AUSTRIA 2000: SALZBURG

  December 18-19, 2000

Mom was excited to take us to Salzburg, one of the cultural centers of Europe for centuries. The area has had inhabitants since the Neolithic Age (10,000 - 4,500 BCE), so even for Europe it is old. Salz means "salt," and the name "Salzburg" first showed up in the 8th century when the local economy focused on salt mining.

We arrived on a stormy, blustery evening, the only really bad weather of the trip. Outside our somewhat dingy hotel, Mom had us park the car on the sidewalk, which seemed strange to us then but more normal to us now that we've spent more time in Europe. 

I wish I had better photos of the beautiful Christmas decorations. This much-faded photo I took doesn't do them justice.

But this nice picture of the city that I clipped from a brochure shows the city's elegance. The historic city center of Salzburg has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Salzburg has a terrific Christmas market. We spent some time (and money) there.

I pasted the receipt from our purchases into our scrapbook, and I have to laugh now that I see it is written in English: 1 Christmas tree, 2 fairies, and 1 bowl. I think 1,030 in Austrian Schillings was about $80, a lot for us back then.

The ceramic fairies are put away with my Christmas tree ornaments, but I keep the tree and bowl out year-round. They are actually Polish pottery, not German, but even back then I loved Polish pottery.

We walked around the city the next morning. See my comment about the weather below the photos. (That's us walking across the bridge. Bob must have taken this picture as he is the only one not in it.)

From the Old City, our view of the Salzburg Fortress, one of the largest medieval castles in Europe, was not nearly as good as the one in the brochure photos that I included above and below, but there was something appealing about this foggy, ghostly scene. 

Construction of the fortress began in 1077, and additional sections were added practically every century through the 17th century.  The fortress was used to hold Italian prisoners of war during World War I and Nazi activists before Germany annexed Austria in March 1938.

Here's another brochure photo. Those are impressive mountains in the distance, aren't they? Do you think that is the passage the Von Trapp family (of Sound of Music Fame), who lived in a suburb of Salzburg, took when they fled Austria? Sorry to burst your bubble, but they actually took a train to Italy, and later to London.

At the base of the Fortress in the photo above, you can see the Salzburg Dom (cathedral). I noted in our scrapbook that its light and airy interior made it one of my favorite cathedrals.

Details on the Dom from my scrapbook:

I captured this photo that we took and which I labeled "The dome of the Dom."

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was baptized in this cathedral the day after his birth in 1756. More on him in a minute.

How about this grisly scene on one of the cathedral's bronze doors of the beheading of John the Baptist? I'm not sure that gives me the comfort and peace I expect to find in a church.

There are five organs in the cathedral. I think this must be the most spectacular one.

Our next stop was the Mirabell Palace and Gardens. Built in 1606, it is part of the City Center World UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The gardens are decorated with mythologically-themed statuary, such as these unicorns behind our son:

. . . and this winged horse behind our other son:

Everyone had their favorite statue in the Dwarf Garden:

Our next stop was the Mozarteum University Salzburg, a school specializing in (what else) music, as well as dramatic and graphic arts. When our daughter was in high school, she toured Europe with a small brass ensemble put together by her band teacher. She played the piano (in the corner on the right) in this room.

Our final stop was Mozart's Geburtshaus (birth house). Again, I remember being a little disappointed by the inside.

These days if we visited Salzburg, I would have several hundred photos to choose from, but this is all I have. I'd love to go back, and not just for pictures.