So, about the other things that sucked yesterday:

1)      My Sound of Music tour guide said that the nuns in the abbey sing in the church at half past five every day.  So, I got there at a quarter past the hour and sat there until a quarter to six.  They did not sing.  While I was sitting there, some bike tour stopped by and the guide said the nuns sing at eleven in the morning.  Great.

2)      Then I ran down back into town to listen to the Glockenspiel sing at six.  At about ten past the hour, it still hadn’t made any noise, so I asked some man sitting in a van who spoke very little English why the clock wasn’t going.  Apparently it only chimes from September to like November.  Perfect.

Maybe I’m just getting over the honeymoon phase of this trip, but I think it was just a combination of high expectations, lots of letdowns, and too much time in Salzburg.  You really only need one day, or two days if you do a day-long tour.

If you plan on doing a Sound of Music tour, don’t do what I did.  The bus was hot, I didn’t get to see much, and I felt like a herd of cattle every time we got in and out of the bus.  Try to do something smaller, like a bike tour, if you have the stamina, or a tour with a small van so you can actually get out and see things.

Salzburg has been kind of a bust.

Yesterday, I went on two tours: one to the Bavarian salt mines, and one Sound of Music tour.  At the salt mines, my guide only spoke German, and he kept forgetting to hit the start buttons for the audio tours.

Now, the disappointment surround the Sound of Music tour could have been my fault.  I did prep myself by listening to the soundtrack on repeat for an entire day before I went.  But, I did a bus tour with about seventy other people on a coach bus.  Most of the things we saw were just drive-bys, and they were mostly on the left side of the bus.  I was sitting on the right side.

Today I decided to cancel my last night in Salzburg (tomorrow) and just go to Munich a day early.  There isn’t a whole lot to do here.  I saw everything there is to see in about one afternoon.  And I had time to get a kebob.

My Salzburg map is practically life-size.  It doesn’t take more than fifteen minutes to walk anywhere.  I went to the castle, the abbey, the glockenspiel, and one other place that I can’t think of right now.  Those were mostly busts, too.  I’ll write about that tomorrow, and I’ll post some pictures.  Right now I need to finish packing and go to bed.

Today, I was sitting on the bank of the Salzach River journaling, and I saw an old man whip out his junk and pee into the river.  It’s time to leave Salzburg.

Good night!