Once I had made it onto the train, which was very exciting and which you read about in my last post, we had a very long (three hours) and enjoyable train ride to Salzburg. I've decided I absolutely love traveling by train. It's so incredibly relaxing and prettier than flying. Consequently, at the end of the semester when I'm dragging Erika and Paul around Europe behind me (they're going to be very tired), we'll be going mostly by train unless we have to cross water. I took some pictures on the train, but not all of them came out good, and I also had a very nice nap. We got to Salzburg a little over three hours after we left Vienna, and we had stopped at a lot of little towns on the way, one of which was St Valentin -- and Paris thinks they have a monopoly on romance. Ha! Austria has a whole town dedicated to it.
When Andre, Barbara, Mandy, and I got off the train, our first impulse was to take pictures of the amazing mountains. I never got over that impulse the entire time I was there, so there are a LOT of pictures of mountains.
Andre had been in charge of accommodations, so he had the directions to where we were staying. We had to change buses and while we were waiting for the second bus, we wandered into the Mirabell Gardens. Since it's not quite spring here yet, there weren't a ton of flowers out, but it was still very pretty. We took some pictures of statues and made funny faces (Mandy and Barbara!) and then caught our next bus.
It seemed like the bus just kept driving and driving and driving, and we all started wondering what Andre was thinking when he booked this place. By the way, his whole reason for this particular place was that breakfast was included. I think I might have given him a Look, when he said that the first time. Finally, the driver told us that we had reached our stop and that we could get off. We were pretty far outside of the city, maybe about twenty minutes or so, and the mountains seemed so incredibly close.
The place we were staying turned out to be a beautiful and quaint bed and breakfast. It was called Haus Am Moos and was run by a man and his wife. We didn't stay in the main house, but in the converted barn. The ceilings were low and the decor was amazing. Ours was more like a suite because it had two bedrooms, a kitchen, and what I thought was a ginormous bathroom. Everything was done in Mozart and Sisi decorations. It was adorable, and it felt just like we had walked into a storybook. Right outside our windows, we could see the mountains and of course, this inspired more picture taking! :-)
It was getting late, and we needed to go into town to get dinner. Mandy's sister had studied abroad in Salzburg a few years ago and made some recommendations. We were going to hunt down a place called Pasta and Co for dinner. It was supposed to be very good and relatively inexpensive. By the time we got into town, it was getting dark, and getting kind of cold too. It took a while to find the restaurant, but we got to see a lot of the city. I have some pictures from then, a lot of them with mountains, but I took a lot more the next day.
When we got to the restaurant, I got to speak German, which was very nice, and I guess I got my point across because things happened the way I wanted them to. But then I pulled my hand out of my pocket and the pinkie finger on my left hand was totally colorless. Like scarily so. And I didn't have feeling in it. Barbara told me to suck on it, it would kind of pull the blood back into it so it wouldn't turn black and fall off. It took a while to get everything all nice and colorful, but my pinkie is still attached to my hand and fully fuctioning, so it's all good. For dinner, I got risotto with seafood, and it was so so good. We all took pictures of our food, which is starting to become a tradition, and of course, The Finger. Afterwards, we walked around a bit more and took some more pictures.
One of the pictures we took was of a shadow that a statue was casting on a house. On Facebook, Barbara captioned it as the ghost of one of my victims. This whole thing came about when we first got to the B&B because Mandy was looking around and said that she had found the knife drawer. Andre told her to not show me because he thought of all of us that I would be the one that could be the serial killer. I'm not quite sure how, because he then went on to say that I was the belle of the ball and a serial killer all rolled up into one. The joke is still living on, mostly because whenever someone mentions dying, I tell them that we can just toss them into the Danube and nobody would know.
It was getting a bit late, and we had to make sure we got on the bus in time, so we headed back to the station and watched some guys trying to do handstands on their skateboards. They weren't successful. Once we were back at the B&B, we turned on the TV and played Uno. We watched "The Nanny" dubbed into German, and let me tell you, it just isn't the same without The Voice. I think we played Uno for the next couple of hours, and let me tell you, its the greatest card game of all time, at least in Europe. I think I might have managed to win once, and the other girls did, but Andre just didn't have any luck. We turned in relatively early so we could be up and moving early the next morning and get the most out of out time in Salzburg.
I guess the whole finger thing was pretty traumatic because I had horrible dreams that night about my whole hand turning white and I couldn't get it to turn back to color! It was just a little freaky...
