Golling & Mini Golf

Today we headed south of Salzburg to the town of Golling, about twenty-five minutes away. It is a picturesque place with a main street of old buildings and interesting shops in a valley surrounded by mountains. There is a gorgeous old church high up on a hill with perhaps one of the best graveyard views out there. We had a terrific lunch outside on the terrace of a traditional Gasthaus which had great food and great prices.

After lunch we took a quick look at the castle, which was a very quick look since it was closed for renovations and you could get no further than the entry gate where you could peer at the piles of construction materials lying in the courtyard. From there we headed to Aqua Salza, a 'sauna and swimming paradise' that was meant to be the highlight of our outing. We had seen an article/self-promotion in the newspaper on Friday and thought it sounded like a great place to go. Another bust. The pool was long and rectangular with two swimming lanes. Attached to those were two semi-circular areas in which we could see a handful of children playing. There was a large, winding tube slide sticking out of the building that ended in a tank not visible from the window outside. And there was a small circular pool outside that did not seem to be in use. Perhaps the sauna area is paradise, but for the money, the pool looked like a very sorry investment.

Nikolas had been cranky through much of our outing to that point for some unknown reason. He thought maybe swimming would be okay, but he'd much rather go to Golling, he said. Golling? We're in Golling, we said! But I want to go to Golling, he insisted. It wasn't until we figured out that he thought Golling meant Mini Golf (You see the connection, don't you???) and was utterly disappointed with the closed down castle and dinky swimming world that his mood started to improve. We cut our losses in Golling and headed back to Salzburg for some Mini Golf (or Golling, if you'd rather call it that).

There's a classic Mini Golf place not far from the tennis center where Nikolas plays on Wednesdays. It is a rustic course that looks like it was made by hand, someone pouring their own cement and painting it, incorporating natural rocks to create the challenges for different holes. There's even an off-course hole where you start on a cement slab and end on a cement slab, but have to cover uneven grass and thread two trees in between the slabs. Nikolas started off his 18-holes of home-made mini-golf course fun with a hole-in-one. It was beginner's luck. He tends to corral the ball like a field hockey player might rather than waiting for it to come to a complete stop so as to aim and shoot, so most holes took Nikolas a while to complete. With a score of 163 for Nikolas and a score of 62 for Peter, you'd think he would have gotten frustrated, but he loved every minute of it!