Our Austrian Halloween

October 31

Charlotte:

We were walking around Salzburg, looking for a breakfast place, when we came across a huge outdoor market. There were so many booths selling fruits and veggies, cheese, meats, baked goods, wreaths, bird houses, souvenirs, carvings, and more.

We started with a sweet cheese pastry and apple strudel. Then we moved to another both and got fried dough and a fried dough ball with raisins (like a Dutch oliebollen). Later we tried a French toast pocket with date spread inside. That wasn’t my favourite.

There were also the “wurst” booths ever! Just kidding, wurst is the German word for sausage. There were several booths selling many different kinds of sausages for people to eat right at the market. They even sold beer and wine at the market and people were sampling wine at one of the booths.

We decided to go to the old fortress and go up the funicular. It’s kind of like a roller coaster but slow and you don’t go upside down.

At the bottom of the funicular there was another little market, but this one wasn’t very big. There was a man selling huge pretzels, and we got some to share for lunch. We chose plain, cheese, and sugar. My favourite was the plain one.

Mom:

The fortress was initially built in the 11th century as a castle. Walls, rooms, and security features were added on in several stages throughout the centuries to fortify the structure into what it is today. Throughout its existence, it was never conquered.

We took the included audio guide through the fortress. It contained a lot of interesting information, but we found the tour hard to follow because it was too fast-paced, especially during the time outside on the tower. There was so much to see, but we felt rushed through. We found this odd as, being the off season, it wasn’t busy at all.

Our ticket included several museums within the fortress, so we chose a couple to visit. We went first to the artillery museum. It contained a large cannon and examples of weaponry that was used to defense the fortress throughout its many years. The kids had fun with interactive displays and games all around this little museum.

Next, we located the marionette museum. It was very small but had some cute displays. Charlotte enjoyed it so much that we were excited for the surprise we planned for the evening.

We went back down the funicular, standing right at the front this time, which afforded us fantastic views.

We then walked around Salzburg some more and found a place called Alter Fuchs, where we decided to have supper. Mom got ham hock and hot wine, Dad and Charlotte got sausages but Dad also had Salzburg beer, and I got schnitzel with fries. For dessert mom got an apple strudel and I got a sweet dumpling.

Charlotte:

After dinner, Mom and Dad had a surprise for us. We had no idea what it was. We tried to guess lots of things and could never get it right.

The surprise was they had gotten us tickets to see The Sound of Music at a Marionette Theatre! The show was really good. They made it kind of funny because during some of the songs, the marionettes leapt around and flew through the air. I thought that the puppeteers were so talented – the marionettes weren’t just simple little puppets… they had tons of strings on each one.

At the start of the show, I asked Mom if she thought the marionettes would use smaller marionettes during the yodel song from the movie. And you know what? They did! It was hilarious!

At the end, they lifted the top curtain so that the audience could see the puppeteers and their technique for working the marionettes. It was really neat.

Even without a costume, I loved this Halloween.