Munich days 6 and 7 (Salzburg)
March 16th, 2008 at 6:11 pm14.03.2008
When I woke up, I felt a bit ill. After attending the morning lectures, it turned into a really ill feeling. I had running nose since almost the first day here, but now in a addition to this I had a headache, and a general feeling of illness which clearly indicated I caught a cold. I attribute this to the (untypical in this trip) lack of beer yesterday in the evening 
Anyway, I felt that I barely have enough strength to eat lunch, and decided to cut the day short and head to the hotel in order to rest. I planned to visit Salzburg on saturday, and really wanted to be in shape for that, and for the flight back home. On my way back from the conference center I stopped at the shopping mall to buy myself a mouse for the laptop. While its ultra mobility is nice, when you have to work with it for a long time, a realy mouse is much more convenient than the touchpad. I bought a very nice Microsoft mouse, especially suitable for laptops. It’s wireless (with a USB-stick receiver), small (though quite comfortable) and even has the nice feature of a special place to plug in the receiver when it’s not in use. This way, two goals are accomplished - the receiver does not get lost in the bag, and being plugged so it presses a switch that disconnects the internal battery of the mouse - so no energy is lost. The mouse only needs one AA mouse to operate, by the way, which makes it light. While at the mall, I also bought a strawberry-milk drink and a few pastries for eating dinner at the hotel room.
I got back to the hotel, took a pill (my head was really aching by that time) and went to sleep. Slept for a bit more than an hour, and felt much better after that. The rest of the day I really did nothing, surfing the web, reading the bed, and so on. I went to sleep early hoping to wake up fresh for the long day on Saturday.
15.03.2008
As I woke up, I happily realized I feel quite OK. There was still a dull headache, but I had good hopes of its passing with the morning coffee (which turned out to be the case). I organized my bags, and went to the hotel reception to check out. As my flight was only at 19:30 and I wanted to go to Salzburg in the morning, I left the big bag at the hotel, and went to eat breakfast.
The central train station is right in-front of the hotel I was in, so I didn’t need much time in advance (my train was at 7:42). The train station is huge - it has 36 platforms, with trains going to various locations inside and outside Germany (several to Austria, to Italy, and so on). Some of the trains had sleeping wagons - which isn’t surprising, taking the long distances into account. Also, I noted that all the trains have electrical motors (they’re all attached to power lines that run above the rails), just like the subway and the suburban train (S-bahn). Maybe some use diesel engines at some stage, but at least the one I was in was electrical all the way.
The way to Salzburg took 2 hours (there’s also a faster train that takes 1:30 hours, because it stops in less stations on the way). Most of the way is inside Germany, because Salzburg is located right on the Austrian-German border. In any case, there’s no indication whatsoever that you pass from Germany to Austria. Only if you look very carefully you see that the cars parked at the stations have Austrian license plates. I saw a lot of people going skiing on the train, probably to the resorts Austria is famous with. Indeed, while the Munich area is quite flat, as you approach Austria it becomes more and more hilly, until at some stage the magnificent snowed peaks of the Alps emerge from behing the clouds. The weather was good and clear, so the view from the train was amazing - picturesque villages set in green hills and forests, with the Alps in the background.
I arrived to Salzburg at 9:50 and right away went out of the station looking for a way to get into the city center. I photoraphed a map at the station, which served as my guide for Salzburg Since I wasn’t 100% sure where to go, I took a trolleybus to the city center. An immediate impression was that the Austrians are much worse in English than the Germans. Lucky that center is “zentrum” and I could understand which bus to take.
Salzburg is like a scaled-down version of Munich. The buildings look similar, but the density is higher, the houses are closer together and everything has a more medieval look. I rode the bus until it crossed the river, and hopped off there because it was clear this is “zentrum”. Salzburg is set between high hills, and parts of it are literally cut into the rock, with many tunnels through it. I went through one of the tunnels and climbed the high hill on the western bank of the river to get a good view of Salzburg from above. I had a very good walk, and went through most of Salzburg’s “old city” and then back on foot to the train station. I must salute my navigational skills, because I did all that without any map to guide me In truth, however, Salzburg is very small - especially its central part, which can be traversed in half an hour, so this wasn’t very challenging.
I went back to Munich on the 13:15 train, walked a little around Marieplatz came back to the hotel to pick up my bag. Then I took the Airport Bus to the Munich airport, and was there at a little past 17:00. After checking in my bag and reaching the boarding gate, I decided to bid farewell to Germany by eating the traditional pretzel + sausage + beer dinner.
A couple of random observations about cars in Germany. First, there is an urban legend that cars older than 10 years are disallowed in Germany and are sold to Eastern Europe. This isn’t true - I’ve seen quite a few cars definitely older than 10 on the streets. Not much - most of the cars here are new, but they do exist. Another thing is the fuel. Geez, how expensive it is here. 1.40 Euro, which is more than 7.5 NIS - no wonder the streets are not jammed with cars and people prefer the trains !
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