Salzburg makes me happy

The gorgeous Mirabell gardens. At my insistence, we came here everyday...which wasn't a bad thing, as we caught a few free concerts here! Imagine the crisp cool air caressing your face and the wonderful music tickling your ears! Haaaaa truth is, the "cool air" was more like "cold wind"!
These beauties made me real happy!

We caught this on my cam on our hike up to the Salzburg fortress. I love walks where I catch unexpected surprises like this...
...unlike P, who was a lil' grumpy that he had to walk when we could have taken the funicular!
The impressive Hohensalzburg Fortress perched atop a cliff. We spent an educational day touring the castle with our audio guide.
Bird's eye view of Salzburg from the castle.
On one of the days, we took a 1-hour bus to the Salzburg Lake District (Salzkammergut). The bus makes several stops in Fuschl, St Gilgen, Strobl and Bad Ischl. I had done some research before we embarked on our journey and shortlisted St Gilgen and St Wolfgang!

Here in quaint St Gilgen. Obviously, Mozart reigns here too?!
From St Gilgen, it was a relaxing 40 min ferry ride to St Wolfgang. We sat at the top and froze our faces off! But it was really nice :)
The rain in St Wolfgang hampered our movements but it did not dampen our spirits. P was especially happy after buying his pet bull from a shop there at almost half the price compared to Salzburg city.
On our last day in Salzburg, we visited Schloss Hellbrunn Castle. We tried walking to the palace, and it did look possible from our map. However, an hour of walking and we were still nowhere close. Plus everyone we asked shook their heads and spoke in their halting English "quite far", so we gave up and took the bus eventually.

Here's a pic of the canary yellow palace.
The feature and highlight of our trip was the trick fountains in the palace grounds. This was a pleasure palace for the playful Prince Archbishop Markus Sittikus von Hohenems. He had water fountains and water holes installed all over the palace gardens to amuse and entertain his guests. At this particular banquet table, the water fountains, once activated, would wet all his guests except himself! The kids were having so much fun and us adults watching them had a good laugh too!