alan found a UK paper at the station for reading later in the day. We had brought lunch with us but it becomes a problem on a wet day; there is no where to sit and eat it. We had read up about the BMW Museum and it actually sounded great so we decided to take a train in the direction of Olympic park and go and spend the afternoon out there. You have to go through BMW Welt to get to it so we went to their luxurious toilets on the way through. There, downstairs in a lovely lobby were beautiful leather couches so we sat down and ate our lunch there in the dry. There I found a promotional booklet about the whole place and it said that 250 people a day come to pick up their new cars and that the public can watch this from a balcony. So we went and looked at the people getting their new cars. The cars are brought up a special lift and driven in place onto individual turntables. A saleperson meets the buyers and escorts them to their car where they have their photo taken. They spend about an hour going over the finer features and detail. They then shake hands and go over to a trolley by the car which is full of drawers and cupboards and they sign up the paper work. Finally the buyer gets to drive a grand circuit and then down a ramp out into the traffic and their brand new BMW. There were five deliveries taking place while we were there, all of them the SUV model. It was fascinating and there were quite a few spectators. the photo shows the BMw complex with the head office in the shape of a 4 cylinder engine and the Welt with it's massive roof in front.

We carried on over to the Museum, only to find it too, was closed on a Monday. So we took ourselves back to town and into the San Francisco Coffee Company to get some coffee and internet. It was still raining steadily and not too warm so it was a nice place to be.

We made our way home a bit earlier than usual and spent the time sorting our diaries and having a giant throw away of useless accumulated pieces of paper. Tomorrow we travel to Strasbourg in France and this will be our last major stop before heading back across the channel to the Uk.

A Very Busy Day

Sunday September 12th

We awoke to another bright sunny day today and enjoyed a leisurely breakfast outside. Today we wanted to visit the Residenz. This was the palace complex of the Whittelsbach dynasty up till 1918 when the Monarchy ceased. The buildings date back to 1385. Although some of the original buildings exist in their original form, there was extensive damage to the whole complex in WW2 and a lot of it has been reconstructed in the original style. This is something that the Germans have done with their heritage buildings all over Germany. It is a credit to them. No expense has been spared and they have gone to great trouble to faithfully reconstruct their heritage. They also keep their buildings looking fresh and well painted and there is scaffolding everywhere as they always seem to working on maintenance.


A thorough exploration of this palace would take several days if not weeks, but we bought the triple ticket which included the Treasury, the State Apartments and the Baroque Theatre. The Treasury audio guide warned that if you listened to all the commentaries it would take 5 hours! So we had to be selective. One of the most beautiful pieces was the English crown taken to Germany by one of the daughters of Henry lV.
There was also an amazing figure of St George killing the dragon made in1597 and heavily encrusted with jewels. It was one of the best treasuries we had visited and took a while to view but not 5 hours.

The next tour was the Residenz Museum. This also had a very comprehensive audio guide and we had to be really selective here. There were over 90 rooms and if we had listened to it all we would have missed the boat back to England next week! There was room after room of mind blowing opulence. There are more rooms open in the afternoon than in the morning and by now it was the afternoon so we did the long tour. There were too many highlights to mention.
By the time we had finished going up and down stairs and along corridors it was 2.30 and we still hadn’t had lunch in fact we were over being hungry. We sat in one of the quiet courtyards and had our lunch and then went to the Cuvillies theatre. Destroyed in WW2 the theatre was rebuilt using as much of the surviving wood carvings as possible. It is described as Europe’s finest surviving Rococo theatre and was originally built around 1735.

A short walk away was the Theatinerkirche which is a must see and one of Munich’s finest buildings. It is pure Roman Baroque and the interior is all white stuccowork which is a change from the high baroque rococo style of many of the other churches.

