A great day in Salzburg

Driving to Salzburg

 We took a trip to Salzburg on Saturday as we needed more stuff from IKEA and the nearest one to us is just out of Salzburg city centre, just under an hours drive.  It’s around -5 degrees in the mornings now with lots of frost which usually disappears by 9am.  But in some parts of the valleys where the sun doesn’t shine it remains there for the day and looks like it’s been snowing.  We captured this picture on our drive to Salzburg.  It was still like this on the drive home early evening. 

IKEA was once again a nightmare with kinder in tow but once it was over we knew we could relax and go with the flow for the rest of the day.  We took advice from Karen (she hasn’t been mentioned in a while, poor old Karen!) to get us to the old town and enjoyed a lovely wintery day wandering the streets.  The Christkindl Markt was on.  Stalls and stalls of beautifully handcrafted Christmas decorations, sweets and treats, and Gluwein which we have only recently discovered by us and will be continued to be enjoyed through the winter!  It’s a sort of mulled wine, warmed up, and I for one love it!  Good for relaxing the nerves too on a stressful afternoon!  Noah had a great sleep for over 2 hours which gave us just enough time to take it all in.  The smells wafting from the stalls are delicious, including frankincense (which I have just discovered is a favourite at this time of year), orange, cinnamon, and all the usuals like hot chocolate and roasted chestnuts, mixed with the lights and decorations, really bring the atmosphere of Christmas to life.   

(What’s not coming to life though are all the poor dead animals draped around middle aged ladies with chignons in their hair and botox filled foreheads, prettying around with their pursed rouge lips and fur trimmed handbags and boots!  Loads of them, very posh…..i wish I’d have had the courage to sneak some photos as they minced passed us!)

The city itself looks gorgeous, bit hard to tell though with so many people and all the Christmas kerfuffle!  We will have to go again at a quieter time of year when we don’t need to stop in at IKEA on the way, and actually try to see a few of the tourist attractions. As evening fell the Christmas lights made it look magical, and it was nice to hear so many languages and accents from around the globe, made us feel like we were on holidays again.  A lovely happy interesting day.

 

Yum....Gluwein!