Danube Extravaganza: Excalibur, But Real! - Days 8 & 9

 Do a deer, a female deer, re a drop of golden sun, and mi…I love Salzburg!  

Mirabell Gardens

I had a brief 30 hour or so stay in the town and have already decided that someday I will return and hit up some of the countryside, as well as visit the places that were closed because it is winter.  I considered staying longer, but as some of the things I wish to do would require warmer weather, different clothes, or a different month, I decided to move onto Prague as I had originally planned.  With my arrival in Prague, Czech Republic, I will have now been to: USA (of course), Canada, Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Spain, Curacao, Ireland, Italy, Greece, Tanzania, Iceland, Nepal, the Netherlands, Hungary, Austria, and the Czech Republic.  

In order to get to Salzburg, I got up at 4:45 am to get on a train that was leaving at 5:38 am.  It was the second cheapest ticket, but also got me to Salzburg at 8:15, so I could have pretty much the entire day in the city.  As we approached the city I got excited because I could see mountains in the distance with snow.  While there was no snow in Salzburg, the mountains were a beautiful sight.  First thing I did was head to the hostel I was going to be staying at, and dropped off my luggage.  I also picked up a Salzburg Card which gave me basically free entry into everything I wanted to see on my visit.  Most cities those cards aren’t worth it to me because of how I schedule things out.  Perhaps if you were to do 2 intense days where you hit up everything, moving non-stop, then it might be worth it, but I ran the numbers when planning the trip and in the other cities it wasn’t worth it.

After dropping stuff off I just started to wander.  I knew what direction things were from the hostel and as how one of the things on my schedule was “Wander Old Town Salzburg”, I was doing exactly what I had planned.  Most of the buildings look like they jumped out of a movie set in the 1700s or maybe early 1800s.  I love it.  It still has that old timey feel to it.  I first headed into Mirabell Gardens which are next to Schloss Mirabell.  These gardens actually had some pansies planted in them, so did actually look somewhat like a garden.  These gardens are famous for the “Do, Re, Mi” steps and were the gardens that Maria and the Trapp kids ran through during the song as well.

Those are the "Do Re Mi " steps at the end are smaller than I thought they would be.

As I made my way through a still awakening Salzburg, I saw my name on the side of a building. Not my first name, but my Furst name. Turns out that there are some fairly famous confectioners in Salzburg who share my last name. They're the ones who created Mozartkugel, a small chocolate involving pistachio, nougut, and chocolate. Anyways...they also have some very tasty looking cakes, so I got a chocolate torte.

I slowly wandered towards Hohensalzburg, this old castle fortress up on top of a large hill overlooking the town.  There are two ways to get up to the castle: walk or take the funicular.  As my Salzburg card got me a free ride up, I figured I’d rather save myself 15 minutes of intensely steep walking.  I’m very glad I did.  No point in wasting extra energy when I’m already walking so much.  

The castle on the hill was built in various phases from around the 1200s to the 1700s.  The museum explained that as technology changed, so did the castle.  They updated the castle to make it more difficult to break through with the latest and greatest of technology.  The castle was intended to be a place for the citizens of the city to come to if anyone were to invade, and it would provide protection to them.  While it rarely was needed for those sorts of instances, it was used as full time housing for the Bishop Prince (or something like that).  It was rather hazy at that time because it was the Holy Roman Empire, etc.  Being a bishop was a lot different then, than now.  He basically was like the supreme leader of Salzburg.  The citizens were taxed and he built a castle to protect them if invaders came.  The citizens didn't like that later on and revolted against him.

One of the uses of the castle was to spot fire in the city.  Up until the 20th century, they kept a watchman up in the fire tower to look down at the city.  If fire was spotted they would fire a cannon to alert the town, the number of shots saying what district the fire was in.  They later installed this interesting bugling device that could be heard for a long distance and used to communicate with the folks in the city.  They had multiple arsenals and a granary to save food for the citizens if they ever needed to hold up in the castle.

One of the best parts of the castle was of course the view.  Up on top of one of the towers they had a panoramic viewing platform.  It was a sunny day with few clouds so the view was amazing.  I really could have stayed up there for a long time, but I felt I shouldn’t hog the space, so I took pictures in every direction and then headed back down.

However, instead of taking the funicular back down the side of the mountain, I walked down so I could get a different viewpoint.  Also, walking down meant I could swing by the Stift Nonnberg, which is famous as the convent from The Sound of Music.  I think you could actually go into the convent, but I wasn’t sure if you could at the time, so I didn’t.  Guess I’ll have to swing by the next time I’m in town.

"Reverend Mother, I have Sinned"  You might recognize this entrance to Stift Nonnberg from The Sound of Music

After getting back down into the Old Town, I stopped for lunch.  A kasekrainer hot dog, essentially a cheese filled hot dog.  It was so delicious, I went back again the next day too.  Probably because I haven’t had any sort of meat in over a week.  

After getting food, I went to Salzburg Cathedral.  The thing that immediately grabs you about this church is the stone carvings in the ceiling.  They’re super intricate.  It is also super impressive.  The dome of the cathedral was completely damaged when a bomb fell through it during WWII.  

My last stop for the day was Mozart’s birthplace.  The Mozart family had a decently sized apartment on the 3rd floor of a house right in the middle of the Old Town.  They had a pretty good set of displays in the rooms, talking about the history of the family, and then also about Mozart himself.  Why is it that so many famous people are so bad at money?  Apparently he died with loads of debt.  He should have let his wife control the money.  She was the one that helped get the family out of debt after his death by selling publishing rights and stuff like that.

After leaving Mozart’s birthplace, it was time to relax a bit.  Because I knew I had a limited time in Salzburg, I had done a lot of moving from one place to another rather quickly.  But now there were only a few things left on my list, so I felt like I could sit and relax.  And it was a lovely, warm day, so I joined the loads of people sitting on the banks of the river that cuts the city in two.

I headed back to the hostel to work out plans for the following day; things like figuring out where I was going to stay in Prague and how I was going to get there.  After I had successfully done that and got stuff sorted out, I figured I should actually see at least one of these cities after dark.  So far that is not something I had managed to do because I tend to be exhausted and worn out by like 7.  But I put my shoes back on and wandered back down to the river to take a picture of the castle up on the hill.

After a very restful night of sleep, I got up and headed out.  As I didn’t wake up in time to get up to the convent to hear the nuns singing at mass at 6:45, my main thing for the day was a visit to the Salzburg Museum.  Depending on how long that took, I figured I could wander a bit more.  I ended up buying some good (expensive) cheese to eat on the train and for the next few days.  And I found a watercolor postcard to add to my collection on my wall at home.  

On my way back to the hostel to collect my things, I wandered past Mozart’s house (as an adult), and back through the Mirabell Gardens.  Then I picked up my stuff and headed to the train station.  My route to Prague would have me riding to the town of Linz, and then transferring to a train up to Prague.  And now I’m sitting on a train writing up my post about Salzburg.  It is February 23rd.  I fly home on the 28th, so I’m down to just a few days.

An art display outside a church called "Gherkins"...the art, not the church.