Salzburg

    Instead of venturing back to Venice on Sunday, we decided to visit Salzburg on the way back to Bruchsal. After a couple tries, we managed to find the highway. (Gertrude was convinced at one point that we weren't even on a road.) We paid our last Italian toll and drove into the mountains of Austria. It was a rainy day and the clouds hung low over the mountains looking like fluffy blankets.

Austria

Castle (Hohenwerfen) on the hill
(Featured in the Sound of Music - it's the backdrop when
Maria and the kids sing part of "Do Re Mi")

    We rolled into Salzburg at around 3 pm and found a parking spot near the old part of town. We had another audio tour so our next job was to find the place where the tour started. After a bit of wandering we found the place - the pedestrian bridge over the Salzach River that flows between the Old Town to the south and the New Town on the north side. The pedestrian bridge is called the Mozartsteg after Salzburg's most famous son. (This is the bridge Maria and kids skip across while singing "Do Re Mi".)

The New Town

The Old Town

     Salzburg is the fourth largest city in Austria with 150,000 residents. It has been nicknamed the "Rome of the North" and is considered the greatest Baroque city north of the Alps. It is a city with a lot of churches. There are 38 catholic churches, 2 Protestant churches, and a synagogue in Salzburg.

     The Salzach River is called the "salt river". It is so named not because the water is salty but because of the valuable cargo it used to carry. Just nine miles upstream are the salt mines of Hallein. In medieval times, barges would carry the salt down this river to the Danube, the Black Sea, then the Mediterranean, providing salt to the known world. As they passed through Salzburg, they had to pay a toll on their salt. So the castle (and town) became known as Salzburg - "salt castle". It grew into an important trade city lying right where the north-south trade route from Italy to Northern Europe crossed the west-east flowing Salzach River.

     From the bridge, we walked into the Old Town and paused in Mozartplatz.

Mozart

Mozartplatz

     Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in Salzburg in 1756 and spent the first 25 years of his life here. He was the son of the assistant conductor for the Salzburg ruler, the Prince-Archbishop. At a very young age, Mozart learned to play many different instruments and was performing with his sister for royalty by the age of six. They performed together in many of the great cities of Europe.
    Mozart became the the concertmaster for the Prince-Archbishop at the age of 17. He played the organ at the cathedral and conducted the Archbishop's orchestra for 6 years. In addition to that he wrote  lots of music including Masses for church services and many violin and piano concertos. He played for nobles as they dined and taught dozens of students.
     But he became very discontent with Salzburg. He was just another servant to the archbishop. He wanted to be writing operas and symphonies rather than just church music. Then in 1777, he reached his breaking point. He had gone to Vienna with the Archbishop to meet the Emperor. But instead of being received with honor, he was seated at the servants' table! He wasn't even allowed to play for the emperor! Mozart was not happy. He insisted that the Archbishop release him from his position. The Archbishop was not too happy with Mozart either and basically said, "You can't quit - you're fired!" Not a great end to the relationship. Mozart eventually settled down in Vienna where he finally received the fame and respect he desired.
    The statue of Mozart was erected in 1842. ( The locals say it looks nothing like him.)
    Right next to Mozartplatz is Residenzplatz, the governing center of the city.

Salzburg cathedral on the south side of Residenzplatz

Palace of the Prince-Archbishop on the right

    In the 17th century this square underwent major renovations. The Prince-Archbishop Wolf Dietrich, who ruled from 1587 - 1612, had been raised in Rome and was determined to bring some of the Italian Renaissance to Salzburg. The cathedral conveniently burned down in 1598 so Dietrich set about rebuilding it in the Baroque style. The fountain in the center of the square was also added at this time. It would fit right in with Bernini's fountains in Rome. (In the Sound of Music, Maria splashed in this fountain while singing "I Have Confidence in Me".)
   The palace was outfitted with a sky bridge leading to the cathedral so the Archbishop could easily get to the worship service while avoiding the common rabble.
 