The next morning we were all up and at breakfast by 9:30, and out of the B&B by 10:00. Breakfast was very nice -- your typical European breakfast with breads and jams and some cakes and eggs. They also had the absolute best tea I've ever had. The flavor was Irish Cream, and it was so sweet and creamy without adding anything. Ever since, I've been searching the internet for the same kind so I can buy it in bulk. Yum.
Before we left the B&B, we asked which attractions we should see while we were here. The man at the B&B told us that we should definitely see the Fortress and the Dome, as well as a small cemetery and the Sound of Music gazebo. Since the gazebo was the thing furthest from the city, we went there first.
The rest of Hellbrunn wasn't open because it was kind of early on a Saturday morning and nobody was there yet. However, the park was beautiful. And I plan on taking Erika and Paul back there so we can see the Water Garden there too. We found the gazebo and performed a rendition of "Sixteen Going on Seventeen" for the crazy-looking European squirrels. Andre even got somebody to take a picture of us. It was really cute, and super cool to see something that had been in a movie like that.
The highlight of our time at the park was playing on the kids' playground that wasn't too far from the gazebo. They had the niftiest toys there, and of course, the view was wonderful, so we had another fit of moutain picture-taking. We all played on the zip cord toy, and took lots of pictures...Andre's came out the best.
Then we made our way back to the city and visited the Mirabell Gardens again. Like I said earlier, they were very pretty. We spent more time there on Saturday and took a lot more pictures. They had statues of unicorns and pegasuses, but no unipegs. They also had nifty little statues of gnomes and lots of flowers. I can't wait until Paul and Erika get here and we go back because everything should be in bloom by then and it'll be amazing. Here's a bit of information on the gardens before we move onto what else I got to see.
The world-famous Mirabell Gardens were built along a north-south axis and oriented towards the Hohensalzburg Fortress and the Salzburger Dom cathedral. The original gardens were re-modelled according to plans by Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach under the reign of Prince Archbishop Johann Ernst Thun in 1689.
The “Grand Parterre” is the oldest part of the Mirabell Gardens that is still preserved. If you enter the parterre from the Markartplatz (where Mozart’s living house and the Doppler birthplace are), you will encounter an inner and outer balustrade that is flanked by copies of the two Borghesian fencer couples from the late 17th century. The inner couple was made by A. Götzinger, the outer one by M. B. Mandl.
you will see statues of Roman gods from 1689: Diana, Flora, Minerva, Ceres, Pomona. Venus, Vesta, Juno and Chronos, Bacchus, Jupiter, Mars, Hercules, Vulcan, Hermes and Apollo. These statues were made by B. van Opstal.
The Grand Parterre is embraced by a marble railing decorated with vases by Fischer von Erlach. In the heart of the garden, you will see a large fountain, with four statue groups around it: the rape of Prosperina, rape of Helena, Aeneas and Anchises, and finally Hercules and Antaeus. These statues were made by Ottavio Mosto in 1690.
Next to the main part of the Grand Parterre, set apart a little towards the Mirabellplatz Square, you will see a court with a Papagena fountain echoing the Papageno Fountain in the Pfeiffergasse. This court also hosts the “Orangerie”, which is still used as a greenhouse and can be visited without charge. To the opposite of the Orangerie there is a pavilion that is used by the “Salzburger Barockmuseum”, the Salzburg Museum of Baroque.
of the Mirabell Gardens just along the backside of the Mirabell Castle. It is directly attached to the Grand Parterre and also bears a fountain in its core: a Pegasus statue that was transferred to this location in 1913, previously it had been part of a horse well in front of the Mirabell Castle.
However, the Pegasus was made of copper by Kaspar Gras for the well on the Kapitelplatz near the Salzburger Dom cathedral in 1661. There it stayed until 1690. After that time, it was used for the well on the Mirabellplatz Square until the great fire of 1818, and finally transferred to its current location in 1913.
The Pegasus fountain is a good starting point to run down the hedge arcade along the Grand Parterre: this is what Fräulein Maria and the Trapp children did in the movie “The Sound of Music” and remarkably popular with many visitors of the site. Don’t forget to embarrass yourself by singing your favourite “Sound of Music” songs!
Halfway through the arcades, you can enter the hedge maze with the “Heckentheater” or “hedge theatre”, a playful touch in the most wonderful Baroque tackiness from 1717. The Heckentheater is still used for performances in the summer, including concerts of the Salzburg Festival.
North of the Zwergerlgarten you will get over the Freitreppe stairway from 1894 to the “Vogelhaus” or “Voliere”, a house with an iron grid dome in which birds were kept for display to please the Prince Archbishop and his guests. It dates back to 1700 and is used for the display of art exhibitions today.
