Salzburg 

Salzburg is a fantastic mountain destination on the border between Germany and Austria. The birthplace of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, is dominated by churches,castles and palaces. Its picturesque old town is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. 

The landmark of Salzburg is Central Europe’s largest intact fortress offers fantastic views of the city. The Princely Residence, a magnificent early baroque edifice with splendid halls and gallery featuring European paintings dating between the 16th and 19th century. The nearby vast Salzburg Dom where Mozart was baptized, is without doubt the main attraction of the old town.  “Mozart’s Geburtshaus” is located is located in Salzburg’s most attractive and most visited shopping street with its high and narrow houses and romantic courtyards.


Leaving Salzburg we were looking for accommodation again. We wanted a place where are no slugs because it’s a great problem in south Germany and in Austria. It’s  a pity that they were uneatable. We shouldn’t have had problem with food. 

We found a house with a well-kept garden where the owner was filling up his pool. Hoping that in such an ordered garden there were no slugs, we asked the man to pitch up ours tent. We were not right so he let us to spent the night on the children’s jumping board. 

 

Biking along the Danube

The weather was hot so we took a swim in each tarn among Salzburg and Linz. Before reaching Linz we found a fawn in the dike. It might be the victim of an accident. We return to it with helpful people from the nearest farm and continued our route.

Linz wasn’t the best place for sightseeing, it seemed like a manufacturing town.

From here to Bratislava we were biking about 300km along the Danube on the bicycle road named “Donauradweg”.  We met a lot of cyclist. It was quite an elevating feeling to bike along the Danube shore.

I hope someday we will be able to bike along the Mures river too.

I took a bath in the Danube. It was funny as I went in and its depth was under my knees. I went in 10m and still the same situation. Then suddenly disapeared the ground under my feet and I had to swim. 

Hungarians Meeting in Vienna

As we arrived to Vienna, Kati heard us consulting in Hungarian about our next step. She was in a hurry to the Hungarians weekly meeting organized in a pub. She was so kind and invited us to the party where we got to know a lot of gracious people. 

They came here in the hope of a better life, but it wasn’ t so easy especially at the beginning to assimilate in a whole new environment. But the long toughness had its achievement.

We spent the night at Kati’s. Next morning we set off to visit Vienna’ s sights. It was the same as Salzburg, Ulm and Munich. 

I have beautiful memories of this city: I took apart of the marathon and spent a few days here.

We visited the Schönbrunn Castle, the Stefansdom and some of the historical buildings. In the evening we watched the German-Spanish football match, the second half of it with a dispatch-rider sitting on the curb.

We were chatting with him comparing the prices in Austria with the prices in Romania. He gave us two brake shoes.

Possibly we could spent the night at him, but next day we should have been in Bratislava to meet our family. But we were not able to agree , so after a little dispute we spent the night on a bridge out of Vienna. 

 

Meeting the family in Bratislava

It was wonderful to see our beloved ones again. They took the trouble and came to Bratislava just to saw and help us. They brought a lot of delicious foods, we didn’t know which one to eat at first.

After so many happy moments we set off with our family to the castle  which is located on a hill overlooking the river Danube, the southern-most hill of the Small Carpathian Mountains, 150m above the see level. You can access it by foot from two sides - from the Old Town or from the Slovak Parliament building up at the hill.

I don’t think if we ever thought that we would spend a few hours in the Castle of Bratislava with our family. We had a little time to drink some beer with them too.   

One day biking with Tamás

The meeting was in Bratislava at the castle. Saying goodbye to our family we met Tamás at 6 o’clock. He was our guide in Bratislava and a part of Slovakia.

Leaving the town Tamás found us a nice place to camp near a beautiful lake. He took care of us, we had no problem anymore what to eat or drink. Combining the foods we had salad made of fresh vegetables with meat for dinner, and the dessert was dumplings filled up with crud cheese.

of course we drunk some beer by the fire and solved life’s great problems.

Tamás told us he had arranged everything for a biking tour to Roma, but his job didn’t let him to achieve.

The morning begun good, the sun was shining , we had fruit salad for breakfast, so we didn’t need anything else. 

Tamás lead us to Galanta where his one-time roommate Gellért  was living.  On the road we found a wonderful tarn and refreshed ourselves because the weather was hot so we need a little time out. Unfortunately the road’s quality and the many packs that  we got from our family was in the way of our advance, something always fell down of the bikes. 

We reached Galanta at lunchtime and Tamás asked us to eat in a small restaurant. In the meantime Gellért arrived. We got to know each other, he already traveled by train the whole Europe last summer. 

They are superb people, Gellért knows very well what he wants from life, Tamás knows it too, just he is hesitating sometimes.

It’s a fantastic thing to found new friends always.