Villa Trapp!! We made it to Salzburg, an amazingly beautiful city. After having read Maria von Trapp's memoir (see 'The hills are alive'... post from last month), it was a particular treat to see the von Trapp family house. It's actually an Inn now! You can stay there and really indulge your Sound of Music fantasies. I have heard lots of good things about the Sound of Music tour, but unfortunately (or fortunately if you are T) we didn't have a chance to do that.
We did, however have a chance to take photos. Lots and lots of photos. I couldn't stop taking pictures of Salzburg. So beautiful and visually stimulating. But maybe also it was seeing so much sun, for the first time really in weeks. It was a beautiful day.
How many spires can you count in this photo? I think that's part of what was so visually interesting - so many spires, in such a small area. And then a couple of really stunning places - the Dom, and the Berg.
This is looking straight up into the dome that you see in the middle photo.
This cathedral must have recently been renovated/cleaned - the outside is so white, and inside the colors are so vibrant. The first cathedral here was in 774. The dome was destroyed by bombs in 1944, and didn't re-open until 1958.
The other dominating architectural feature of Salzburg is the fortress, the Festung Hohensalzburg, rising out of the rock in the center of the city.
And the view from another side:
Thrilling! This is the real deal - since 1077, whenever there was a siege (which wasn't often, though, apparently) the town would hunker down (well, up) within the fortress walls. There was a well, drilled down through the entire mountain (can you even imagine starting to dig a well from the top of the highest mountain around?!).
You can take a funicular to the top, or you can walk up. We had just finished lunch at Demel (with cake of course - oh, yeah!), and it was crazy cold, so we thought it best to walk.
So you climb the stairs and the ramp along the rampart walls, up and up and up, then through several gates...
It's quite a large mountain top, and you could really have a small village up here. And who knows what's built into the mountain, too (I mean, if they could do a well...?).
Of course, the views from up there are stunning, stunning.
The Dom (cathedral)
The Salzach River
This fortress was just so impressive. I'm finding it hard to describe, but the way it just rises out of the rock so gracefully on one side, and then looms long and massive from the other side... and then all the details for optimizing defense - the way the massive doors closed, the towers with slits for arrow-shooting, the sheer walls, the series of gates. Really, really remarkable. This is apparently one of the best-preserved castles in Europe, and the largest, and really, you feel like you can almost, almost catch a trace of medieval times. Thrilling, is the best word I can use to describe it. Until you can visit it in person (unless you already have!), you can see more photos, video and history here.
As a coda I will leave you with a photo of Mozart's birthplace. Our hotel was around the corner from where Mozart lived, but this is where he was born. I'm sure when he was there the street wasn't lined with designer chain stores, souvenir shops, and throngs of tourists, nor was the building emblazoned with 'Mozarts Geburtshaus' (but who knows, really).
Ok, since that's a little anticlimactic after the fortress, how about a photo of the most adorable horses ever. There are plenty of horse-drawn carriages to clop around the old city in, drawn by small and shaggy adorable horses (ponies?), plus there are those with the thankless job of following them on a cycle equipped with a bucket (second photo). It takes some of the charm and romance out of the scene, yet preserves the charm for the rest of us on foot, too busy looking up and taking photos to watch where we are stepping...
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