Friday May 17 was a perfect day. I woke up quite early, 5:30 AM and by 7 AM, after a filling breakfast of super-bihun (Indonesian rice noodle) we went to the train station. We were a bit fortunate that the train to Salzburg started from West Bahnhof and stopped at Huetteldorf, the station where our bus from the campground ended. Thus, we were able to catch an early train and by 11 AM already arrived at the Salzburg train station. We knew where to go, Camping Kasern but we did not know which bus (number) to take. After asking a couple bus drivers, we were told to take bus number 33 first and changed to 15 later on. The number 33 driver was quite helpful. When he stopped at the two routes intersection, he told us where we had to wait. Danke schoen, thanks in German went a long way, compounded by the fact that we were carrying two big packs plus one more day pack pour moi. It made people really wanting to help :-).

The camping fee in Salzburg was cheaper than in Vienna, in fact very cheap, only 12 Euros per night. The campground was not as nice as Wien West but quite OK. Actually, it was quite scenic because it was at the outskirt of the city and has an ice-cap mountain as a background. Salzburg was pretty hot on that day and the day after so that we had to put sun-screen lotion. Knowing that this was another place we could stay long, we bought the 72 hours Salzburg card that entitled us to go to major tourist attractions plus free public transportation.
On the Saturday, we cooked our last 'Indomie goreng' (Indonesian instant fried noodle) for breakfast. It was our saviour in helping us to manage the cost. Imagine if we had to eat breakfast in the restaurant every morning. For 10 Euros you might still be hungry. We couldn't wait to go to downtown and checked famous places like Mozart Wohnhaus (residence), Festung or an old castle-fortress, Marionetten or puppet on a string, and some others. I calculated at the end of the day, had we had to pay individually, all those visits would have cost us 26 Euros. So in just one day, we almost broke even the cost of the Salzburg 3 days card, 32 Euros. Actually if I added the transportation cost, we already won :-).
Just when we were finished preparing supper, our friends from Stuttgart, Germany, J and L came over. We already made a plan since Cecilia and I were in Toronto, to travel near Salzburg on the Sunday with them. They stayed at a nice 3-star hotel but quite far from Salzburg, in a small town called Puch. They already had dinner so we ate by ourselves and offered our nice soup to J who likes to eat :-). Yes, she is the chef of her own restaurant in Stuttgart, a small Indonesian cafe. We chatted with them over beer by the reception office, a distance from our tent. When it got dark, also since they already travelled for about 5 hours from Stuttgart on that day, J and L left and we returned to our tent.
I haven't told you yet that since morning, a young couple from Germany (easy to see from their car) pitched their tent next to us. The girl was quite voluptuous, you know what I mean. Her hair was blonde and I named her 'Marylin Monroe' :-). Well my dear friends, you know that Cecilia and I like to go camping. We have been to numerous campground in Ontario, some of them like Algonquin, Grundy Lake and Bon Echo Provincial Park, about 10 times each. But never in our lifetime, did we ever hear sounds like what was coming from 'Marylin' and her partner when we approached our tent, next to them. It was undescribable, even an X-rated movie didn't come near :-). That's why I said the camping fee of 12 Euros was very cheap. Now we know why in all the campgrounds we had stayed while we were in Europe, almost everybody had a camping van.
In terms of weather, Sunday May 19 was not the best. It was cloudy and from time to time we got rain shower. It didn't matter though cause we were travelling in a car with J and L to a resort area near Salzburg. I had to say that the views were quite fantastic around the three lakes we went, Wolfgang See, Attersee and Mond See. To top that, as we have a German chef with us, the food choices at lunch and dinner time were excellent. They surpassed continental meals at our last cruise trip :-). We were lucky that the two restaurants we went had excellent chefs. The cost was very reasonable too, 60 and 50 Euros including drinks and tips for the lunch and dinner respectively. Yes, that's the difference between small town and big European cities.
Monday was still a holiday in Austria, Pentecost. As we skipped the Mass on Sunday, we were determined to go to a church, Fransiskanen Kirche where the day earlier I saw would have Mass with Mozart music at 9 AM. We left early from the campground as I knew we would be lost finding it :-). There are so many churches near the area called the Dom (cathedral) in Salzburg. Saying "Wo ist die Fransiskanen Kirche?," where is the church, to a stranger caused us to meet our 'guardian angel'. He said in perfect English to follow him because he knew it was not easy to give direction. When we chatted with him on the way to the church, it turned out that he was married in that same church 37 years ago. No wonder.
We continued our self-tour around Salzburg after the Mass by going to Mozart's Geburthaus (birthplace), Residenz (the palace) and a few others. If you have ever seen 'The Sound of Music', all the shooting for that movie was done in or near Salzburg. Through a tourist promotion booklet for the movie fans, we knew where else was each scene shot or taken and we checked a few. By the time we finished our tour and went back to our campsite, "Marylin" and her partner had already left, so Cecilia and I killed our evening by playing Scrabble :-). In the next episode, I will end this mini-series after we had to return to Zurich again and left for Asia. Till then, bye for now.