18 May 07, Day 6 - From Vienna and Salzburg
From Vienna, we made our way to Salzburg by train. It was a relatively long journey as you can see, about 2/3 the width of the country. Dragging luggage to Salzburg was ok as the bus in Salzburg has a back carriage which has space for luggages and wheelchairs.

Finally we reached and went out for an evening walk in the Mirabell Garden. Unicorns in the Mirabell Gardens. The Mirabelle Palace was built by Prince Arbishop Wolf Dietrich in 1606 for his mistress, Salome Alt, and her children. It is a good example of a typical baroque park.

Visitors relaxing on the stone fixtures in the garden, enjoying the evening time together.

On the balustrades themselves you will see statues of Roman gods. Here, one of the gods against a backdrop of plants growing up on a wall.

The Grand Parterre. It is embraced by a marble railing decorated with vases by Fischer von Erlach. Here, the yellow flowers in the parterre with the vase in the distance.

An especially long bench in the Grand Parterre. I think it is twice the length of the standard garden bench.

One of the roman gods statues in the park.

A group of visitors seated at the bench, having a good chat.

View of the fortress from the river side. Festung Hohensalzburg (literally "High Salzburg Fortress" in German) is a castle in the Austrian city of Salzburg. It sits on Festungberg hill. With a length of 250 meters and a width of 150 meters, it is one of the largest medieval castles in Europe.

On the riverside, we also find young people, mingling with their peers, sitting on the rocks and grass, simply each other's company.

This is one of many two seater vehicles on the road. Pretty cool and cute, although I don't think people in Singapor would get this. The COE would be too much to justify getting such a small (and hopefully) cheap car....

19 May 07, Day 7 - HallStatt
This morning, we collected the rental car from budget cars in the Salzburg Airport and headed for the small quaint place of Halstatt. Along the way, it was terrible as we only had the exact direction to the place. Then we made the wrong turn. No instructions to get back on the right track. After some light arguments and struggle, we finally hit the right road. LOL. It was rather stressful cos it's driving on the right side of the road (opposite of Singapore) and different signage systems here...

Photo of the lake along the way. Salzburg to HallStatt - about 100km one way. With navigational error, maybe add another 5km? hahaha!

We passed by St Gilgil, which is beautiful (and is Mozart's mum birthplace incidentally). This is a picnic place on the HallStatt lake, but we have not reached the town yet. Nice place - blue sky, green grass, mirror lake!

Essentially, Hallstatt is a mountain village on a lake. It has nice picturesque views. A swan swimming gracefully in the lake.

Haha, when we took this photo, we thought to ourself - bali? krabi? phi phi? Nay, it's HallStatt. Taken from a car resting area.

A solo bench at the water side, looking at the hills. It's a calm, quiet place where you could have a nice nap in the afternoon...

Pei sitting on the grass and enjoy the sight of the town from a distance away.

Human activity began here in prehistoric times, with the salt deposits being exploited as early as the 2nd millennium B.C. This resource formed the basis of the area's prosperity up to the middle of the 20th century, a prosperity that is reflected in the fine architecture of the town of Hallstatt.

Bridge which leads to the waterside. There is a couple basking in the sun in the distance, near the water edge.

On the right side of the bridge was a children's playground and a water slide. A child could just slide down into the shallow water. Picturesque view!

A child walking on the narrow plank which links to the little "island" which is also connected via the bridge mentioned earlier.

View of the bridge from the children's playground...

After seeing the town from afar, we left our car in the free parking place and walked into the town.. View from the waterside.