Just a warning...you may notice a difference in writing for this post. While on the trip, I was trying to document it on my phone with the blogger app. The phone/app deleted my post twice. In frustration, I had my husband write this post...he decided to write it from my perspective. It's hard when you've written a story twice, to add the same passion in your third frustrating time. With that being said...enjoy the man story telling version of our day (with a few edits from me) ;-) I know he loves me for this, because he hates to write. Thank you husband!!
This morning we woke up and had breakfast at our favorite Welheim German diner. For a chocolate milk and an amazing raisin cinnamon roll, it cost us a little less than 3 Euros. A great price! We then traveled 30 minutes to Munich from Weilheim, and then caught our train to Salzburg! We have Eurorail, so all this travel was included in the Eurorail price. The train ride is only about an hour and a half long, which is not bad, considering that it's in Austria. The ride was beautiful, through the Bavarian countryside and mountains. Since we were up so high, the clouds felt very low, almost resting on the little country towns we passed through. It made for beautiful scenery!
We got to Salzburg, and it was a little rainy, but not too bad. We put on our coats and headed toward the old town. The walk to the town of Salzburg from the train station is only about 5 minutes. Don't wait around for a bus! While walking, we stumbled across Mirabell Gardens. For those that don't know, this is where the Sound of Music was filmed and where Maria Von Trapp (from the movie) and the kids sung part of their amazing song Do Re Mi. Of course, I had to dance around and sing like in the movie! The gardens are filled with colorful flowers and statues. We even found a troll garden, with funny looking little troll statues! It also has the best view of the city here!
We then continued walking out of the garden towards the old town of Salzburg. The Mirabell Gardens are located in New Town Salzburg. There is an old town and new town, because the new town part was almost completely destroyed by WWII. On our walk, we crossed a lock bridge. It had FAR LESS locks then Paris does. After crossing the bridge, we arrived at Getreidgasse Street, and it takes you right to the main square! Just a little note on Getreidgasse, they have really cool metal signs hanging above each store door. Back in the day, the signs used to just be pictures so people could have an idea of what was sold inside. Illiteracy was so bad, that pictures were more useful than words if you wanted business.On this street, you will also find the home that composer Wolfgang Mozart lived in until he was 17. As you follow this street, it takes you to a big square that has a cool name with "-platz" at the end of it. The streets are filled with talented street musicians and beautiful music. Salzburg is the birthplace of Mozart, so a lot of tourist attractions are based around that. Honestly, I am much more interested in the city's Sound of Music and architecture history, but to each their own!
There are several churches right in the center of old town, so we started with Franzkirche. This church has a marble lion that gaurds the pulpit. I touched it. :)
We were then making our way back to the largest church, but caught a glimpse of St Peter's church, and decided to check that out first. In saint Peter's church are the remains/tomb of saint Rupert, who named Salzburg a long time ago. The name actually represents how Salzburg is a salt town...meaning salt was/is transported on the river that runs through Salzburg. Outside of ST Peter's church is the cemetery. It is the most peaceful and beautiful cemetery I have ever been to! Each grave site has flowers and is well taken care of, and the little hills make for a nice stroll. It was the inspiration for the cemetery set used in the sound of music near the end of the movie when the family was escaping, and I could see how it may look creepy at night, but it was very interesting to see today, as we walked around and read the inscriptions on the grave stones.
On our way back to the big church, Dom zu Salzburg, we caught a whiff of something amazing! It was a little pretzel stand, selling all kinds of giant pretzels. The chocolate covered pretzels caught my eye, but Kevin chose a salt pretzel, so we shared that and decided we'd come back for a chocolate one later! The pretzel was so good!
We finished it first before entering the church. This church was where Mozart performed a lot of his music and where he got baptized. The baptismal font he was baptized in is on the left as soon as you walk in. A really cool thing about this church is that it's darker near the entrance and gets brighter as you walk up the aisle toward the dome. On this walk, in the dark part, you will notice painting of the tortures Christ when through to reach the crucifixion. In the bright part of the dome, represents the Resurrection. On the outside of the church, you will find a statue of Mother Mary. If you step back and view the statue, facing the church, and get at the right angle...you can see angles on the church holding a crown and crowning her. Also, the church has gone through many construction projects over the years from destruction by fires and a WWII bomb. You would never know this just by looking at it though.
By this time, it wasn't really raining anymore, so we decided to go up to the Hohensalzburg Fortress! When you buy a ticket for the fortress, you can include the ride up by funicular railway to the castle and back, for a few extra euros. We decided to buy the ride, since the walk looks intense! Plus the view from the railway is beautiful! The fortress is on top of a giant hill that the city is set against, and it is a steep climb! During the tour, we learned that Salzburg was never attacked during all the wars of the middle ages, probably because no one wanted to try to attack that castle! I definitely understand that! The fortress was built for intimidation purposes, and it worked. They had a torture chamber inside with the popular torture tools of the day, but they were never, if rarely, used. Only once was the fortress surrendered during war, and that was smartly so to Napoleon Bonaparte.
View from the VERY TOP of the fortress!
The views from the castle are amazing, as the city is just below and spreads out across the river and into the valley. On all other sides is beautiful green farmland with little red roof houses. We took lots of pictures, as the views here are unbeatable! We then did the tour of the castle, which included a medieval torture chamber, which was never used, a puppet room, and the royal chambers. It was very different from the castle we saw in Krakow, Poland, since the Salzburg castle was much older.
We headed back into town after we were done with the castle, and headed over to get our chocolate pretzel! But, they were all out, so sad!! I guess everyone else thought they looked good too, and I'm sure they didn't last long.
It had started to sprinkle a little bit by this time, so we wrapped up our visit to Salzburg by going by Mozartplatz, a square with a statue of Mozart, which apparently looks nothing like him!
We also kissed in this tunnel...which means that our love is now eternal ;-)
Sound of Music cow we saw on our walk back to the train station!
Views from the fortress!
It was a great day, and I absolutely love Salzburg! It is a beautiful, clean, fun city that you must go see if you have the chance! It is definitely in our top 5 places to visit, if not top 3! LOVE Austria!!
Ta ta for now!
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