Austria - Day 1 - Salzburg

We're on the road again. As usual, we are hopping on the bus to the train station to the airport. This time is was bus to Liverpool station and the train up to Stansted Airport. They may call the train the Stansted Express, but it stops 4 or 5 times along the way making the ride almost an hour to get there.

We are riding RyanAir, which after our trip to Stockholm last summer, I thought I'd never see Tony ride again. However, this time we simply paid the extra money to check our bags from the start.

We arrived in Salzburg Airport aka Mozart Airport without any troubles. The terminal was the Steigl Terminal named for the famous brewery in Salzburg that has been brewing since 1492. It is still privately owned. It's fun to think that a brewery is so vital to a community that they have an airport terminal named for them.

We hopped on the city bus, and were whisked up to the town center. This was certainly one of the easiest transfers we've done. In 15 minutes, we were there. Our hotel was the Elefant Hotel, which was right in the heart of things. It is a very nice hotel, and our room had a view of the fort/castle on top of the hill above Salzburg.

We rested for a moment, and then took off on a walking tour of the city. Our first stop was of course, Mozart Square to pay homage to the city's favorite son.

Directly facing Mozart on the Square is Demel. It is a famous Austrian chocolatier. They also are known for making the famous Sacher Torte, (a chocolate cake with Apricot Jam filling), better than the actual one served at the Sacher hotel. We knew immediately, that we were ready for a Cake Brake. It was delicious and not too dry, especially when eaten with some of the whipped cream. I knew I'd be eating more of it on this trip.

Tony and I wandered through the small streets and came across a cute Christmas store. It had all these piles of amazingly painted eggs. We found this really cute one that had some peti-point on it and bought it as our official Christmas Decoration of the year.

Looming over Salzburg and visible from almost every street is Hohensalzburg Castle. It was never conquered until Napoleon, and given its placement on the top of an almost sheer cliff, it is understandable.

Directly in the center of the large civil square between the new and old palaces, which now serve as the city hall is he fountain featured prominently in the beginning of the "Sound of Music" during the "Confidence in me" number. It is a beautiful Romanesque fountain reminding me a lot of the fountains in Piazza Navona in Rome.

We wandered into the large Salzburg Cathedral. Mozart had been an organist here and wrote some of his masses to be performed here.

It has a beautifully impressive interior with lots of plaster detail ornamentation.






The dome had been damaged in WWII, but has been completely restored.


A short walk from here is the St. Peter's cemetary, which was the inspiration for the cemetary set used in the Sound of Music film.

Parts of it come right up to and actuall burrow into the cliff face.

It is a very different style of cemetary from what we normally see in the states and from what I've seen in other parts of Europe.




In some cases, metal shields are used in place of a stone headstone.



One unique aspect is that family members are required to continue to pay rent to have their loved ones interned here. When they stop paying, the remains are removed, and the plaque is moved to the wall. I guess that is one way to keep people paying the rent.



We stopped for a quick break at the local farmers market, where Tony had the largest fig he'd ever seen. It was very tasty, and gave us a bit of a boost in our walk.




We wandered on to the royal stables where there is a beautiful fountain, that was actually used as the pool to wash the horses.





It made me think of how humble our system is for washing our dogs, and how we should come up with something similar for them. A joke. . .

Our walk took us on a big loop, and before long, we were back in the narrow alleyways with shops leading us back to our hotel. The fun traditional iron signs explain through pictures what is sold in the various shops for people who were illiterate.

Even McDonald's has a classic iron sign.





Salzburg's historic district is a very compressed easily walkable area. It makes for a very pleasant strolling experience.

That evening, Tony and I walked down to a restaurant called Barenwirt. It is known for cooking the best Schnitzel in town. We each had it and a good local beer called Augustiner Brau, which is made at the local Abbey. Schnitzel is basically a breaded and fried piece of beef or pork. Delicious.

For dessert we had the first of what would be many strudels. This one was made with seasonal berries. Yummy.


We also had to try the local after dinner drink, Schnapps. We each had a small Pear Schnapps with our dessert. Wow. You could start a fire with that stuff.

After dinner, we took a leisurely stroll back along the Salzach River enjoying the beautiful views of Salzburg. It was coolish and rainy, but we're kind of used to that by now.