Time for a peek through the Iron Curtain

We leave for Eastern Europe today after two nights in Salzburg and three in the capital Vienna. It rained both days in Salzburg which sucked, but we made the best of a bad situation.

On our first full day there we went on a Sound Of Music Tour hosted by a very camp and slightly annoying tour guide. I actually watched the film for the first time that morning and then hopped straight on a bus to go see where it was all filmed.

That evening we crossed the river a bee lined to a highly recommended Augustiner beer hall, but after getting soaked en route we ended up leaving in search of another drinking hole. The staff were less than helpful and they only sold one type of beer with no prices in sight.

There was a pretty sweet festival in the streets with drink and food tents skattered along the streets of the Old Town. Shame about the rain!

The weather´s been heaps better in Vienna and this weekend gone there was a massive open air music festival on an island that sits in the middle of the Danube River. Apparently it´s the biggest of it´s kind in Europe and visited by 2 million people over the weekend! All local German and Austrian acts but we checked it out on Saturday night and it was great fun. It took us a couple of hours to walk from one end to the other.

By that time we had recovered from one hell of a hangover! On Friday night we were sat in the bar at the Wombats hostel and by the time we realised where everyone was heading off to we decided it´d be too late to go along. So instead we stayed in the bar until 2am, closing time, and the bartender gave us free beers and shots of some horrible Jager-like spirit. It got pretty chaotic and ended up with Sheryl dancing on the bar! The bar staff loved it and gave us free drink vouchers for the next night!

Yesterday started with a big disappointment when we found out the staff member at reception had screwed up our booking for an all day bike tour through Austrian countryside and visits to wineries. We were left behind, it was pretty annoying! But nevertheless we headed out to a little town about an hour out of Vienna called Krems and did our own bike trip down the Danube, before jumping in the river to cool off.

We´re off to Budapest shortly for our first peek into Eastern Europe - exciting times!

Salzburg