Salzbyeeeeee

Salzburg! For having spent so much time in Austria, I'd not yet set foot in one of its most famous destinations, so when I mapped out my route to Berlin and noted that it would be something like twelve-plus hours from Lake Bled, I decided to make an overnight stop here before finishing the trek the following day. After the jump, the lightest possible skimming across Salzburg's surface.

It's a very nice town, y'see.

First: that trip. I didn't pull out my camera for it, but boy are the Julian alps (I think - maybe technically these were Austrian? whichever alps!) stunning. Hung in low-slung mist and topped at the peaks with churches that nobody, it seems, could ever feasibly climb to... this area reminded me of Norway's atmospheric fjord country like few other places have. It was swell scenery to have rolling by on my way to a town that... well. That I very briefly saw.

Experimenting with long (15 second) tripod-free exposure for this church. Check that half-ghost lady on the left! I aspire to play more with this when I have equipment and also an idea of what on earth I am doing.

The usual caveats: being in town for less than twenty-four hours, there's no way I was going to really get under the surface. I was already starting to run into the homesick/exhaustion that more or less overtook me once I arrived in Berlin, and so even by the standards of my frenetic Balkan sprints, this one was a little light. And, the biggest caveat of all: Salzburg in July is already in the early swing of the silly season, so it was eight inches thick with tourism. That said, it was a ril cute spot that, if anything, suffers from the heavy dose of "MOZART! THE SOUND OF MUSIC! ONLY THESE TWO THINGS!" that tends to pervade.

But look it's not like Salzburg is commercial or anything! This ancient burger-purveyor, for instance, has been here since... well look at least the sign is extremely nice, by order of city ordinance, ok?

But the old town is cute, with great ambience and historic signs dangling over cobblestones, and there's a lot of actual local culture still around if you poke for it. Visiting the Augustiner Bräu, you'll be surrounded by German speakers in an enormous and pleasant shady beer garden, eating fairly overpriced food (pro tip that I did not follow: you can bring your own if you're buying their beer) and soaking in the late hours of the day.

I cannot tell you how to get into that brewery in the sky, as only your noble spirit's struggle can reveal the path to you.

Really, my big takeaway here was that my usual habits - staying more than a night at a time, hitting places like Salzburg or Dubrovnik out of season and migrating to the big cities or less-central destinations come July - is pretty much the way to do it. In July, on this short time, it's hard not to feel a bit conveyor-belty, and ultimately I have less to say about Salzburg than I do about my own inability to settle in and take it in. Which, hey: nobody bats a thousand!

Do try to find your way off the conveyor belt long enough to see this amazing figure, about which I know nothing except that I love him and want to keep a replica of him with me the way some people carry statues of religious figures for luck.

Following my breakneck drive-by visit here, I headed off to Berlin, stopping at Munich for lunch about a third of the way through the trip. It was my second year celebrating Independence Day in Bavaria, with German sausages and beer making it feel apropos, even if this year felt very different for all kinds of obvious reasons. (I've written and deleted a very long post trying to articulate how it feels to be an American abroad this year that I may revisit someday if I can figure out how to talk about it without getting excessively shrill or too sanctimonious, which may very likely never happen.) But it was a nice revisiting of a pleasant spot, marred only by my having shattered my phone's screen on the way back to the train station. It's holding steady for now, but... suffice to say, we're keeping fingers very tightly crossed that all things hold together until I'm stateside again.

More Salzburgian delight from a more innocent, "my phone will live forever" phase of life.

And now, I'm here. (Have been for almost two weeks by the time this post goes live, actually.) It feels great to be anchored again, for what will be my longest stay of the summer, in a friend's gorgeous apartment in Prenzlauer Berg, my favorite neighborhood in the city. I'm settling into a good routine of morning work followed by afternoon exploring, and while I don't know that I'll have a ton that's worth sharing, I'm sure I will blather about some of it before my time wraps up here at the end of July and I make my way to the UK (with a quick "I never learn my lessons" stopover in Belgium). Til then: keep slowing down, taking it in, and being mindful of all you have and all that surrounds you! It's a LOT, gang.

It may not be entirely evident from this photo that the horse is shooting water out of its nose. Insanely, nobody has started building Salzburg bus tours around THAT. Come on. "The Sound of Music" or "The Nose-Spitting Waterhorse," which would you want to spend hours learning about?