It was time for coffee and internet and they spied a San Francisco Coffee Company right by the church so went in and found a comfortable couch. I caught up on Blog and email and the Wanganui news. Here I was surprised to read that St Georges School was closing at the end of the year. Alan finally got to read his expensive Guardian that he had bought to read the day before whole Mary was on the internet.
We had seen all we wanted to see but decided it was a bit early to go back to the camp so we took a walk around the Hofgarten and then took the Ubahn to Sendlinger Tor. Here we caught a tram just to have a nice long tram ride in another direction. It was through a completely different part of town and was a restful way to finish the day. We jumped off and caught one going back the other way and then headed back to camp. To our surprise a tent city had popped up during our absence.

We took a walk around the whole and realised how huge it is. We are in the part near the entrance so had no idea how big it all was. At least three big bus tours including Bus About and Contiki had arrived and pitched all their tents. The place is full of young people all speaking English. We have kiwis on both sides of us here. There is another young couple in a really small van and they have been on the road for 6 months but are getting sick of it and think they will try and get jobs in Germany after the Oktoberfest. Although it doesn’t officially start until Friday, it is already very festive in town and people are dressing up already in their festive clothes. We wonder if the bus tours are staying on through for the Oktoberfest.

Ber Lin and Pania Take a Look Around Munich

Saturday September 11th

It was bright and sunny when we all woke up today and Ber Lin was feeling really keen to have a look at Munich. He still needs help with the English so Pania went along with him. Mary and Alan were expecting it to be not quite as vibrant in town today after the entertainment last night. How wrong they were. A whole lot of tents had sprung up in Marienplatz and all the emergency and helping agencies were having a demonstration. There were fire engines, ambulances and associated organisations everywhere, and people!


The Viktualienmarkt is one of the must visit tourist places in Munich. There are over 140 stalls selling regional products from Bavaria and exotic delicacies from around the world. It is a very picturesque market and there were many places to eat and drink. The Bavarians love their beer and they were out drinking at 10am in the morning. Mind you it is getting very near Oktoberfest and this is a popular and famous beer garden. There were fantastic flower and florist stalls with a huge range of flowers available which you could buy individually or in bunches. Wreaths made out of fresh hops were for sale, obviously part of the Oktoberfest celebrations. It was all a very pretty and busy scene.


From here they went back to Marienplatz to see the world famous glockenspiel clock. Every day at 11am, 12am and 5pm the mechanical dancers in the tower of the Town Hall come to life when the clock chimes. The whole show goes on for five minutes and is really fascinating. There are even knights jousting on horseback and the second time around one knocked the other off and the crowd all cheered.


The next visit was to Frauenkirkirche which is not a cathedral but is the largest Gothic assembly building in Southern Germany. It was built between 1468 and 1488. It dominates the skyline with its twin onion domed towers. According to legend, the church builder made a wager with the devil that no window could be seen within. When you stand on the spot where the devil made his footprint only a wall of pillars can be seen.

A walk down to the old city gate, Karlstor, revealed a huge fountain playing that the night before had all been covered over with a huge stage. It looked completely different in daylight. The gate is one of the remaining parts of the old city wall that no longer exists. It got its name from Elector Karl Theodor who had the old town wall pulled down in order to allow the city to expand. The gate has been rebuilt several times.

A walk back in the other direction along a very expensive shopping street took them to the Asamkirke. This is quite a small church only 28 metres long and 8.8 metres wide, the size being dictated by the small piece of land available at the time it was being built. But every last part of it is richly decorated in High Baroque style. It is breathtaking when you first walk in. It was built between 1733 -46 and designed, funded and executed by the Asam brothers, the most famous builders and decorators of the time. It is a theatrical illusion of another world. The nave has really low key lighting and seems rather dark but is full of striking architectural details, rich stucco and masterpieces of fresco painting. Being so small it was difficult to photograph or video but they did their best.

From here they walked on through one of the other town gates still intact, Sendlinger Tor, although it has had to be modified to cope with the increasing amount of traffic that now passes through here. A quick ride on the UBahn took them to the English Garden which is huge. At 373ha it is one of the largest urban parks in the world so they walked around the lake area and back to another UBahn stop so that they could visit the Olympic Park.

