I had almost 1000km ahead of me that day, so i woke up early. With eyes half-open, taking the luggage to the car, I went out of the building and… stopped.

Fog. What a fog. Like in movies.

Was 8 in the morning. So I said – I’ll hang around for a while, by the time I’m ready, it should lift. We eat, and then, around 9;30, I look out the window…

OK, this is going nowhere. And I have to go somewhere, so… around 10 I left. Just that Jane had some misunderstandings with local authorities, and the roads she was telling me to take had „forbidden” signs on them. Given the fact that I couldnt see a damn thing, I didnt risk anything and turned back, towards the city centre – from there I figured Jane should find an alternative road. Indeed.

The highway was pretty empty, but opaque with fog. Luckily I found a “rabbit”, a car that overtook me and was driving at ~140kmh, I kept decent distance, but stayed behind it, and thus was quite fast to get to the Austrian border.

I don’t know why I imagined that once in Austria, the fog will lift. It was evidently a wrong assumption.

I stopped to take some pictures,

to give an idea.

Ahead through the fog, no highway this time, through the villages, slowly… eventually reached Vienna, didn’t even see it coming. You couldn’t see anything coming.
You could soon after Vienna. Little by little, the fog was thinning.
In order to not get stuck to the steering wheel of boredom, I fixed a target on the way, to visit. Salzburg was perfectly place, exactly at the 500km mark.

Mile 1200: Salzburg.

I reached it at 4:30, little before sunset. Finding parking was not easy, but manageable, directly under the hill in the catacombs, I then asked a lady if it is worth climbing the respective hill. She said “iz nais”, so I did. Breath went out after 100meters, duh, age, but kept on going nevertheless.

Panorama didn’t impressn me much. Decent, but nothing fantastic.

The fortress on the other hill

combined with the two churches gives an interesting effect..

City across the river seems interesting too.

With that, I descended to downtown and headed for the city heart, under arcades

reaching the cathedral.

I didn’t want to enter, having seen quite a few, but I did eventually,

and didn’t regret it

at all.

On the other side, an interesting square, with a view towards the fortress

and a man on a bubble.

The man is a statue, obviously. Of Mozart.

In the meantime some real people were getting ready for a big chess game.

This was on the right side of the dome. On the left side, there was another square,

waiting point for horse carriages

This is where “old town” starts, with the Golden Lane

and many bicycles.

Quickly, I wanted to see the house where Mozart was born.

Today it is, of course, a museum.

I didn’t get in, but went back

to catch a view of the river

and the little fortification above, which I don’t know what it is.

Back

along famous chocolate shops

and historic houses (this is where Schubert lived)

on emptying streets…

Time to go home.

Mile 1500.

At home, two speed tickets were awaiting silently in the post box. Both, small records. One, 40 francs, for passing the speed limit by a margin between 1-5kmh. I had passed it with 1kmh. The second, 120 francs, for passsing it by a margin of 6-10kmh. I had, of course, 6kmh above.
Welcome back to the “real world”.