Thursday 26 May - Hellbrun and Nockerl

We decided to visit Hellbrun Palace and the Trick Fountains first thing.  This involved another trip on the 25 bus.  There was a gap in the service and when it eventually turned up it was full of small kids on an outing to the zoo.  About 25 little munchkins all with yellow visibility vests provided courtesy of Spar grocers.  The noise was deafening.

 

We walked to the Palace and joined a guided tour.  This is the only way you can view the fountains because the guide knows how to turn them on and off.  The fountains are all worked by gravity.  Spurts of water come at you unexpectedly from all directions.  Other groups had passed by and the trick was to see where the ground was dry because that area was safe from the water.  It was a lot of fun and everyone enjoyed themselves even though everyone got wet.  It was getting hot by this time so we quickly dried off.

There is also a mechanical organ with a whole town full of moving characters.  Very impressive for a 'toy" that was constructed so long ago.  It worked entirely by water.

The palace itself did not hold our interest and we quickly left for the bus stop to return to town.  We found three groups of children about 6 or 7 with their teachers all waiting for the bus.  There must have been about thirty of them.  When the bus arrived the lady driver didn't seem at all perturbed.  The saner tourists got in at the front and the children all filed on and found seats.  There were three highly excited kids and a teacher opposite us.  One kid, by bouncing around, managed to unhinge his seat and he found himself, and the seat, on the floor.  The teacher calmly put it back and placed him at another location.  It was taken good naturedly and we got into conversation with a man who had worked at a winery in Kelowna - Mission Hill.  He agreed with us that is is good for kids to get out on public transport like this - it teaches them social skills.

Back in Salzburg we stopped on the bridge over the Salzach River to video the boat doing its finale whirling around (that will eventually be in yesterday's blog) and we took the elevator the the Museum of Modern Art and the walk along the cliff top to Mullner.  The brewery didn't open so we took a bus back into town and had lunch at a large beer garden.  The highlight of the meal was Nockerl a light, but very large souffle, that was very filling.  We found out it is a speciality of Salzburg and Vienna.

Nockerl

We visited Mozart's birthplace.  It is a museum and not a very balanced one in that they only mentioned the good parts of his life.

It was so hot when we came out that we decided to head back to the hotel.

 We went out again to hear the Glockenspiel while we sat looking at the fountain and watching the thunder and lightning build.  It then began to rain heavily so we returned to the hotel.