Munich hosted the 1972 Olympics and developed an old airfield as the park. They created an artificial lake and built hills using rubble removed from the city after WW2. The roof construction is like a giant tent made of glass and has become a Munich landmark. There are lifts that take you up the 290m tower and the view from up there is amazing. It is 360° all over Munich.

Directly beneath the tower was another building that turned out to be part of the huge BMW complex. BMW Welt is the BMW adventure and delivery centre. Here they have al the current model BMWs on show and you are free to climb in them. It is a giant show room but much more. It has a restaurant, coffee bar, gift shop, hands on games of kids and adults. It is the complete BMW experience and is free to enter. It is a very modern and innovative building. Tours through the actual plant take place daily. There is also a BMW museum which they didn’t visit. What they did see was fascinating. There were plenty of staff on hand ready to take your order. There was even a special room where you could order your customised car and all the leather pelts were hanging up so that you could chose the colour for your upholstery. This was all located in the same area as the Olympic Park so the Ubahn was close. They took it back to the main station so that they could buy an English newspaper and read some news.

The idea had been that Alan would read the paper while Mary got on the internet. Seeing free interent at a cafe at the station they decided to try there instead of getting another train back to where they had been yesterday. Unfortunately it was another TMobile hotspot and you need to sign up and give credit card numbers so they can start robbing you at the rate of about €8 an hour once your free hour runs out . Also you need an address in Europe. So they gave up on the internet idea and after coffee caught the train back to camp. Tomorrow they will go back to The San Francisco Coffee Company which is no fuss straight on.

A Short But Slow Trip From Salzburg to Munich

Friday September 10th

Today I got to take them to Munich and it was a nice short drive but a tough one. There were some mighty hills and I don’t really do hills. It didn’t help that there was a travelling fun fair on the road going fairly slowly up the hills. What a difference travelling on a Friday. I have got so used to travelling on a Sunday. There were trucks and more trucks and lots of cars and campervans as well. But it was an uneventful trip. Alan had programmed the Tom Tom to take me right to the campsite and this it did without a hitch. I got them here in time for lunch and they were able to choose a prime spot and get the awning out. Some of the places would have been too small for that.

I hadn’t pulled up long when another campervan pulled in nearby and the fella said, oh you must be our near neighbours ,from Australia? And they said no, NZ, don’t you recognise your own flag? He said an unmentionable word and felt really stupid. He rushed into his van and put up his Silver Fern flag with New Zealand written on it. That was enough for Mary to put Ka Pai and Patariki in the front window. Ber Lin was too shy so Pania stayed on the back seat with him. He and his wife come from Auckland and they are nearing the end of a seven month campervan tour!

After lunch the big people decided to leave us all here and take a quick trip into town to see what it was like and find their way around so it would be easy tomorrow.

Another bus /underground combination to sort out but an easy one thank goodness. The bus stops at the camp gate and takes you three stops to the underground. Once there we had to work out which line and which way it was going and how much to pay. It was all very confusing but we finally got a family ticket sorted that was good for 2 -5 people for the day. The train line was obviously one they had developed when they had the Munich Olympics as it had the Olympic Park on the list of stops and it was of that era. When we emerged from the subway we were in the centre of town and we walked into the most vibrant and electric environment so far. To put it mildly, Munich Rocks! It was a special day in town. They were having a festival with musicians and dancers and other entertainers performing all over the large central city. Large stages had been erected and seating and bars set out. There were tourists and locals everywhere and it was definitely party time. We had a good wander through the main pedestrian area and decided to eat in town and not rush back to camp.

While I did a bit of shopping Alan explored the town and listened to some of the entertainment. The shops are great and the window displays are full of Oktoberfest costumes. There is a wonderful choice of traditional outfits ranging in price from reasonable to very expensive.

