Helen and John's European Adventure - Part 2

We managed to navigate out of Prague without any major setbacks and then the TomTom device kicked in at the Austrian border. Our departure was early enough that we arrived in Salzburg with daylight to spare. We stayed at the actual house, not the "Sound Of Music" version, of the von Trapp family. Our room for the night would be Liesl's room. Christopher immediately told us the name was not correct, that Hollywood changed the child’s name from Marie and that in fact a son was the oldest child in the family. One of the many changes made to ump up the story telling. We were informed of a local restaurant and how to get to the city center, so we started the 15 to 20 walk we were told it would be to the restaurant and then from there a bus would take us to the city. But, we only made it 3 minutes when we were crossing the train stop, when a young girl of 16 asked us for help. She was lost, and needed to get to a particular stop to catch a train back home, in Slovenia! We momentarily looked at the map and information board, but when her eyes got a little watery I suggested she walk back with us to where we were staying. Our hosts would know for sure how to direct her. And in one sentence, Christopher gave her all she needed to know, drying up her eyes and forming a smile on her face! We walked back to the train stop together where she remained, as Helen and I continued on our walk to the restaurant, which was probably more like 30 minutes away than 20. It was dusk by the time we reached the restaurant, with rush hour traffic filling the road beside us. We had some good Austrian food along with the usual European spotty service. Our female server seemed to get reassigned to or became responsible for another section of the restaurant, because when it was time to pay the bill she was never in our section. But we managed that and also received bus information to get to the city, which turned out to be only 4 stops away from the stop near the restaurant. Probably a shorter walk to the city from the restaurant than the walk to it from where we were staying! Salzburg was pretty quiet when we got there, but we walked around and checked out what we could and made some pictures. We returned to the train stop via bus and turned in for the night. The next morning we had breakfast, packed the car in a steady drizzle and drove to the city, parking in an underground garage. We walked around on a chilly, wet morning. Luckily as the morning gave way to the afternoon the rain subsided and the day became mild. After we strolled through the older part of the city we went up to the castle, purchasing 2 tickets to enter. We spent the rest of our time in Salzburg here, as there was much to see. We left around 4pm on the slightly over 3-hour drive to Venice, where we would be spending 2 nights. Helen was a "snapping fool", alternating between camera and phone taking pictures of the Italian Alps as we crossed into Italy. I have now crossed the Alps from Salzburg, Zurich, and Munich, and I must say it is a gorgeous experience every time. It was night when we pulled into Mestre, which is the closest city before going out to Venice. I had a little trouble, with road construction causing some tension, but we made it close to our hotel until there seemed to be an issue with a one-way route that we couldn't take. I parked the car on a side street and walking just a few minutes found the hotel. We parked around the back and checked in. Wasn't entirely impressed with the property, but I've seen and stayed in worse places. English was completely foreign to the man at the front desk, so we stumbled through the process and went to the room. Uninspiring but clean, we unpacked and crashed for the night intent on getting an early start. The slideshow for Salzburg is at http://www.photoshop.com/users/johndp/albums/92bcddbfd15e44baa3e33ada94556745?wf=slideshow