Man it takes me a while to get our travels posted and so I feel like I am so behind. I mean Christmas posts in Feb? That is just silly. I sit down sometimes and am like okay I am going to write all of this up now! Then I look at all of the photos and I am just like well...maybe I will read a little bit first. Then it never happens,. It just takes forever to go through everything so I apologize for writing about things month(s) later. Oh well, I guess you don't have to read it ;)
Anyways, after a lovely Christmas in Vienna we were off to Salzburg! I was super excited for Salzburg because...well I am not really sure. It just seemed like it would be gorgeous.
We got in just before dark and headed off to drop out bags in our room before heading off to spy on the last Christmas market which was open for a few more hours. Salzburg is really a small town - the
We spied on the Christmas market and it was alright. They did have some cute things, but I did not like it as much as the markets in Vienna.
By then it was getting dark so we spied a little and I saw this on the one large hill - Hohensalzburg Fortress and thought let's just spy a little bit. Maybe not walk the whole ways up, but spy and see what we can see. Well of course I cannot just go part way up so we got to the top and explored and had some gorgeous views (though the photos don't look as nice as it was). The grade going up was super steep - some parts were incredibly steep and a little crazy. You could have taken a lift up the mountain but we of course did not do that. I told Raymond I miss hiking - he told me this didn't really count as hiking. I said I am climbing a mountain with a very steep grade, it counts! Here are some photos of the decorations in the fortress and views from there:
After our hike up to the fortress we went in to the cathedral to explore.
Downstairs there was this art display shown above. It was these wire devil guys that moved around like on a spring and had candles behind them. I really liked them, but found it odd for in a church.
After that we had some dinner and then walked back to our room.
The next day we got up for a day full of exploring. While walking downtown after breakfast we came across a market in the parking lot of a church. It was pretty nice - lots of fruits and veggies and breads and other foods. Then we spied on the church inside:
We visited a lot of churches in Salzburg. On the tourist map with places of interest marked most of them are churches. The downtown like I said is quite small, but there are a ton of churches. Most of them were really nice inside, very ornate and gorgeous, though some of them were very simple and still nice. We were usually the only people in them.
After that we walked through Mirabellgarten. I did not realize before going to Salzburg that the Sound of Music was filmed there (or a lot of it was). Apparently they sing around this fountain in some scene....not sure what one. I mean I don't know when I last saw the movie. Sometime while growing up, but I really don't even remember what the story is. I know the lady sings the hills are alive with the sound of music (that is about all I know of that song), the do a deer song, the lady comes to the family house and there are kids to take care of I am guessing and it might be during war as I believe there is a soldier boy the one girl likes and that is about all I know of that movie. Maybe I will have to watch it again now that I have seen where it is filmed...below are some more photos from the gardens
Holy Trinity Church which is no longer a church
After that we walked to the northern end of downtown to start exploring the hill with the modern art museum on ad work our way south from there.
It was a gorgeous day out for walking around. The weather said it was supposed to rain the entire time we were there so it was nice to have some sunny-ish weather for a bit.
First up we explored Mulln Church.
We then had a lovely walk through some fields and along the top of the hill.
The view from the modern art museum. The fortress is on the hill in the last photo.
The Salzburg Burgergarde which I cannot find much info about. Just like a big wall on the top of the hill.
The inside of St Mark's Church. There was a sign up about how it was built (completed in 1705) partially on boulders and partially on sand so the church had lots of structural problems from the beginning and was closed in 1973 because it was unsafe. Then just thanks to all the archdiosese for their support with no real mention that they fixed it...but they must have since you can step inside. Below are just some photos from walking around town.
Mozart's birthplace (though we didn't go inside and explore).
The downtown area is basically just pedestrian access and a maze of small streets and alleys.
Church of the Cajetans outside
And inside. You can still go into the churches until late, but they don't put the lights on so you can see much.
Towards dark it started getting cloudy again.
Outside the Nonnberg Priory
I like how the graves are so and pretty, though simple.
I miss the mountains...
Inside of St Peter's Church
A lot of the statues and such were covered with plexiglass or something.
The following day it wasn't as sunny and nice outside. It was good we did most of our outside exploring the day before. We still had a few churches to check out before we headed to the natural history museum.
Loreto Church
This and the following photos are from the cemetery at St Sebastian's.
Around the outside edges under cover were large decorative graves.
Mozart's grave
The inside of Wolf Dietrich Mausoleum which you couldn't actually go inside.
Inside St Sebastian
Church of the Capuchins inside
St John's Church
After walking around a bit in the morning we went to the natural history museum. You should know by now if you read any of my prior posts I love natural history museums. I love fossils and dinosaur bones and rocks and minerals and everything they usually have. The one in Salzburg was not very good. They had one room with a few dinosaur bones and fossils in but not very many.
Then they had a small aquarium. The last fish there were silly. The white ones looked like they were trying to be just like the guys who float vertical and I liked them. Then they had some other rock samples, though not very good ones, and this one weird room with these tables of food and on the wall were photos of the animals and how they live that were killed for the meal (in bad conditions and was super sad). It was...odd.
Since I only posted a couple pictures from the museum that should tell you how good it was. They did have a science center which was kind of fun (though overrun with kids) where you could do fun things and explore your senses and such like how good is your nose? and test it to find out in different ways. While we were in the museum it rained a ton and after dinner we were off to our next stop - Munich! I really liked Salzburg even though it was fairly small. I wouldn't want to live there as I don't know what I would do to fill my time besides hiking/skiing out in the mountains, but it is nice to visit. I think we will have to go back in the fall sometime and go hiking. Really it was a beautiful city.
Comments