We had taken the laptop into town as there was no Wifi at the camp, only connections by Lan cable which I didn’t think i’d need so didn’t bring and it costs silly money as well. So we spent a bit of time trying to find a cafe that had Wifi. We finally went back to the Info centre and the woman there told us where there was coffee shop with a hot spot. It was worth the price of a coffee to get a good fast connection. I think we will be regular customers. Got all the blog up and email dealt with and had a quick look at Stuff. I checked my bank account and found the money I had just spent had been deducted already. These debit cards are really good and better than a credit card as the fees are lower. I have started to just hand it over and they think it is a credit card and you have to sign but it actually works the same as a cashflow card at home. Interestingly the debit card attached to our English bank account still takes several days for the money to come out. NZ must have one of the best banking systems in the world.

Then it was back into the street to enjoy more of the entertainment. We bought a few nibbles and a drink and listened to some very classy jazz and then slowly walked back to the underground. We were nearly there when we came across three girls singing with two guys on keyboard and drums. They were awesome and had a huge crowd around them. They were doing very good cover versions of Queen, Leonard Cohen , Rocky Horror, Sister Act etc. They had attracted a huge crowd so we listened to them until they finished and then caught the underground and the bus back to camp neither of which we had to wait any time for at all. Tomorrow we will start using our 3 day travel/tourist card and see the sights.

The Last Day in Salzburg

Thursday September 9th

The kiwis and Ber Lin wanted to spend a day at home with Hemi so Mary will write the blog today. It was the last day in Salzburg and the last day to use the card so there were things that had to be seen.

The first one was the Mozart Residence. This was near the Mirabell Palace so we caught a bus to this area and found it easily. It was here that the family moved in Salzburg when the previous house in the old town became too small. This was a spacious town apartment and the audio guide commentary was about the years when the Father, Leopold , was taking his two exceptionally talented children all over Europe by coach to perform concerts in the courts. The family actually had seven children but only two survived, Mozart and his sister Maria. She would have been considered outstanding to a much greater degree than she was had she not always been in the shadow of her prodigy younger brother Wolfgang. This visit filled in all the gaps as the house we visited in Vienna was the one where Mozart had lived as an adult for a short time once he was married.

From here we walked over the foot bridge back into the old town. The narrow streets were crowded with tourist in tour parties as usual. We had our lunch in one of the squares near the festival halls where they have regular concerts and of course the famous Salzburg festival. Along from here was a very interesting toy and musical instrument museum. The toys were arranged in groups. There were old tine toys, wooden toys, paper theatres, dolls houses etc. The most interesting was a dolls house in a huge cabinet from the 17th century. There was also a circus exhibition tracing the history of the circus over the years.

The other section was the musical instruments. There were over 400 of these from four centuries. They were well displayed but had no English explanations, but it was easy to work out what they were.

A little way on was an elevator that took you up through the hill to the museum of modern art. There were actually three elevators side by side and they were very modern, not like the Durie Hill elevator. At the top was a panorama terrace that gave a wonderful view of Salzburg. Once up there we decided to visit the Museum of Modern Art. There was an interesting exhibition called Pressart. All based around art in the press or using items of press to create a new work of art. Quite a few artists had used newspapers and magazines in really imaginative ways. The major exhibition was the work of Max Ernst one of the surrealist artists of the 20th century. He mainly illustrated the books he created about his artist friends.


From here we visited the Residenz. This is the former palace of Salzburg’s Prince Archbishops. We were taken through these 15 rooms of the state apartments with a comprehensive audio guide that described most of the objects on each room. It was a journey through two centuries of decorative style, renaissance, baroque and classical. There was a lot to see and the archbishops made sure they lived in style. Mozart had performed his first concerts in one of the rooms when he was only 6 and of course performed there many times over the years as he was growing up in Salzburg.

The last major sight was the Dom. We did not spend a lot of time in here. It has been rebuilt over the years and the present one dates from 1628. It is a model of Baroque architecture north of the Alps. When it was built it was designed to hold 10,000 people which was more than the entire population of Salzburg at the time. Today the population is 160,000 and there are 6 million visitors a year. Mozart played the great Baroque organ here.


