Tour de Austria: Day 1

One day I was absent-mindedly looking at the surrounding area of Munich on Google Maps and strayed over to Austria and saw this:

It is a collection of lakes North and East of Salzburg, which gave me one of my silly ideas again. I had booked some extra time off around Easter and was undecided as to what to do and this filled that gap.

I had wanted to visit Salzburg while I was here so decided to make there my "base camp" to start and cycle around the lakes. Munich to Salzburg is a potentially cyclable distance for a day at 70 miles but would be a tough one in my present (massively unfit) state and I wanted to keep hold of my energy for the hilly country around the lakes, so I decided to take the train instead. Next time I will definitely ride there though.

I did however cycle the 10 miles to the Munich central station from my house. I left a bit later than I planned to and was slower than planned so I was nearly late for my train. I know what you're thinking, typical me!

SALZBURG

I haven't posted about it yet but Munich is an amazingly beautiful city, so I was hoping that Salzburg would be able to compete on that front. It didn't disappoint! Shortly away from the train station is the river Salzach so I went there and was greeted by this view:

I parked my bike at the hostel and went for a walk around the Altstadt (Old Town) and along the river. It was a really nice place, and I have to point out just how lucky I was with the weather. When I booked the trip it was very likely to be a rainy trip, but I had 22 degrees bright sunshine and no rain for my entire trip! I would be very grateful for that the next day.

Check out my Facebook page for the pics I took around Altstadt, my next stop was to be something special. In the picture above you can see the Castle on top of the hill, I ventured that direction and took a train up the hill and probably had the best view I had ever seen (until the next day)

Salzburg City as seen from above

Testing out the Panorama setting of my camera

Awesome view of the mountains behind the city

My new favourite place in the world to sit and have a beer (shame the actual beer wasn't the best)

Not much else happened today, I just went to a restaurant for food and beer and went back to the hostel. Little did I know that that time the next day I would call my parents saying "Everything's fine, but I'm an absolute fucking idiot". Stay tuned for that.

Viel Spaß homies