Jess's Brain Room

Yesterday was Aqua Dome day! I think we did our one day in Salzburg proud, which makes me happy since I feel like I owed it to somewhere that was a salt fortress. On our way to the Aqua Dome, we stopped at Innsbruck for a quick look around and a coffee, and to stretch our legs before the last hour to the Aqua Dome.

We checked into the biggest room we’ve stayed in so far, that overlooks mountains and looks like a wooden sauna, it’s lovely. We wasted no time getting out to the spas and pools, trying out the “martini glass” outdoor ones first. We’d read a few reviews that it’s difficult to navigate around this place, and no kidding. There’s maps everywhere but it makes no sense, and you have to sort of get used to the corridors, but we managed to get there in the end. Look at this place! There’s 3 martini glasses of different heights, each with a different attraction. The top one is the hottest, and is a sulphur pool, although it really only smells mildly of sulphur. There was a little structure in the middle that cycled through a mushroom type fountain and some bubbles, then there was a bubble at your back stage. The second one down was a little cooler and had lounge chairs in the water with head rests, this was our favourite because you could just sit and watch the mountains (we came back here at night, and did the same thing, marvelling at the torches which suggested people were climbing it at night, as well as the cross made of flames that apparently a religious event that's only this one night a year!). The last one down was cooler again and had massage spots all around the seats.

The next part of our adventure didn’t generate any photos; we took a few (above) where it was allowed, but the rest of the areas are no phone zones, because a lot of them require “no textiles” which seems like a poor but cute translation for “no clothes allowed”. After the initial awkwardness of not knowing exactly what do to, where to look, and where to put your stuff, you quickly get over it and start enjoying the amazing facilities. There’s different wings with different things to do, with a variety of hot and cold pools with different minerals, and huge structures like an indoor cave with rain, a waterfall, and steam, relaxing swings in a dry salt room, lounge type chairs in a wet salt chamber, and all sorts of themed saunas and steam rooms with different scents and ways to relax. It is fabulous, my skin has never felt better and I feel like I can breathe deeply and easily despite the altitude.

When doing bit of googling to figure out etiquette, I saw a few reviews that disparaged the place for having the nudity limitations in a lot of the areas (these people were complaining that they missed out on a lot) but I think it’s such a shame that people can’t get over it and just enjoy the culture without over thinking it. I’m sure if they just spent 5m trying they’d quickly realise it’s a non issue, and not miss out on what I’m sure is the best spa experience we’ll ever have!

The most memorable thing so far was the “rosemary infusion” we accidentally took a part of in one of the larger saunas. Shortly after we’d sat down, a staff member walked in a brought in a bucket of ice, and another bucket, and we assumed it was for tending to the hot coals. However, he kept leaving and coming back in with a variety of different objects including a small orange fan (one of those wooden ones that folds, with material), a very large red fan of the same type, something that looked like a hammer, a flag, and a couple of colourful towels. He then closed the door and said a lot of things in German, at which point we realised we were busted, but thankfully he then asked, in English, if anyone didn’t understand what he just said and we sheepishly raised our hands. The “infusion” was 3 rounds of putting a big ball of shaved ice onto the coals, pouring some rosemary infused water over it, then softly smashing the ice with the hammer thing (that was also used to pour the water, it had little holes in it). Each time the man walked around the room and used a combination of the fans, towels, and flag to sweep the steam directly onto each person, which was like having the most shockingly hot rosemary bushfire air being rushed onto your body. It was brilliant, we got the schedule and are planning to go to as many of these events as we can!

Dinner and breakfast were both fantastic, and today we’ll spend the entire day at the spa, I’m relaxed already.

Sunday, June 29, 2025

2025-06-29 St Wolfgang to Salzburg - Hohensalzburg Fortress to Mirabell Palace, Augustiner Brau Mulln Beer Garden

Today we said goodbye to the paradise that is St Wolfgang and drove to Salzburg. We stopped off and did some washing while waiting for checkin, and then dumped out stuff and headed out to explore the town.

We didn’t have a huge amount of time (a day starting from 3pm), but we really packed everything in. We went straight to the funicular to Hohensalzburg Fortress and enjoyed the sweeping views of the city, then headed down to the old town, aiming to see some sights on the way to Mirabell Palace.

Well, we did see the sights (Mozart’s Birthplace, the beautiful Getreidegasse street and the main squares), but we did so with the backdrop of the unexpected Unity Parade, which pumped the streets with EDM and crowds, which we thought made the tour of the city that much more exciting.

We ended our walk at Augustiner Bräu Mülln, the oldest brewery in Salzburg, and had our fill of locally brewed beer and local Austrian cuisine. The beer was fantastic, and tasted even better out of the ginormous ceramic steins that you get refilled after washing them yourself in the little fountains. We got 2L each (1L x 2 refills) which one of the bartenders assured us was the absolute minimum amount of beer to have, and I think we balanced it by eating one of everything on offer, including pork knuckle, pork belly, bratwurst, sauerkraut, salted radishes, potato crisps, horseradish, and copious amounts of mustard.