Day 1. 26.07.2013.
We had lunch at a random German-ish restaurant. I had "Fleischlaibchen" (literally: small meat loaves, which is actually exactly how i'd describe it (as meatloaf made smaller )) with some nice vinegar-based potato salad and some dark ketchup on the side.
After climbing up, they were throwing several giant tools up to each other.
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| Fortress, with some art in the foreground |
11 euros to take the Funicular up and back down, also includes an audio guide through the fortress.
There was an organ inside, which looks like a music-box :
There was also a model which represented how the people in the caastle (before they built the Funicular) brought stuff up to the castle. Up high was a room with horses who would walk around in circles, simultaneously winding up the cords and also causing grain to be ground (i.e. it was both a mill and a thing that would drag stuff up the mountain). Pretty clever.
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| Wagon at the bottom of the hill, to be pulled up |
The castle contained a military museum, the Rainer-Regiment Museum.
"The regiment was founded by Emperor Leopold I. .. on the occasion of the threat of Austria by the Turks in 1682 ... In 1852 Archduke Rainer Ferdinand, a nephew of Emperor Franz I, was the last person appointed to the regiment, and after his death in 1913, Emperor Franz Joseph I, that this regiment should forever bear the name "Archduke Rainer" ... November 1918 the regiment after the war was retired by the last commander ... and returned to the home garrison, Salzburg." [Translation of part of this page]
One of them could paint, and his pictures of the trench warfare of WWI were there:
The Lord Archbishop Leonhard von Keutschach (1495-1519 as Archbishop of Salzburg) took as his crest a turnip. He made a lot of renovations to the fortress, which you can recognize by the strange turnips:
Eventually,we went outside and up to the highest part. A good view of the area!
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| Salzburg |
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| Festung/Schloß |
From the highest point of the fortress, I saw a very nice, big swimming pool. This was Leopoldskron, about 26 minutes away (foot or Tram) from where we were staying, at the youth hostel (JUFA-Salzburg).
We, in Salzburg, then were at the crest of the heat wave going on in Austria, 35-36C (95-97 F). I suggested that after visiting the fortress, we go for a swim.
It was really nice and surprisingly cheap, as we entered right after the prices dropped (they drop 2 hrs before closing from 4,50 to 2,50) , although had only 4 showers, so we decided not to fight the line afterwards.
Gotta eat at some point. We wandered through the city and at 22:30 found ourselves by something that my Salzburg guidebook recommended, Afro Cafe. Spare ribs with Peanut-Chili rub/sauce. Yum yum.
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Salzburg! Day 2. 27.07.2013.
Hellbrunn, which you might recognize as the "home" of the Von Trapp family in the Sound of music (the interiors don't match up, though. I think the interiors were from Schloß Leopoldskron).
On the list of things I wanted to see was the ,,Lustschloß (pleasure palace (?)) Hellbrunn". Our lodgings were already on the south side of the city, and Hellbrunn is even more south. We took a bus, it was about 10 minutes away. The entrance ticket included a guided tour through the "Water games"(,,Wasserspiele'') and Audioguide through the palace. What are these water games/tricks? I hadn't really known before. They're a kind of quasi-fountain. The first was a giant table, at which, supposedly, the bishop sat with guests. Until he wanted them to go home, then he flipped a switch...
Here, a statue looks on (the wall mosaics here are very much like the floor/ground mosaics near the Alhambra):
Everything which moved, did so only by the power and pressure of water. Very impressive.
The gimmick of this tour was that our tour guide would quietly and unobtrusively turn some levers, some people would get wet, the rest would develop a false complacency,and then get wet as well :). Fountains from the floors, and ceilings, and sidewalks and so on.
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| a statue and a fountain |
Audio tour through the castle, afterwards. It was built by Markus Sittikus, who in 1616-1619 was the "Fürsterzbischoff" of Salzburg.
