Of all the places we visited, Salzburg was my absolute favourite. It was small, clean, beautiful, easy to navigate, perhaps more touristy than other places we visited and yet still completely charming. It rained the entire time we were there and it didn't put a damper on our adventure at all (well, okay, maybe for the 10 minutes Neil was without an umbrella -- best 10 euro ever spent!)
Salzburg, Austria is world-famous as the birthplace of composer and child prodigy Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The compact old town has numerous ecclesiastical and secular buildings from the Middle Ages to the 19th century but is particularly famous for its Baroque edifices. In fact, the old town center was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1996.
Salzburg is also where the movie, The Sound of Music, was filmed. Austrians, in general, hate the Hollywood film as it warps fact with fiction. Further, they get extremely agitated when people assume that the music in the film is Austrian. All music was written and composed by Rodgers and Hammerstein -- not even the song, Edelweiss, is authentically Austrian. Still, while they may turn their noses up in the air and, in general, despise the film -- they can't help but smile at the tourist dollars spent as a result of this most beloved film classic. Neil and I contributed to that flow of tourist dollars. We began our stint in Salzburg by racing from the train station to catch the 2PM tour.
I will admit to being slightly disappointed in this tour. A lot of the sights, like the Von Trapp family mansion, are now privately owned so they could only be viewed from afar. This was not clearly stated in the brochure, so in that respect, I found it a touch disappointing. That said, I'm still glad we did the tour and I must say that Neil was an absolutely awesome husband for tagging along. He didn't complain once... and yes, he would have been justified in complaining as, you see, we were encouraged to sing along to the songs from the film between stops. Needless to say, Neil took full advantage of the bar on the bus.
Afterward, we wandered through the Mirabell Gardens (pictured at the start of this post) where there were amazing views of the city. You can see the gardens, the blue-green steeples popping out from the old town and the forbidding looking Festung Hohensalzburg (High Fortress) up on the hill in the distance.
Day 2 brought rain. Even so, we wandered through the old town taking in the Cathedral, the Mozartplatz, Mozart's birth place and more! We walked along the Getreidegasse, a street lined with shops and restaurants. All businesses on this street are required to display a Baroque styled wrought iron signs -- even the McDonald's! We then ventured through the old town up towards the Hohensalzburg Fortress.
Just before the funicular (think train) up to the fortress lay St.Peter's church and cemetery. Here's an interesting factoid: in Austria, you must rent your burial spot. Every 10 years or so, your family is sent a rent bill and if there is no one to pay the bill, your remains get chucked. As a result, none of the plots we looked at were more than 150 years old. While it may be rather morbid to visit a cemetery, St. Peter's was simply beautiful with every plot perfectly and beautifully maintained by family members.
Festung Hohensalzburg (literally "High Salzburg Fortress" in German) sits on Festungberg hill. It is one of the largest medieval castles in Europe. Construction of the fortress began in 1077 under Archbishop Gebhard von Helffenstein. In Salzburg, the Archbishops were powerful political figures, and they expanded the castle to protect their interests.
The fortress was simply massive. It was like a city in and of itself. We took the tour which included seeing the torture chambers and archbishop's residence. Parts of the fortress have been made into museum exhibits to demonstrate life inside the fortress. It was all very interesting. The views from up here were magnificent -- even though this particular day was overcast. I still think I got an amazing shot of the old town from up in the fortress. The picture came at a bit of a price. As it had been raining all day, the stairs were extra slippery. Just before snapping this shot, I took a bit of a stumble on the stairs. The only thing hurt was my pride -- I recovered in time to stop what could have been an ugly fall. It had apparently looked pretty bad as many other tourists around me could be heard gasping as I slammed into the railing.
The next day, we got up early to do a half day tour to Berchtesgaden, Germany. This was only a half hour from Salzburg and it was home to the Kehlsteinhaus, also known as Eagle's Nest. The Kehlsteinhaus was built as a 50th birthday present for Adolf Hitler. The Eagle's Nest was meant to be a retreat for Hitler and a place for him to entertain visiting dignitaries. It is situated on a ridge at the top of the Kehlstein mountain (1834 m) -- which means that it offered amazing views of the surrounding countryside. Again, we were hampered by crummy weather. It was so cold that there was a good dusting of snow at the top of the mountain. While up on the mountain, the skies cleared up enough that we got a bit of a view -- still, I think this trip would have been 10 times better on a clear sunny day.
After this, we toured the town of Berchtesgaden before venturing back to Salzburg. Then we took the train to Munich.
To see all the pictures from Salzburg, click here.
To see all the pictures from Eagle's Nest and Berchtesgaden, click here.
Next stop: Munich