Day 43 – Vienna to Salzburg (Saturday 25th May 2024)

Armed with our newly acquired 1-hr tram ticket we arrived at the stop for the No. 62 tram right outside hotel just as the tram was approaching. The driver saw us hurrying along with our bags and gave me a nod to let me know he’d wait for us. Five minutes later we were at Wien Meidling and making our way to the waiting area for regional travellers. It was quite busy for 9:00am on a Saturday morning. A constant stream of people were coming and going through the hall as advice about their train appeared in the Departure board. It’s a scene you’ll never see at a Melbourne hub station like Southern Cross, I reckon. It seemed to be just a normal, everyday thing for so many Viennese to be using the city’s rail hub as a way to get around the Country. I get a sense that the same is still a “special” thing for Melburnians and Victorians to be doing on a Saturday morning (unless they’re going to the footy). It’s a population density thing, I think. Melbourne’s population is 5.2million at 521/sq. km. Vienna’s population is 40% of Melbourne’s at just over 2.0million yet it’s population density is more than eight times greater at 4,326/sq. km.

At 09:58 the RJX 1062 pulled away from Platform 5 bound for Worgl via Salzburg. We’d found our booked seats and settled in for the journey would take just over 2h30m to cover the 300kms. Pretty soon after it left Wien Meidling the train dived into a tunnel which seemed to go on forever. It must have been a very long tunnel because we spent much of the time in it travelling at 190kph. Later on, speeding across the open fields, the train settled into about 240kph. The ride was very quiet and steady. Our seats were large with plenty of legroom and elbow room. The train made a lengthy stop at St. Polten and at Linz which elongated the overall travel time – for those of you trying to work out why a train travelling at 240pkh would take 2.5hr to travel 300kms. Right on time at 12:30pm we pulled into the big and modern Salzburg Hbf.

 

In the forecourt of the Hauptbahnhof we grabbed a cab to take us to the Hotel Lilienhof in Taxham, a residential suburb about 5km out to the north-west of the old town. It’s the only such place in this area. A supermarket we haven’t visited yet is 100m away. Just 50m away is the bus-stop. We got ourselves organised after check-in and made a plan for the rest day – it was only about 2:30pm. We decided to take a trip into the old town since the day was still young. The No. 28 bus arrived almost immediately, we boarded and to our delight learned that all travel in Salzburg today and tomorrow is free! We learned that this is an initiative of the local government to encourage people to leave their cars at home. The public transport service is very good, in our experience so far. Even way out here in the boon-docks a bus comes by every half a dozen times every hour on this, the weekend.

In the Altstadt (the old town) we visited the birthplace on Mozart on Getreidegasse to bet a photo to go with the one we took in 1987. There’s now a SPAR supermarket at street-level. Kerry bought a bag of Mozart Balls – a spherical chocolate treat – from the supermarket before we proceeded across Salzach River in search of a Post Office, with no luck at all. Sorry Mum, you’re next postcard will have to wait. Our hotel room doesn’t have a kettle so our next search was for one of those. That search was equally fruitless. Travellers, be aware, you’ll not find a Post Office or a Department Store anywhere in Austria. Dinner time had arrived so at a restaurant down off a street in the old town we had a quick schnitzel for tea then caught the No. 28 bus back home.

Oh, the hotel owner ended our search for a kettle, providing one upon request.