You know the expression, “Into every life a little rain must fall …?” Well, Kongo found his fair share during a day outing from Linz to Passau via Salzburg and the Lake District of Austria. Leaving Linz early in the morning under a gray, cold drizzle that only grew worse as the day progressed, Kongo and friends rode the bus for this outing.

After leaving Linz Kongo’s tour went through the Lake District, also known as the Salzkammergut, for the first stop of the day at Mondsee and its 15th century Benedictine Abbey, recently made famous by being the location where the wedding scene in Sound of Music was filmed. Awkwardly, there was a funeral going on in the abbey at the time Kongo arrived so picture time was kept short and respectful. Kongo did find a nice coffee shop and Irish Coffee across the square from the abbey.

After another hour on the bus,  Kongo arrived in Salzburg, the birthplace of Mozart, a beautiful city on the River Salzach filled with picturesque streets, beautiful Baroque architecture and, unfortunately for Kongo, thousands of tourists operating umbrellas without a license in the narrow streets and alley ways. It started raining hard and got worse. It was cold, wet, and dreary and not a good day for picture taking unless you had an underwater camera which Kongo didn’t so he remained snug in his backpack while his best buddy did his best to get a few shots of some of the famous places and put Salzburg on the list of “must see” places on some other sunnier day.

On a pedestrian bridge over the River Salzach young couples signify their undying love for each other by attaching a lock to the railing and throwing the key into the river. City maintenance crews remove the locks each year but from the looks of it this key to your heart tradition will endure for some time.

If you are one of those women of a certain age who delight in shopping for unique Christmas ornaments year round (Kongo doesn’t fit into that category) then Salzburg is your kind of town.

Finally, in a drenching downpour, the Salzburg tour mercifully ended and Kongo boarded the bus for Passau. Along the way he passed through the small Austrian town of Braunau where Adolf Hitler was born.

Kongo’s tour guide insisted on keeping everybody in a happy mood by playing some kind of Bavarian polka music using accordions accompanied by enthusiastic hand clapping. This was followed up by the entire sound track from Sound of Music…not, as Kongo might put it: “Some of my favorite things.” Now the little monkey will be humming “Doe, a deer, a female deer ….” and visualizing happy happy Von Trapps skipping across hills alive with the sound of music all the way to Prague.

Travel safe. Have fun.