North of the Vogelhaus is the beginning of the extensive Mirabell Park, including the “Rosenhügel” or “Rose Hill” with a beautiful view all over the Small Parterre towards Salzburger Dom and Hohensalzburg Fortress. Especially in the evenings this spot is considered to be a meeting point for homosexual men. (borrowed from visit-salzburg.net)We didn't actually go into the Dome like we were told to, but we walked around the old part of the city a while longer, and found some other churches to visit. One of them was the Kollegienkirche, or College Church. They conduct a lot of their sermons and such in English, and the interior of the church is very pretty. The dome itself is incredibly high, and I had to take two pictures to fit it all in.
On the Universitätsplatz ("University Square”), a farm market takes place every Monday to Friday. The square leads up to another elaborate Baroque church of Salzburg, the Kollegien- or Universitätskirche. It was built under the management of Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach (who also built Markuskirche and Dreifaltigkeitskirche) and dedicated to “Unserer Lieben Frau” (Our Blessed Lady).
Instead of an altar, the Kollegienkirche initially held only a tabernacle of stone; however, today the church does have an altar as a basis for it, a construction from 1735. Look at the seven pillars of red marble in the centre hall: they are occupied on top by angels, with Archangel Michael in the centre.
The altar scenery was made by Josef Anton Pfaffinger, whereas Fischer von Erlach and Diego Francesco were responsible for the Maria Immaculata.
It was a blustery day, but the farmer's market was still going on when we left the Kollegienkirche. There was one stall that was selling ginormous pretzels three for seven Euros. Barbara, Mandy, and I each got one, then we found a covered walkway to eat them under because it had started raining. The only good thing about the rain was that there weren't any pigeons around. Yay.
Once the sun came out again, we visited St. Peter's Cemetery, which was really cool. They had all these things built into the rock face that looked like where the Von Trapps hid in the Sound of Music and the whole cemetery just looked very organic and pretty. I took some nifty pictures here, but we didn't stay too long because we wanted to see the Fortress.
St. Peter's Cemetery
St. Peter's Cemetery with its unique backdrop is one of the oldest and most charming cemeteries in the world. It serves as the final resting place for many notable personalities, artists, scholars and merchants: Santino Solari (architect and builder of Salzburg Cathedral), Nannerl Mozart (Mozart's sister), Lorenz Hagenauer (the Mozart family's friend and landlord), Michael Haydn (composer and Joseph Haydn's younger brother), Paul Hofhaimer (organist and composer), Sigmund Haffner (benefactor and mayor, friend of the Mozart family, Mozart's "Haffner Serenade" and "Haffner Symphony"), Richard Mayr (opera singer and the first "Ochs von Lerchenau" in the "Rosenkavalier" at the Salzburg Festival), Harry Collins (last commander of the American occupation forces who later lived in Salzburg, honorary citizen of the city). Catacombs The so-called "catacombs" hewn out of the Mönchsberg rock are one of the special attractions at St. Peter's Cemetery (open all year) and probably of early Christian origin. St. Gertrude's Chapel and the Maximus Chapel are especially worth seeing. |
We then started making our way up to Festung Hohensalzburg, the fortress on top of the hill that you see in all the pictures of Salzburg. Since it was cheaper to walk, we walked. There's also a sort of cable car that goes up, but Magda told me that the walk had better views. Since I took a lot of pictures on both the way up and the way down, I believe her. It also helped that it was right after the rain, so everything was bright and clean-looking. The views were simply breath-taking.
It took a good while to get all the way up to the top, and we saw some interesting people on the way. There was one group of girls who were wearing extremely short skirts, heels, etc and one had her hair colored pink. It was one of those "oh my" moments. Admission into the fortress was about six Euro, and since we had climbed all the way up, it didn't make sense to go down without seeing the fortress. Once we paid, there was still a bit of a climb to actually get into the main area of the fortress. We walked around a bit in there, and then found a tour that would let us to up to the highest part. As much as I'm a bit of a scaredy cat about heights, I seem to be making sure that I see them all while I'm here. I think it's a European thing to want to climb up as high as you can get. Maybe it has something to do with the large Catholic population and wanting to be closer to God or something.
With the tour, we got to see how the fort changed and grew over the centuries under the rule of the Archbishops. They did some major work to make the fortress what it is today, and it was never taken by force the whole time it stood. We also got to see some torture devices and climb up for a panoramic view of Salzburg. I can't even describe how beautiful it was. My favorite mountain to take pictures of reminded me faintly of the Grinch's mountain because it looked like it curved over like his did.
