In Salzburg with Cornelia

It was great that our biking coordinated so well with a visit to Salzburg. It was easy to hop off the Austrian Danube bike route from Linz to take a 1.5 hours train up to Salzburg. We had an exciting greeting from Cornelia at the train platform. After we dropped off our bikes and panniers at her apartment, we headed to a traditional Austrian Beer Garden, the one Cornelia used to go to with her family as a child. You can bring your kids (to run around), your dog and even your own food!

Cornelia, a fellow cooking foody, ordered a box of locally grown produce for our stay with her

Cornelia lives in the apartment she grew up in. Here on the lovely balcony - hammock from Venezuela!

First - grab a ceramic beer stein from the shelf.

2nd - rinse it out. You don't really need to do this nowadays because the steins are clean, but in the past it was necessary.

Then you pay the cashier.

Finally, you get served from a wooden barrel - cask conditioned ale, which basically means that it's not pasteurized and naturally carbonated. Cask Conditioned

The brewery has a huge outdoor garden, which gradually filled up in the afternoon and at least 3 rooms indoors.

We stayed out in the country, about 20 km for the city at Cornelia's parents' home. View from their yard.

Putting the fresh produce to good use with a huge pot of veggie chilli - seasoned with Austrian beer, of course!

We only could eat part of this, so leftovers were frozen...leaving leftovers all over the world!

A beautiful day for a walk around the lake.

Austrians seem to love their gnomes too.

Friendly, neighborhood goats who quickly lost their interest in us once they realized that we were feeding them the same weeds they had inside their pen!

I fell in love with Maribel plums, scavenged off the ground from a tree in the neighborhood.

This Pale Ale was the closest we came to the IPAs were are accustomed to at home. Quite tasty!

Walking over to the gnome garden.

Cornelia with her favorite gnome from childhood.

And the beer gnome was Ian's favorite!

Gotta love a city that has same sex partner stop lights! Don't worry, their is a male version too.

Incredible chocolate store with over 350 different kinds ranging from the more typical flavors to ones that include pig's blood and bacon. We opted to go a bit more mainstream in our choices.

So nice that they offered several kinds to test, to help us choose.

Fresh, cold spring water, right in the middle of the city.

The old horse washing fountain.

Every business on this street had a traditional iron shop sign out front, including McDonalds.

No idea what the story is on these rubber toys, but we saw them in lots of shop windows.

Gorgeous city view from a bridge on the Salza River

Walk to a more trendy brewery to meet some of Cornelia's friends. Love the outdoor sidewalk restaurant seating.

Classic Die Weisse (white beer) Brewery beer posters

Finally...Cornelia's dog, Nebo arrived from Jordan. It only took all month for this to happen. Both are very happy to be reunited and Nebo is calm and curious in her new surroundings.