Baroque style fountain

New Residenz - for guests of the Prince-Archbishop

    The New Residenz was where the Prince-Archbishops entertained their guests with lavish parties. They were great patrons of music and employed an orchestra with dozens of musicians and singers, as well as composers. These musicians played music in the church services and for the parties.
    At the top of the New Residenz is the glockenspiel. The tower has 35 17th century bells from Belgium that chime three times a day. Sitting at the very top of the tower is an upside down flaming heart surrounding the solar system. This symbolizes how God loves all of creation.

Top of New Residenz

    We continued our tour by walking under the prince-archbishop's sky bridge and into Cathedral Square.

Salzburg Cathedral

     The Salzburg Cathedral was one of the first Italian Baroque buildings north of the Alps. The church was finished in 1628. The statue of Mary in the front of the church is from 1771. If you stand in the right place in front of the church when you look at her, she is positioned perfectly to be crowned by the two angels on the front wall of the church. Unfortunately for us, there was some renovations being done and scaffolding prevented us from getting that perspective. = (

Front of the cathedral

     The first church was built here in 774 by St. Virgil, an Irish monk who became Salzburg's bishop. As I mentioned before, it burned down in 1598 and was replaced with this one. In 1959 it was partially reconstructed to repair damage done by a WWII bomb that blew through the dome. 

     We went inside for a look around.

One of the church doors

    Near the entrance, to the left is the baptism font. The font, from the year 1320, survived the fire that destroyed the former cathedral. It was here that little Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was baptized in 1756. This is the church that he spent the first 25 years of his life worshipping and playing music in.

Salzburg Cathedral baptismal font

The high altar at the front of the church

   The interior is mainly white. A stark contrast to St. Mark's Basilica that we saw the day before. The back of the church is fairly dark while the altar area is brightly lit drawing the visitor forward. The paintings at the entrance of the church show Christ's arrest and torture. As you move forward, the paintings are of Old Testament foreshadowing of Christ's resurrection. Then, on the high altar, is a painting of Christ's glorious resurrection lit up by the dome's many windows. This church has no stained glass windows, only clear ones to let in plenty of light.

There are four organs in the middle of the church. Mozart was the organist here of 2 years and played on those very organs. This cathedral has had a long tradition of exceptional music. I wish we could have made it to Sunday Mass - no doubt it was a musical wonder to behold.

Back of the church with yet another organ

Piper with her favorite organ

The High altar 

The center dome - there is a dove in the top window

The tombs of ten 17th century archbishops are in this church. I think this is one of the tombs. It has the typical decorations including a picture of the archbishop and statues along the sides but also amongst these things are bones and skulls! Kinda creepy. There is a skull at the very top between the crossed gold rods and four of them around the painting. Interesting.

    Along the side corridor, the ceiling showed many scenes from the Bible and legends. This one shows the story of the Christian who helped a wounded lion. Later the Christian was arrested by the anti-Christian Romans and condemned to be eaten by lions. Lucky for him, this was the lion the Romans threw him to. The lion remembered him and didn't hurt him. The Romans were astounded and they let the Christian go. (Unfortunately, I can't remember the name of the Christian.)

    We left the cathedral and headed into Kapitalplatz.

    A sculpture of a man standing on a golden orb staring at the fortress stands in Kapitalplatz. The fortress was built in 1077 on a rock 400 feet above the Salzach River. Over the centuries it grew from a small castle to a mighty fortress. But it really was never used. It was the "intimidate your neighbors so much they're too afraid to attack you" technique. And it worked for the most part. Salzburg was never taken by force. But in the early 1800s, when Napoleon marched in, Salzburg wisely surrendered without a fight.

Fancy horse bath

    Just behind the man on the gold orb, is a pond with a railing around it and a statue of Neptune. It looks very impressive but it was actually used as a horse bath. There is a ramp going down into the water where the horses were led in for their baths. The architect was really clever when he did the inscription above the statue of Neptune. It reads "Leopold the Prince Built Me" but he made some letters larger than the others so the date the pond was built (1732) was encoded into the inscription in Roman numerals.  = )

    On our way to see St. Peter's Cemetery, we passed the town waterwheel.

Waterwheel

   The waterwheel is part of a canal system that brings water from the foothills of the Alps ten miles away to Salzburg. It was built in the 13th century and they still use it today. The canal system had many uses besides drinking water. It powered more than a hundred mills, provided fire protection, and was used to flush the streets every Thursday morning. That's probably why Salzburg is one of the few towns that never suffered from the plague.