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| Markus Sittikus, pointing to the palace under construction, with a map of the grounds as well |
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| another map of the palace and grounds |
Inside the palace were many beautiful things:
It was fashionable then to have a "Chinese room". This on in particular had to be renovated twice, because the first renovation damaged more than it helped.
There were also paintings which documented plants and animals, as we would now do with photos. For instance, a giant fish that was caught nearby (in the palace pond?), about 2 meters long:
Or giant sunflowers. They were a rarity -- only 13 years prior had they been brought from Peru to Europe:
In the giftshop I saw these (Owls, the new sparrow):
We ate lunch in the restaurant there, because we were hungry but also wanted to see the rest of the gardens. The lunch was nothing to write home about.
It was so hot and we were quite exhausted. Man, it would be so nice if we could find a pond or fountain, which we could dip our feet into.
What? What did we find, after a long stroll? Just that. :)
To one side was this thing, which would spray water if you pushed a button:
And the fountain/pool was so -- large and ice cold. Very refreshing. The sign suggested that you should move around a lot, i.e. walk through it (at a brisk pace), not just stand around, so that you don't get too cold.
The first part was built in 1717, this "Arm-pool" where you could put your arms in ice-cold water:
The sign also said that this (next) fountain had drinking water. Good, and also ice0cold (there was a button behind it to push to get it to produce water):
Later on in the day, it seemed like a nice idea to have some icecream. Also, to visit the gardens of Mirabell palace.
We ate at "Ice Zeit"(Ice Time), a very tasty "wild fruit" parfait.
Afterwards, to Mirabell Schloß's gardens. The palace itself was closed, as it was after 18:00. This is where the do-re-mi song (or, a lot of it) from the Sound of Music was filmed:
A similar picture from the "Sound of Music"(Meine Lieder, Meine Träume is the German title).
We sat in the garden until we were hungry again, then crossed the river and walked along the banks in the direction of the old city.
We went to Getreidegasse. In Salzburg, it seemed like a decent amount of people were wearing Trachtt, and there were a lot of Trachläden (where you could buy dirndl and lederhosen). Here's one:
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Getreidegasse:
Almost every store had a sweet/nice sign. Even McDonald's:
and Zara:
I originally ordered the "Lammbeuscherl", but our waitress warned us that these are Lamb Lungs (Lammlunge, in "Hochdeutsch"). Ok, something else then. I had some cold cuts, cheese and bread.
We walked around the city for our last night in Salzburg.
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| we saw a cow, covered in buttons |
Also, a lovely sunset:
The left picture (below) contains the backside of the place where Mozart was born (the yellow and grey house in the middle):
To go with the name "Salzburg" (Salt castle), we found some salt shops. This one had an entire wall made out of pink Himalayan salt:
Here was the room at JUFA-SalzburgCity. I thought the wood with holes was nice, and looked like they were meant for someone's workshop/garage, not for a bedroom:
If I had it to do again, I would have seen the same things.
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In addition:
* Only Americans think "Sound of Music!" when they are in Salzburg. Nevertheless, there's a tour that has existed for a long time, which was taken by both Julie Andrews and Maria Von Trapp.
* I found the accent of the Austrians cute/sweet, when they spoke High German/Austrian. :)
* I had said at one time that I want to see the Alps in all the countries the touch. Austria makes two (Switzerland was first).
* Twice we had a musical interlude.
- First, when we came back from the swimming pool. What? What was the song that I heard? I think ... nah. Yes. "Eye of the Tiger". With tuba and people in Lederhosen. Then followed by "Son of a Preacher Man." After the first song, the singer said that they played for a wedding (ok, so we couldn't wait there and listen, too bad).
- Second time, it was after dinner in "zum wilden Mann". We strolled through the old town. I heard something. What's this? Why is someone playing Libertango? It was a band, under a colonnade. Got their cd.
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This is the last part of my Austria trip. I hope that you liked it. :)
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| Graffiti by the Hotel |
