Salzburg: Sound of Music, the Fortress, and other adventures

Phillip and I traveled to Salzburg, Austria, on Monday and checked into our next hotel, Pension Ballwein, a lovely small hotel on the outskirts of Salzburg. Salzburg has no subway, but has an extensive bus system...and a bus stop right in front of our hotel. Daniella and Simon, the owners, speak English and have made sure we know each day how to get wherever we are going that day.

our current abode, with a terrace with seating and a table

Salzburg is the birthplace of Mozart, my favorite classical music composer. I haven't yet gone to the Mozart museums, but did walk thru Mozart Plaza.

The City even has a candy dedicated to Mozart, a candy that has been made for over 100 years here and in Vienna (Mozart left Salzburg to compose and play for the Hapsburg royals in Vienna). With chocolate covering and a hazelnut paste core, these "Mozart balls" (that's what they're called!) taste like bites of Nutella. Yes, I've eaten a few Mozart balls.

The Salz River runs thru the middle of town, separating the Alstadt (Old Town) from the New Town. We walk mainly around the Aldstadt, although we've crossed this pedestrian bridge, with the locks of love (just like on the Charles Bridge in Prague and the Seoul Tower). Salz means "salt," not because the water is salty, but because of the salt trade that formed the basis of the economy here in the Middle Ages.

Yesterday (Tuesday) morning, Phillip and I went on a Sound of Music Tour. It was great because there were only six participants with our guide, Luke. Some of our stops included this view across the lake. This is the lake where Maria and the kids tipped the boat over. When they were filming the movie, the director wanted to do a second take on the scene, but Julie Andrews and the kids refused because the water was too cold for them to do it again. Some outside scenes were also done in the garden of the house across the water.

This is the pavillon that was in several scenes. Actually, three pavillons were created for the movie because one needed to have no glass so the cameras could film inside. This is one of the original three.

The movie made it seem like Maria and Captain Von Trapp were married in her abbey. Actually, the wedding scene was filmed miles away in a church in the town of Mondsee. The tour took us to Mondsee and we saw the location. And the steps, on which the kids and Maria sing do-re-mi, are in Mirabel Gardens, which we visited. We didn't sing, however. It was fun to see the movie locations.

After our tour yesterday, we decided to take the one-hour river cruise. Not like the cruise boat we take next month! This is the boat we took up the Salz River and back. The boat had a draft of 38 cm (only about 15 inches of it was underwater) because the Salz River has a lot of rocks. The river is not used for commerce today (except for this one tour boat service).

river cruise boat (note the sidewalk near the river, great walking)

Phillip and I had purchased "Salz Cards" to give us unlimited access to the buses (versus paying 2.90 euro each per ride). The Salz cards also included the river cruise and free access to many of the City sights. The city's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) had an elevator that took people to a great overlook spot (included on the card), so we went there. We tried out the panorama settings on our cameras, but I liked the plain picture of the Fortress across the way.

fortress on the moutain, picture taken from MoMA

While we were at the MoMA, I talked Phillip into going inside under the guise of "museum restrooms are always better than any others." Since museum entrance was included, we actually toured the entire building! I think this is the first time he has knowingly gone into an art museum. The most fascinating floor was the special exhibit of Salt Objects. The artist had taken regular items, shoes, ladders, clothes, a guitar, and left them in the Dead Sea. She took them out and when they dried, the objects looked like this:

Today (Wednesday), we went to the premier sight (no, not more Sound of Music locations) of Salzburg: the Festung Hohensalzburg, the fortress. It's 900 years old and considered the biggest and best preserved fortress in Europe. It towers over the city, visible from everywhere and on top of a small mountain. We rode the funicular up and walked down the hill after spending about three hours in its museums and ramparts. 

Center building is MoMA (yesterday's fortress picture from there)

lots of uniform exhibits, especially from 1800s

ramparts and towers

view southeast from a rampart

After our fortress visit and lunch near Mozartplatz (a panini and Coke), Phillip and I decided to visit an even higher mountain, Untersberg. Daniela from the hotel had recommended it for the views, it was a free bus ride, and the cable car was included in the Salz card. So, out of town we headed. I did fine for the first 2/3 of the cable car ride, taking pictures, looking out. When the cable car went over what I thought had been the peak and kept going over a really, really deep gorge, I just shut my eyes. I snapped a few random pictures, but mostly got pictures of the reflection of my arm wrapped tightly around the cable car railing. At the top, Phillip helped me out of the cable car and I stood by the wall for a few minutes while he walked up to the actual lookout point. He came back down and told me that the trail up was wide and walkable. So, having recovered from the cable car, I listened to him. Well, the trail went from 5 feet wide to 3 feet wide to a trail only a goat should use. The railing went from metal rods in concrete to what I call snare wire! 

Do you see any sturdy railing? Nope, not there!

I did make it to the top, slowly and hugging the uphill side of the trail. There were indeed beautiful views. Before I end this post, I will say that the ride down the cable car was a totally different experience. About twice as many people as we had come up with, we were in the middle of the crowded car, and the cable car had no air conditioning.  But, we did get great pictures from the top! Several of these Phillip took because I refused to get close enough to the edge to take what he knew would be excellent photos.