Day 46 - Salzburg to Belgium

My spot in Linzer Strasse, Salzburg.

Since I last wrote, I have been to Salzburg, Austria; to Gent, Belgium; and to Namur, in Belgium's south. All three are absolutely gorgeous cities, and I had a blast while I was there.

Salzburg, as many of you may know, was the birthplace of Mozart and the setting of the film, The Sound of Music. It is the fourth largest city in Austria, with between 150,000 and 200,000 inhabitants. I stayed in the Yoho Youth Hostel on Paracelsusstrasse, where they play The Sound of Music every morning on the DVD player. This is really cool for tourists, I can't imagine how much the staff despise the movie, though. I watched it twice.

I experienced some awesome nightlife, and happened to be there at the same time as an awesome festival, with rides and pretzels and currywurst and beer and chocolate.. you get the idea. Heaps of fun.

I also had an unbelievably generous audience in the streets of Linzer Strasse. Thank you so much to those who bought CD's ! :)

Salzburg is a beautiful city. I had an awesome few nights there.

Me eating some Belgian fries with Sari

From there I went to Gent, which is a city in Northern Belgium where they speak Flemish Dutch. There are roughly 250,000 people living there, and they have a seriously rockin' student community. I was able to tag along to the Student Kick-Off, which was an awesome party with bands and beer and lots of fun.

I was bewildered by how beautiful the streets are in Gent. Truly the most beautiful city I have visited thus far on the trip. I busked beside the canals, which was a lovely setting. Thank you to those bought a CD :)

From Gent I travelled southwards, to Namur.

Namur is the capital of Wallonia, the Southern (French-speaking) portion of Belgium. It has a population of a little over 100,000 people and is home to a large number of students. On Saturday mornings there's a market in the centre of town, and on Avenue Cardinal Mercier there's a bakery that sells stuffed toys as well as delicious pastries.

Amazing busking in Namur's Saturday market

I have fallen in love with this city. It is gorgeous and small enough to walk around in a day. I spent Sunday afternoon with Maude walking around La Citadelle, which is an old medieval fortress perched upon a large hill. From the top you get a beautiful view over the city.

This morning I busked in the markets and was absolutely blown away by how generous and friendly everybody is here. People kept approaching me just to chat and wish me well on my travels, and an astounding number purchased CD's. Merci mille fois à vous, votre générosité m'a vraiment touché :)

Some passers-by took photos

So far I think my destinations in Belgium have been the prettiest. Both by their architecture, as well as their inhabitants.

There's a vet school here in Namur, so I'll have to go and investigate that on Monday :)

Otherwise, I have nothing more to recount at this time. I'll write another blog post from my next destination, which is yet to be decided ! Ah, the thrill of aimless wandering.

:)

Tim