The wonderful thing about my plans are that they are "evolving." I was planning a one day ski trip - I am arriving into Basel around 6am as part of tour with a musical group - and I am off the whole day (this Sat.), actually until the next afternoon. So, although my hotel is paid for in Basel, now I'm thinking I may just drive up on Saturday and stay over in Wengen or Grindelwald and drive back to Basel Sun. midday (our concert is Sunday night.) And as far as the rentals, I was thinking of stopping somewhere on the way to rent stuff (I did that once on a day trip from Zurich to Haut-Ybrig.) Thanks for all the additional detailed info HH!!!

If you stay overnight, forget Grindelwald. It probably has more hotel rooms, but Wengen is far more attractive.

OT: What kind of musical group? (I may have a semiprofessional interest, depending on the answer).

HH: It is a jazz group...

That's cool... I love jazz. But for my semiprofessional interest I was looking for a choir or Christian college group.

Enjoy your trip!

The plans are still evolving. I mentioned my plan to our bus driver, and now he offered to take me to Lenzerheide, where he has friends with a cabin up the mountain. It turns that before picking us up last week, he was driving Daron Rahlves of the US Ski Team around Europe to all the races. More later!

I ended up having a great day and evening in Lenzerheide, actually in the town of Parpan. We got into Basel a little later than we expected as we were stopped for a while at the Swiss/German border, so after renting the car and getting thru Zurich traffic, we got to Lenzerheide around noon. The skiing was great. It was warm, but still LOTS of snow. Incredible vistas and great coffee with schnapps on the slopes. I skiied with a great guide named Daniel that was a friend of our bus driver, who ended up sleeping most of the afternoon (he had driven us all night from Nurnberg.) Then we had an incredible Fondue dinner with swiss white wine and schnapps at another friends slope-side town house. Not a bad off day at all!!! We stayed the night then drove back to Basel the next morning (actually this morning.) It was a little over 2 hours drive without traffic. It definetly would have closer and quicker to go to Engelberg or Wengen, but it turned out to be a great trip - I hope to return for longer next time. Now we are off to Salzburg tonight, but i don't think I'll be skiing there tomorrow - I'm too sore!!!!

Great to hear that you had a good time. Too bad you were here for such a short time. Take care of yourself and don't stuff yourself with too many of those "Austrian knoedels". :D

Non-skiing things to do with free time in Salzburg:

1. As a musician, you'll certainly know about Mozart's two homes that you can tour in Salzburg.

2. Position yourself at the Burg (castle/fortress) or the walking path up to it, with a view over downtown Salzburg at a few minutes before noon and wait for all the church bells to let loose at the top of the hour.

3. What musician doesn't love The Sound of Music? You can take a "Sound of Music" bus tour that takes you to the sites where the movie was filmed (but not to that mountainside pasture where "Do, a Deer" starts, unfortunately). If this appeals to you, beware that the Austrians have heard of the von Trapp story, but generally know nothing about the movie or the Broadway musical (though I hear a revised version is now playing in Vienna for the first time), so you'll probably need to check with a tourist office for tour details. For the quick and cheap version of this tour, visit the Nonnberg Abbey at the (east?) end of the Burg complex. This is where Maria was a nun in real life, and you can visit the church where she and Captain von Trapp were actually married. Scenes of the family hiding from the Nazis at the abbey were filmed in the courtyard here. You can also find the cemetery where the family hid from Rolf near the Pferdeschwemme (horse fountain) down in Salzburg proper, and the Mirabell Gardens appear in "Do, a Deer." The bus tour does not visit these sites, but does take you to the church where the wedding scene was filmed, to the gazebo used in "Sixteen Going on Seventeen" and to a spot across the lake from the house that served as the von Trapp family home. On the other hand, I can see a jazz musician having trouble with having to appear too cool to fall for The Sound of Music.

4. If you can get a free day or long afternoon, drive or take a train to Hallstatt. It's a wonderfully picturesque town climbing up a cliff on the edge of a deep and narrow lake surrounded by Alps. If you arrive by train, you have to take a boat across the lake to get to the town. There are Roman ruins underneath the sport/tourist shop in the center of this charming town, and you can tour the salt mine atop the cliff overlooking the town, where there is also a burial ground for the prehistoric (ca. 23,000 b.c., I think) civilization that once mined the salt, and for whom the "Hallstatt Era" is named.

5. I almost forgot: If you sample the apple strudel (Apfelstrudel) (and you definitely should), try it with vanilla sauce (VanillesoBe) (the B is shorthand for "ss"). It may seem strange to our tastes, but it's a wonderful, and authentic, combination.