Leaving the Cathedral area we walked down to the Mozart Bridge which is early 20th century and was used as a location in the Sound of music. This took us across the river and we caught a bus back to the railway station and then back to camp. It was not too late in the day so we both spent time on the diaries. I am making a scrap book but don’t get time to write much extra in it. Tomorrow we leave Salzburg and make a short trip to Munich. We packed as much as we could into four days and still missed a few things but we simply ran out of time and energy!

Ka Pai Goes Up High

Wednesday September 8th

Today was the day they had decided to go up the cable car to the top of the Untersberg. The day was beautifully sunny and as clear as it was going to ever be. So they caught the usual bus into town and then transferred to the No 25 that takes you right to the cable car terminus. The ride from town is about a 40 min. The Salzburg card covers all of this. There is a large cable car that goes every half an hour. The ride up the mountain takes about 10 minutes There were some very nervous people in the carriage they were in who couldn’t even look out the windows. I must admit I stayed safely in the backpack on the way up.

During the ride they saw magnificent views of the Rossitten Valley and the surrounding mountains. The grounds of the houses that the cable car passes over are absolutely immaculate. Because it rains a lot in Austria the grass is bright green with no hint of a summer dry off. Apparently the farmers mow their meadows up to 10 times a summer to store hay for the animals when they have them inside during the winter. This means the butter is bright yellow in the summer and pale yellow in the winter.

Once they reached the top there was a marvellous view all over the surrounding area. They were able to see planes taking off from the airport and cars travelling along the various roads. They could look right back to Salzburg and pick out the fortress they had visited yesterday. There was also a good view of the ice capped Hohen Tauren mountains. Good display boards were available to identify points of interest and they could see the little mountain town they had visited on Monday.

There are many legends associated with the Untersberg mountain. One of them is that the Emperor Charlemagne never really died but is sleeping here along with his loyal knights. He will awaken when the empire needs him the most and ravens are no longer flying around the mountain top. When this happens Charlemagne, the father of Europe and his men will again to come to the aid of the people.


They spent an hour at the top and took the 12.30 ride down which was just as spectacular. At the bottom they ate lunch while waiting for the bus to take them to the Hellbrum Palace. The trick fountains are what people go to see here. Archbishop Markus Sittikus had these fountains installed to entertain his guests. There is an outdoor dining table where his guests would eat and at the end of the evening when they were getting quite drunk he would turn on the fountains that sprayed up all around them and through the seats. The guide asked for volunteers and of course some of the children were keen and delighted to be sprayed with water. There were grottos with water features in them and a wonderful mechanical theatre all driven by water. On many occasions during the tour you suddenly got sprayed unexpectedly. With no electricity available when these were fitted in the 18th century; it is all done by water pressure and pumps. The whole experience was quite unique and much more than they had expected.

The entrance ticket included entry into the palace with an audio guide as well, and it had a very interesting Chinese room with original hand painted wallpaper from China that has recently been through an extensive conservation process. In the 1950’s someone had pasted newsprint over it and the ink had transferred onto it and done a lot of damage.


Attached to the palace is the Salzburg zoo. It was not unusual for palaces to have their own zoos. They don’t usually go to zoos, but it was right there and covered by the Salzburg card so they took a walk though. It is now the Salzburg Zoo and is very child friendly and the animals have spacious natural enclosures. There were no kiwis here, but there were big brown bears. The monkeys were the most entertaining swinging through the trees and having the odd scrap with one another. The photo is of a cute little prarie dog eating grass.

Looking up towards the mountain they had been up in the morning they couldn’t even see the peak. The day had completely closed in and it looked like it would rain. They had certainly made a good choice to go there first thing in the morning while the weather was so fine. So they waited for the 25 bus to take them back to the station and then caught 23 back to the camp just in time to rescue all the washing on the clothes line.

