Thursday the 7th of July Ubersee to Golling
It is a sad day for the budget of two poor kiwis. The non-English speaking parking guy way overcharged us for power, but when you don’t speak the language and he is holding your power cord ransom there is nothing you can do.
We drove to Austria through small towns that have these roadside fruit stalls called Spargels; they are also beside small flower gardens 
that work on an honesty box system. You take some shears, cut some gladioli and pay per stem. Austria is a small country which has struggled to be recognised as a nation of their own for centuries because of various wars and the simple fact their country’s name is so similar to Australia. Just about every tourist shop sells souvenirs with a big kangaroo on it saying “Austria, there are no Kangaroos here”. There are however a few Aussie tourists.
We drove to Golling where we are parked up at the Aqua Spa or Salza for two nights while we do some expensive and long tourist attractions in nearby Salzburg. We could have parked at a campground closer to Salzburg for 36euro but this is only 10euro per night plus visitor tax of 1euro per person per night. We caught the train into the city and booked our tickets for the Sound of Music tour (84euro) and Hitler’s Eagle Nest (110euro). Good heavens, we spent nearly our whole daily budget on tickets to Hitler’s retreat, never mind that it keeps somebody employed. Today we are only doing the Sound of Music tour at 2.00pm so we had a few hours to kill. Lucky for us the weekly market was on and we could feast on lots of interesting things including cheap cherries, cheese and buns. We also did a free self guided tour of the Mirabell gardens, one of the many sets used for the Sound of Music. I used the paid toilets where the attendant cunningly grabs the door before it shuts from the last person, takes your money and pretends to put it in the slot.
Finally aboard one of the three large tour buses, we had a fun guide, heard some interesting stories, sang along as instructed, got out when instructed and ate the apple strudel as instructed.
We heard some corny jokes, constant references to Red Bull and heard lots of derogatory comments about Germans. The apple strudel waitress was not as friendly as the bus company employees who never missed an opportunity to hit on single woman. The bus driver makes a dollar on the side selling beer and drinks from his dashboard fridge and the guide gets his kickbacks and tips. Both guys wear their lederhosen, are nice and sing the same song twice a day every day; what some people will do for a dollar! Our guide constantly (but not directly) ridiculed a few families who he referred to as the Griswalds (National Lampoon movie reference) because for one reason or another they annoyed him.
There were two families who thought it was a Last Supper trip and bought pizza etc just before boarding the bus only to find that they couldn’t take food on board, there were families
with no concept of time, families with spoilt brats who threw some impressive paddies, and then there is that particular nation who berate their children with a half hour lecture at the top of their voice. We sat at the front of the bus and being NZers he liked us, however our neighbours were Australian and they got the Mrs Brown treatment “that’s nice” not, we don’t have Kangaroos here. Our trip took a little longer than normal as we had some slow people to herd on the bus at every stop, had major road works and got stuck in pre-concert traffic.
This weekend is feast weekend in Austria, the second weekend in July when they celebrate their multicultural and national history by feasting and singing. The town square will have a massive feast catering for all nations and rural Salzburg has an “Electric Love” concert. There are acres of cars, acres of tents and predicted to be 160,000 people attending the event. We went to catch the train back to the motorhome and this time checked with the ticket office how to get back. Apparently we bought a student bus ticket for half price to get to Salzburg on the train, it appears Austria works on an honesty system too because nobody checks tickets.
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Smoking is alive and well in Austria
Oooohhh! It's a lake!
Off to yodelling lessons
Sound of Music - von Trapp house