After the tour, we saw a marionette museum and got to play with one. Some of them were really creepy though -- like the ones that looked like skeletons.
History time:
The mightiest fortress in central Europe, a powerful castle sitting in a prominent position, undoubted Salzburg’s prime attraction and most dominant feature of the city’s skyline: the “Festung Hohensalzburg” or “Hohensalzburg Fortress” ought not to be missed at any Salzburg visit.
Prince Archbishop Eberhard (1060 to 1088) built the first castle on the Festungsberg in 1077. Initially, this was little more than a bailey with a wooden wall, serving mostly for the protection of Imperial troops of the Holy Roman Empire. However, during the “Investiturstreit”, a struggle for power between Pope Gregor VII. and Emperor Henry IV., Prince Archbishop Eberhard decided to stand by the Pope.
Under the reign of Prince Archbishop Konrad I. (1106 to 1147), a tower from stone was built and over the course of the following years all through the 12th and 13th century, the fortified area was gradually increased until mighty walls embraced most of the upper level of the Festungsberg area, called “Bering”. The dispute between Emperor and Pope had long settled by then, but new conflicts between Bavaria and Austria led to new threats for Salzburg and Hohensalzburg Fortress demanded more and more improvements.
Under the reign of Burhard’s successor Prince Archbishop Bernhard von Rohr (1466 to 1481), the Rohr bastion was built, as he was a ruler in trouble: miners in the South of Salzburg were increasingly dissatisfied with their situation and the rich patricians of Salzburg urged for more power; to make things worse, Salzburg had to fear an invasion of Turkish troops from the East.
It wasn't until the reign of Prince Archbishop Leonhard von Keutschach (1495 to 1519) that the only purpose of the fortress changed from a purely militaristic and strategic one into a representative one: the Prince Archbishop’s mines in the South of Salzburg created a massive revenue, representing 10 percent of the global gold production in those days, along with lots of silver and – of course – the “white gold” of Salzburg, the salt of Hallein.
Von Keutschach shaped the fortress, and until today it was not changed in any fundamental way. He was also said to be a man of bad temper: the mechanical organ “Salzburger Stier” should warn the citizens of Salzburg to obey him and recall the Prince Archbishops power by playing three times a day. Once, so the legend goes a patrician of Salzburg named Georg von Wisbeck, blamed Leonhard von Keutschach of taking a property that belonged to him.
The argument in Hohensalzburg between the two of them grew rather emotional and eventually the very tall and strong Prince Archbishop grabbed von Wisbeck by his neck and held him out of the window – from the “Hoher Stock” in one of the towers. Eventually, von Wisbeck admitted that he had been wrong blaming the Prince Archbishop of theft.
In the “Goldene Stube”, the golden room, one can still see a marble pillar with a crack that a bullet caused during the riots. Hohensalzburg on the other hand had major guns and cannons, each bearing names: “Der grob Püffl” fired stone balls of more than 200 kilograms, the “Singerin” was a slightly smaller gun as well as the “Trachl” (“little dragon”) and smaller guns called “Skorpion”. Needless to say, the rioters failed in their plans and eventually found an agreement with the Prince Archbishop.
During the Thirty Years War, Prince Archbishop Paris Lodron (1619 to 1635) had to modernise Hohensalzburg – some roofs were altered and the outer walls were supplemented with an additional layer to make them stronger. At the same time, the city walls along the Kapuzinerberg and the Kuenburgbastei bastion were built and finished in 1681.
When we were in the gift shop, we (and by "we" I mean Andre) asked the lady behind the counter how to get to the nunnery that was in the Sound of Music and she gave us directions. It's on the same mountain as the fort, so it was pretty easy to get to. We weren't allowed in the real nunnery part, but we got to go into the chapel where the service in the beginning of the movie was filmed. It was kind of dark, and I felt bad using a flash, so my pictures of the inside are kind of dark and hard to see. But once we got outside, I took a really pretty picture of the bell tower against the blue sky.
The nunnery, in which Fräulein Maria in “The Sound of Music” was a novice sits on an exposed spot just to the foot of the fortress, visible from almost every point of the city. The nunnery consists of the church Maria Himmelfahrt, the cloisters, a pillared hall, the convent itself, a kitchen court and refectory (dining hall), the old abbey, the St. John’s chapel, the Pieta chapel and a number of smaller buildings.
