Maybe some of my readers have noticed that many of the names of the towns we visit end in ‘……berg’ or ‘….burg’. I’m just copying the name from bits of paper we have. So maybe I’m not correct some times and I’m getting bergs mixed with burgs. Not to worry. Today we head for Salzburg aboard the Majestic Imperator , leaving from Passau and travelling through the Austrian countryside. The Majestic Imperator is a rebuild of a famous old train from the 1890s. The old train was used by the nobility of Europe to whip around the countryside. Pretty lavishly set up it was the way to go back then. Well the new 6 carriage train was finished in 1998 and is quite impressive. We enjoyed champagne, canapes and tartlets along the way.

Homealone boarding the train in a bit of light rain, this soon cleared

Royalty from parts far on board the train

Austrian countryside

We have been in Salzburg before and the town is quite absorbed in Sound of Music trivia and of course Mozart, who was born here. His memory lives on through sites, music concerts and Mozart’s balls ( around chocolate coated sweet, and I will leave it at that).

An excellent cheese board

The Old Town of Salzburg

I’ve seen this chap in Brisbane. He seems to get around.

One of the things we had to do was have a Salzburg schnitzel for lunch. This is distinguished from a Wien schnitzel (the ones you get in Vienna and what we normally think of ) because the Salzburg schnitzel has a filling of ham and mushrooms. It was pretty good. Unfortunately, I don’t have a photo of it to share with you.

On board entertainment

We had our warmest day today, no rain and some clear skies. In the late afternoon we returned on the train to Linz, where those chocolates come from. A couple of Austrian girls and a fella were on board to entertain us with a bit of folk music and gems from the Sound of Music. While all this was happening our ship had sailed down the Danube from Passau to meet us for the next section of the journey to Melk.