After a walk back to the supermarket to get a few supplies, they spent some time on the internet and met another young couple from NZ. They live in Manakau now but he had grown up in Feilding. They were not up on the all the news for NZ and didn’t know all the bad news from Feilding and had only just learnt of the Christchurch earthquake.

By now it was raining really hard and they went back and cooked tea and then spent some time watching a movie. It was too wet to even think about doing the dishes. It would not be a good time to be camping in a tent like the couple they had just met from NZ.

High on a Hill was Great big Fortress

Tuesday September 7th
This morning they were visited by a Canadian woman who saw the NZ flag and wanted to chat about NZ. She had been to NZ several times on arranged house swaps. She hadn’t heard about the earthquake, so Mary showed her the photos on the computer and she was shocked. She was going to email her friends in Christchurch straight away. Although Canadian, she has been based in Switzerland for many years.

Today was a day in the old town in Salzburg. But there was a trip to the Mirabell Gardens first to finish off the Sound of Music locations. This was where they shot a lot of the Do Rei Me number around the fountain and on the stairs and also where they patted one of the many dwarves on the head. I had my photo taken with one of the scary looking dwarves. The gardens around the Mirabell Palace are beautiful, exceptionally well maintained and looking their best. There were at least three weddings taking place while we were there.

It was then over the bridge to the pretty narrow cobbled main street of the old town. Here they quickly found the most popular house in the street, Mozart’s birthplace. It was heaving with tour parties, but they did manage to weave amongst them. They go at such a pace through these places you wonder what they actually get to see. In the time they were in the house, at least three passed through. There was a lot to read and take in and having been to the Mozart house in Vienna, it all fell into place. The house also contained a very good museum scattered about over several floors and they nearly missed some. There were some great designs for his opera sets over the years in one of the rooms.

After lunch on a bench in a busy street they caught the funicular railway up to the Hohensalzberg fortress. This is central Europe’s largest completely preserved fortress dating from the 11th century. It dominates the landscape in Sulzburg and is wonderfully maintained and preserved. The funicular railway was built in 1892 and horses originally turned the winding cable. It was used to get supplies up to the castle. It is now a modern carriage run by electricity to take tourists up to castle. There are two main tours once you get up there. The first one is an accompanied audio guide tour takes you through the torture chamber and up to the observation tower where you get a wonderful 360° view all around Sulzburg. The other tour is self guided and takes you through the state rooms and museums. There were excellent explanations in English to read. The highlight was the state rooms dating from the 15th century. The golden salon, that is still used today for concerts was elaborately decorated and in another room was a majolica ceramic stove that was highly decorated.

Instead of taking the railway down, they walked down the steep slope back to town. Here they encountered tourists walking up, presumably to save money, but what they didn’t realise was that there was no access to the grounds without a ticket and the ticket included the ride up in the cable car.

At the base of the hill was a beautifully kept cemetery in the grounds of St Peter’s church. All the graves appeared to have well tended gardens growing in them. A woman was tending one of them and had arrived with new plants. It was sort of a cross between a cemetery and the allotments. They were all immaculate and some had candles burning in glass tubes. Attached to this were the catacombs. These were hewn out of the rocks of the Manschberg that the fortress stands on and are of early Christian origin dating back to the 5th century.

There was just time to catch last cruise of the day on the Salzach river. The boat, the Amadeus Salzburg, has been especially made to handle the unusual conditions on this river. It is very shallow but fast flowing. This is a twin jet engine boat that sits only 38cm into the water. The trip took them slowly upstream past many beautiful old houses and then up further where it was able to go a lot faster. Returning to town the captain demonstrated his skills by getting the boat to spin to the music of Strauss.

All the activities and travel today were covered by the all inclusive Salzburg card, so they caught a bus to the station and then a bus back to camp. Here they were visited by a New Zealand woman who, with her husband is on the road in a campervan for 11 months (this time). They are retired and have a van stored in the Netherlands and come over every second year for most of the year it seems. They have a house in Christchurch, and still do, she was pleased to report.
Dinner, downloading of photos and video and then off to bed as it had been a tiring day.