The nunnery’s church Maria Himmelfahrt is Salzburg’s oldest church dedicated to the holy Virgin Mary and is one of the most significant churches of the city. It was built in late-gothic style with three naves from 1464 to 1506 after a fire had destroyed a good part of the original building in 1423. Its Romanesque tower in the West dates back to the early 12th century and was decorated with Baroque-like parts and its current rooftop in the 19th century. The church contains a Romanesque crypt that visitors should note, with the tomb of St. Erentrudis. The entrances to the crypt are in the side-naves.
Remains of the original, Romanesque building are most notably frescos in the choir and parts of the main gate. To the side of the gate you see wooden statues on octagonal pillars: Emperor Henry II., the Virgin Mary with her son, and the founders of the Nonnberg Nunnery St. Rupert and St. Erentrudis. The altar of the church was built in 1515. It was originally in the parish church of Scheffau near Golling not far south of Salzburg. It was transferred to Nonnberg Nunnery in 1853 and depicts the Virgin Mary flanked by St. Rupert and St. Virgil. In the apsis of the choir you see a pieta that was made between 1415 and 1420.
From the nunnery, we walked down the mountain a different way than we walked up and, in my mind, got a bit lost. We found a bus stop and rode the rest of the way into the old part of the city. It was getting to be about time for dinner, so we walked along Getriedegasse. The signage here is completely amazing -- even the Mickey D's sign, which I made sure I took pictures of. In fact, I might have taken as many pictures of signs as I did of the mountains...
The Getriedegasse near the cathedral is Salzburg’s busiest lane: one super-expensive boutique next to another show that the average tourist visiting Salzburg in a group or backpacking via “interrail” is definitely not the type of person that keeps the city going. The stores in the Getreidegasse make most of their money with the rich guests of the Salzburg Festival.
It has been a major road since Roman times, when Salzburg was still known as Iuvavum. Up to the reign of Prince Archbishop Wolf Dietrich von Raitenau, the Getreidegasse was the only major road across Salzburg and towards Bavaria.
This made it the best neighborrhood of the “Bürgerstadt” in Salzburg and it was here that doctors, breweries, rich merchants and wealthy craftsmen lived. The Getreidegasse is also known for the Mozart birthplace in the Hagenauerhaus. The Mozart family had rented a flat in the house of the wealthy merchant Lorenz Hagenauer.
There was a charity bathhouse, in which poor people could have baths and basic medical treatments for free three times a year. Salome Alt, the concubine of Prince Archbishop Wolf Dietrich von Raitenau, lived in the Getreidegasse.
The Getriedegasse was kept neat and tidy in a rather peculiar way: every Saturday and the days before holidays, the water from the Almkanal (check it out on the Universitätsplatz in front of the Kollegienkirche) was used to flood all the alley and wash all dirt down to the Salzach river. Desperate measures like that were probably urgently necessary: most of the picturesque arcades and inner courts that are occupied by posh shops used to be stables and storage space.
We actually found an Aussie pub for dinner that night. It was inexpensive and almost completely empty and the Koala Nuggets were very tasty. We still had some time to kill after dinner, and walked back to Pasta and Co for dessert. I'd say that this is where my whole "give up chocolate for Lent" thing went awry, but it's pretty much impossible to give up chocolate when you live in the land of Milka. I ordered some sort of chocolate mousse that came with berries. It was sehr yum! We BS'ed in the restaurant long enough that we could go straight to the train station and get on our train back to Vienna.
Things didn't quite work out like that because the train was running slightly behind schedule, which is practically unheard of in the Germanic countries. Eventually, however, our train came and we found four seats that had a table in between so we could play Uno on the ride home. And so began our marathon session of Uno. Everyone had a huge handful cards at least once during the game. After an hour and a half of playing, I was down to one card, and it was cut-throat. Everybody was conspiring against me so I wouldn't win. Barbara drew a wild card, and changed the color to blue after consulting Andre, who said, "Make it blue...she hasn't had blue all night." Oh, what fateful words those turned out to be. Andre kept the color, and BAM!! I won the game! I have to say, Andre was crestfallen. But finally we could take a potty break. Then we had to play another game and let him win, so that he'd feel better.
We got back into the Westbahnhof a little after midnight, and took the U6 home. Mandy spent the night at my apartment because Karlsplatz, where she would have had to transfer U-Bahns in order to get home, is somewhat (as in really) sketchy at night. All in all, I say it was a very exciting weekend.
And now, because my fingers are tired, and it's getting a tad late, I'm going to bed. I promise I'll fill you all in on what happened during the rest of my week tomorrow.
Bis Später,
Amanda
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