That Wolfgang. What a guy. He’s quoted in the museum narrative as saying to his father, “I’m not sure if I’m too smart for them or if they are too dumb for me.” He suffered greatly, having to put up performers who weren’t up to his music. “Grey head” and “Uneven” were adjectives he used to describe such failures. Ego? Sure, he wrote great music and was a prodigy performer of both violin and piano. But come on, give the lesser mortals a break. The sad part is that he died 21,000 euros in debt at age 35.

His father was a composer and performer in his own right. Wolfgang’s mother died at an early age. His father considered Wolfgang’s sister to be the finest female pianist in Europe, but she spent her life in her brother’s shadow, managing her father’s affairs.

The fact that we’re talking about Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart means that we’ve made it to Salzburg. That’s a big deal for us because it means we successfully:

• Found the Europcar rental office a mile or so from the hotel.
• Figured out how to run the Toyota C-HR’S nav system. No Apple Carplay, drat. We’d signed up for an Audi A3 but, “haven’t seen one of those in months,” the lady at the counter said.
• Proved we could navigate the city streets of both Munich and Salzburg without a major issue We chose the wrong branch of a Y intersection in Munich but that was quickly remedied.
• Cruised the A8 and other limited access roads between the two cities. The A8 is an Autobahn, which to me meant no speed limit whatsoever. Not true. Some sections are marked with a sign indicating there is no limit, but many sections were posted anywhere from 120 kim/h (70 mph) to 80 km/h (50 mph).
• We found the Salzburg parking lot from our host’s directions, although we had to park in the slightly farther away B lot rather than the A lot, which was closed.
• We found the lock box for the key, the elevator in a pedestrian passageway, found the front door and opened it. Sounds easy but try it in a place you’ve never been using scanty GPS instructions. The host’s instructions were quite good, however.
• Judy’s done one load of laundry and has another in the machine as I type. Hopefully, we’ve cracked the code on making the machine both wash and dry. It only washed the first load. Fortunately, our unit is well stocked with coat hangers.
• And this ain’t the Bayerischer or the Kempinski. This is a small kitchen/bed room and a small bath. Furnishings are vintage Ikea.
• We managed to keep starvation at bay. We had a hotel buffet before we left Munich but for lunch, we wandered the streets around our Airbnb and found a little sidewalk place where I had a salad with red climbing beans and Judy had a porchetta with ham. And an ice cream “pancake” for dessert. Tonight? We’ll go out and see what we find but it may boil down to be an ice cream. We’re tired and not all that ready for another gastronomic blow out. For breakfast we bought some strawberries, raspberries and black berries. We’ll score a pastry and maybe some orange juice and call that good.

Bottom line: another chunk of uncertainty has been lifted from our backs. We’ll find a way or two to screw up before our 13-day rental is done, but no more so than we would back in good old US of A. We can do this.

And that points up the fact that there are more than one types of “travel.” What we did with Tauck is easy: they plan it all, direct it all and handle all the issues as they arrive. What we did today and will do for the next 12 days is partially a case of seeing the sights of each locale, but half the battle/fun will be one of discovery: navigating from Point A to Point B, finding accommodations and finding out what each locale has to offer. Today we found the residence of the Mozart family and had a very nice tour with audio guides rather than a local tour guide hired by Tauck.

Our experience has been that we like to do both kinds of travel but sometimes the discovery trip is the one that we remember the best.

Our initial impression of Salzburg is first that it’s a big city with lots of tourists. I somehow came here with the idea that Salzburg was a sleepy little town with lots of musical heritage. It’s anything but sleepy – it’s vibrant, active with lots of music but lots of shopping and places to eat.

The other surprise for me is that Salzburg is mostly on level ground but there are several hills – mountains, really – that Salzburg is built around. Salzburg exists where there is no mountain nor river to get in the way.

Tomorrow we’re touring by bus in the morning on a Sound of Music trip that visits spots where the movie was filmed. We’re treating it as a city tour. We’ll have the afternoon to do more exploring on foot. In the evening we’re going to a marionette performance of the Sound of Music. Rick Steves recommends it so it can’t be that bad.