I woke up early in Florence knowing I wanted to catch the first train to Venice. I got a quick breakfast and bought some train food. The train pulled out of Florence Station right on time at 08:55. The trip was about four hours across Italy. Very beautiful countryside.
When we pulled into Venice Station I noticed that there were a lot of movie production crates on the platform. As I walked past them I noticed that they all had "007, Moonraker" painted on the sides. Apparently the movie production company had just finished filming some scenes for the latest James Bond Movie here in Venice called Moonraker. I found a place to grab some lunch, a sidewalk pizza café. When in Italy, always go for pizza!
After eating lunch I started to walk around Venice. Fascinating place to explore. I took a few pictures but at the time I did not realize that the battery in the camera was getting low which made the light meter inside the viewfinder give wrong readings. In my journal I wrote, “…very interesting place. Only thing wrong with it (other than the high prices) is they just throw trash in the water.” My whole visit to Venice was just a few hours and one paragraph in my journal. The thing I remember most is seeing all the movie production crates on the train platform when I arrived.
I caught the late afternoon train to Salzburg, Austria. The ride to Salzburg is nine hours so it was a relaxing ride with plenty of time to sleep. At sunset, the train stopped in the rolling hills of Northern Italy, in the middle of nowhere. Outside the windows I saw a group of people surrounding the train wearing green camo and red berets. Most of them were carrying rifles but the barrels had flowers in them. After a few minutes a couple of those people walked down the aisle of the train obviously looking for something. Not exactly sure what they were looking for but I was glad I looked more European than American with my long blonde hair and wire rim glasses. After about 5 minutes of being stopped, the people stepped away from the train and we went on our way. I found out later that the group was known as the Red Brigade which is a left wing terrorist group. Angels watching over us again.
When I got tired of reading and was sleepy, I folded down the seats in my cabin to make a large bed. About the time I got to sleep really well, someone was banging on my cabin door. I opened it and it was a conductor who wanted to see my passport since we crossed the Austrian border. He looked it over, then handed it back to me. After he left I fell back to sleep. If you have never slept on a speeding train going through mountains and tunnels, I recommend it. The motion of the train made me sleep really well.
The train arrived in Salzburg at 05:30 just as the city was waking up. Salzburg is a beautiful city with many parks and lots of flowers everywhere. I got a locker for my backpack at the train station and went out to explore the city.
First place I found was a pastry shop so I stopped in for a bagel. I was standing in line at the counter and overheard two older ladies behind me who were obviously tourists talking in English. They were wondering what to order pointing to the different pastries’ in the glass counter. When I got to the counter I ordered two bagels with butter and a coffee. The two ladies looked at each other, then at me. I looked back wondering what was going on. One of them said, “You speak English” I said, “Yes, I am from Texas” One of the ladies said, “Really? I could have sworn you were from here, I expected to hear you speak German. Sort of caught me off guard when you spoke English.” The other lady said, “You look German or Swedish.” I just smiled and said, “No, I’m a good ole American.” As I left the shop, I told them to enjoy their breakfast. Every once in a while I think about that conversation. I think it is funny how we judge someone based on the way they look and are shocked to find out that the first impression was wrong.
As I walked around Salzburg I found a good deal on ski boots and bought them. I paid $40 for the boots. In order to carry those boots, I ditched the box they came in and made a carry device out of spare hiking boot string a couple of washers and a piece of wood I found in a park. I ran the string through the boot buckles and together at the stick. I put the washers on the boot strings to keep them tightly together. I carved the piece of wood to smooth it up. I then tied the carry device to my backpack. Today, those ski boots are history after many years of use, but that carry device hangs from a shelf in my garage.
I took some pictures in Salzburg but since the batteries in my camera were growing weak, all my pictures were washed out.
The castle at the top of the hill is where the "Sound of Music" was filmed.
I ran across some other backpack travelers here in Salzburg I had met in Greece and Rome . We all had lunch together catching up on each other’s traveling stories. One guy told us about being kicked out of a park by local police here in Salzburg for sleeping overnight. Another told us about being robbed in Rome but fortunately his main backpack was in a locker at the train station. I told them about my Red Brigade encounter on the train ride to Salzburg.
After spending the day in Salzburg I caught the 23:45 train to Zurich.