   Then we stepped into St. Peter's Cemetery.

Gothic funeral chapel from 1491

    Three medieval churches founded in the sixth century stand around this cemetery with Monchberg ("monk mountain") towering above it on one side. Hermit monks made homes for themselves right in the side of the mountain.

Monks' caves in the mountain

     This is the cemetery in which the Von Trapp family hid from the Nazis in the Sound of Music. Actually that was a Hollywood set but it was inspired by this cemetery.

   The graves here are rented not owned. They are tended by the loved ones of the deceased. Every ten years the deceased's relatives get a bill for the grave. If no one cares enough to pay, the remains are evicted and placed in tombs in the church walls.

This is the grave of the architect of St. Peter's Church

Somewhere amongst these tombs is
that of Mozart's sister.

St. Peter's cemetery

    We next took a quick peek at St. Peter's Church. There was a service going on at the time so we didn't stay long.

Back of St. Peter's Church

Front of St. Peter's Church

      Right next to St. Peter's Church is Stiftskeller St. Peter restaurant. Charlemagne is said to have eaten here in 803 making it the oldest restaurant in Europe. There is a little plaque above the door with the year of Charlemagne's visit.

Charlemagne's favorite hangout in Salzburg

     In the next square stands a statue of St. Rupert, who founded of the town of Salzburg in 700 AD

St. Rupert waving "hello"

    On the other side of that square, we found the 1925 Festival Hall (the Toscanini Hof). It can seat 5,000 people in its three theaters. The very popular Salzburg Music Festival happens here every year. This is the performance hall that the Von Trapp family made their last performance before escaping Austria.

Festival Hall main doors

To the backstage of the Festival Hall

       Next was a visit to Universitatsplatz. Every day except Sunday this square is a bustling open-air produce market. The university church towers above the square and a fountain, part of the medieval water system, stands nearby for washing the fruit and veggies. Over the fountain is a sundial that tells both the time and the date. (It was a cloudy day so we can't report on how easy it is to read.)

University church

Water fountain/sundial

    At the end of that street was another horse bath that stands next to the prince's former stables. It has paintings of the different breeds and temperaments of the horses in his stables. (Maria and kids danced around this horse bath while singing "My Favorite Things" in the movie.)

Prince's horse bath

    Next we strolled down Salzburg's main drag, Getreidegasse. It is lined with shops with metal signs proclaiming their goods. It is connected to the market square we were just at by a number of passageways that run through the buildings. These passageways themselves hold shops and courtyards. Salzburg is made for tourists - the shops hold all the wonderful things that tourists want to find in Salzburg.

In one of the passageways

Courtyard in the passageway

Traditional Austrian fashion

Getreidegasse

MacDonald's sign

     The city allowed MacDonald's to open a restaurant on Getreidegasse but required them to make it fit in with the rest of the businesses.
     Near the end of Getreidegasse is the house that Mozart was born in. He lived here until he was 17 years old and composed many of his early works right in that house. Inside is the actual clavichord he composed on!

    Before leaving Salzburg we picked up a bag of Mozartkugeln, a chocolate candy first made by a Salzburg confectioner in 1890 and named after Mozart. That was a smart candy maker - Mozart is the main reason tourists come to Salzburg. What better way to get them to buy your candy than name it after the guy. Worked on us. = ) And it doesn't hurt that it was really good chocolate. = )

Our Mozartkugeln

     On the way out of Salzburg we saw the mountain that I am sure the Abbess was singing about in her song "Climb Every Mountain" in the Sound of Music.

    And you are probably getting tired of all my sunset pictures. But I can't help it. I love sunsets. Especially ones that involve mountains. = )

Isn't this one incredible?
 I didn't know the sky could be that color blue.

     Just gorgeous! I am really going to miss the European sunsets.

     An hour or so into the trip back to Bruchsal, it started raining hard. This slowed us down a bit so it was almost midnight by the time we reached our flat. Luckily it was only sprinkling by that time so we were able to unload the  car without getting everything wet. Then, not surprisingly, we all got to bed as quickly as possible.