By the time we did park and make it to the kiosk, our only other (short tour) option was to do a 1hr bus tour. Considering the whole point of taking a tour in the first place was just to get a layout of the city and basic info so we could explore on our own after, neither of us really minded. We had just enough time to have a picnic lunch in the park before our tour started.
The tour itself was not impressive, there were 7 of us that got on a VERY stuffy/hot van (not a bus). It was hard to focus on anything because we were all concerned about the lack of air conditioning. Our guide spoke ridiculously fast and would also translate in French for the couple in front of us. To be honest, it was really difficult to tell when he was speaking English... about halfway through Nick gave up trying to follow what he was saying, “it’s too much thinking.” We did however manage to pick up some important info... like the fact that the Monks had their own brewery, and the beer garden opened up at 3pm. We did make a pitstop at the now Harvard University owned, Sound of Music house that they used in the movie (which apparently isn’t much less then we would have saw on the Sound of Music tour because a lot of the sites are actually in Germany).
In front of the Sound of Music house (from the movie)
Our tour guide dropped us off in the middle of town, where we now had some time to kill before our Mozart dinner. We wandered through the courtyards of St. Peters, shopped a little, stopped a few times just to be in the shade and have a cold drink. We saw where Mozart was born, of which the ground floor of the house is now a Spar. We saw houses built into the side of the hills (literally), and avoided the remnants of horse poop left by the horses pulling carriages, as we navigated our way through the city. By 4pm we decided to wander down the street to find the Augustiner Baue (the monk brewery). Unsure of whether or not we were in the right place, we passed by a building that had one lonely sign out front indicating that we had found it. When we walked inside, there was nobody there and multiple doors to choose from. Not sure if we were even allowed to be wherever we were, we kept going.... down the staircase, we started passing by food counters.... down more stairs and through the door outside, we found a HUGE beer garden, hundreds of people! It looked awesome! It was the funniest thing walking through that... nothing, nothing, nothing, PEOPLE! So many people... It was a huge hangout spot, there were families that brought a full BBQ picnic with them. There were so many tables to sit at, but none open. Thankfully an Australian couple saw us wandering around and offered to let us sit with them. They were on their honeymoon and we found out that they were very disappointed with Italian food as well (It wasn’t just us!!) We ended up chatting with them all the way up until we had to leave for our dinner concert.
buildings built into the hills.
Mozart's house.
Our Mozart dinner was amazing!! We were in the Baroque Hall of St. Peters. A small dining room that only sat about 60 people. It had huge vaulted ceilings, big sparkly chandeliers, and candles everywhere. It was very fancy looking. We had a three course 18th Century inspired dinner, and each course was broken up by a 20/30min set of Mozart music. A five piece ensemble and two opera singers. It was amazing to hear how the sound filled the room.
During the dinner part, we chatted with the couple from South Carolina, and the family from Madrid that were also at our table. It was fun talking to Adrian, his wife and his two daughters, partially because he was so excited to try and speak to us in English. The girls giggled at Nick when he imitated the songs. They laughed when Adrian pointed out that we “ate Mozart” (the chocolate powder on the desert was in the shape of Mozart.... we didn’t notice. We took a picture of it because of the music note.). Overall, it was a fun night! Good food (we’re still not sure what Caton is, but we ate it!), great company and live entertainment.
And then we stuck our heads in a fountain :)
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