DAY 263

May 22

1) Today was an exciting day for us, as we would travel from Munich to Salzburg. For the sake of brevity, we'll break everything up into morning, afternoon, evening and night. So in the morning, we checked out of our AirBnb hostel. Boarded the train to Salzburg OBB Station. After getting our "brunch" from Spar, we went to our first tourist spot: the Salt Mines Hallein. We had to take a train, followed by a bus ride to get there.

2) The guided tour lasted around 70 minutes and was thoroughly enjoyable. We got a chance to venture deep into the salt mines, as well as ride two really long slides down into the mining shafts. Also, we took a short boat trip around a cavern filled with brine (concentrated saltwater), which is evaporated to remove all the water and collect the leftover salt. At the end of the tour, we were each given a tiny bottle of fine salt, harvested from the very mines themselves.

3) In the evening, we returned to the OBB Station, where we carried on by foot, visiting the Residenzplatz and Mozartplatz, both of which are town squares with rich Baroque architecture. Mozartplatz pays homage to the famous Classical era composer, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, of which I am a big fan of (more of this in the next blog haha). Residenzplatz, on the other hand, contains the Salzburg Cathedral (Dom zu Salzburg), with its incredibly ornate and detailed paintings and sculptures. We wanted to visit the University of Salzburg too but unfortunately it was closed.

4) After a long day's walk, it was time for a hearty meal. We collectively decided that we wanted some rice for a change, so we found a quaint Thai restaurant called Teerak. When we asked the owner (who came to take our order) what was popular, he replied "everything". And indeed, he wasn't wrong. Everything we ordered was delicious (either that or we were just so famished at the time XD),  and the price reasonable to boot. 

5) At night, we walked back to our hostel (for one night only), called YoHo International Hostel. We were each given a complimentary "apple strudel infused shot" at the bar. As we had booked the hostel for six people (it's six to a room, and we didn't want to share with a sixth traveller), there was one additional shot, so Zi Yan and I shared it haha. Shortly after that, it was bedtime for all of us. That has been our exciting day, and I hope you enjoyed reading about it. Have a nice day, cheers!

A very nice shot of the Sun in between the pillars

(Taken at Mozartplatz, and much appreciation to Melissa for pointing it out to me ^^)