Salzburg

Salzburg turned out to be one of my favourite stops on the trip. We only spent a day and a half or so there, but I was quite taken with it. I think charming is the best way to describe it. The Old Town area was just a really interesting place to walk around. The Old Town is tucked between the river and a mountain, which limits the growth of that part and made it easy to defend for centuries. Today there are shops and restaurants in old buildings. Then, if you go along the river, there's nice bike paths running down either side so you can take a stroll or a ride.
In our one full day there, we went up to the castle, which was probably the most traditional castle we went to on our journey (we stopped in two in the Czech Republic, Krikovlat and Karlstejn, but Salzburg's was more along the lines of a traditional fortress). The castle, which is on top of the hill above the Old Town, provided a great view of the city.
In the afternoon we took a Sound of Music tour. We all like the movie, although we definitely weren't the biggest afficionados on the bus ("Do you remember the scene where...?" Well, actually, no). But it was a very well-done tour. It showed a number of the iconic scenes from the movie, which are easily recognizable today. For one part, the church where the marriage scene was filmed, we had to drive a ways out of Salzburg, which was a great chance to see some Austrian nature scenery, including a couple of beautiful mountain lakes.
The next day we jumped on a train through the Alps to Switzerland - the longest train day of the trip with Mom and Dad, although Chelsey and I topped it later on.
The rest of the Salzburg pictures are on the Picassa site.
-Jason