{"id":1010,"date":"2010-01-02T15:15:42","date_gmt":"2010-01-02T23:15:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lebca.com\/fromrussiawithlove\/?p=1010"},"modified":"2014-11-11T20:27:25","modified_gmt":"2014-11-12T04:27:25","slug":"salzburg-in-a-day-the-wrong-way-27-dec","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lebca.com\/fromrussiawithlove\/austria\/salzburg-in-a-day-the-wrong-way-27-dec\/","title":{"rendered":"Salzburg in a Day – The Wrong Way (27 Dec)"},"content":{"rendered":"

I got into Salzburg the night of the 26th and hoped to find a place to stay. Unfortunately, the first hostel I tried was fullup and 2 out of the 3 they recommended were either non existent or also full. But the third one was a quaint hotel in a remote part of town conveniently next to the train station which turned out to be quite nice on my way out. And the lady who ran it with her brother was very nice. Breakfast was included as well.<\/p>\n

Sketchy sign leading to my hotel.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
I picked up a free map on the way to my room and checked it over, seeing which things I was going to hit. I decided to go big:<\/p>\n
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My goal was to hit all the blue and red numbered tourist attractions.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
So I took an early night to rest up for the marathon the next day.<\/p>\n
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I walked into old town across the river admiring the mountains that surrounded the city’s valley. Check out that castle on top of the hill toward the right. (as always, right click to view larger)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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I headed straight for the Mozart Square. I wanted to see how the Salzburgians were mooching off his fame. Right in the center, a large statue of him stood. Unfortunately, the only Mozart I heard here was on the audioguide tour of the castle in the background. In the square they played Jack Johnson, ridiculous!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Then I headed up the Nonnberg Steps winding around the base of the hill the castle rested on.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Quite an amazing view even from this low height at the top of the stairs, about a quarter of the way up the hill.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Behind me in the other photo stood a church with a cool cemetery out front.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Quick inside glance of the church. Sorry for the blurriness.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Walking back out of the church and continuing around the back of the hill I looked out the valley over the top of another church.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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The path then headed down to the valley floor where I saw what once was a monastery. This city is very green.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Then the path lead me back up the mountain. It was super steep this time and a runner a little older than me had to stop about 2\/3 way up to walk.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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I turned a corner at the top of the path and voila! the castle. And more steep paths. It would have been a pain to assault this castle.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
I made it eventually to the entrance and took the audio tourguide. I got to see the evolution of the castle starting in the early 15th century and on as each archbishop added more defenses and built it up higher and stronger. One of the first rooms we visited was the torture chamber.<\/p>\n
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The dungeon, only reached 9 meters up from the torture chamber, which was really just a prison. Since the castle was not a court of law its inhabitants could not legally torture their prisoners. They could execute them though, and with a heavy wooden wheel which they would crush certain body parts and bones until the criminal was unconscious if not dead. Then they would string him up until he died under the pain and internal bleeding.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Then we climbed up to the top of a tower and got to look out in every direction over the valley and off into the distance at the mountains.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Someone was nice enough to take my picture while up there.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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The Bull of the HohenSalzburg. A mechanical organ that played when important anouncements needed to be made.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Then I checked out the innards of the castle. This hall is the main hall of the castle. The long beam running down the center of the ceiling is lined with crests of important families as it was a fairly large and impressive beam of the time.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
I skipped the Austrian WWI museum they had on display as I wasn’t really interested in that at the moment. I had an ancient castle to explore.<\/p>\n
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I went back outside to check out the oldest cable pull in Europe. This cable pull was originally powered by horses who pulled supplies up the line from the valley floor.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Looking down at the old part of town from the castle walls.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Another view off to the left of the previous one.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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I took the Funiculur down the side of the castle. It’s a steep cable tram train thing. But not as steep as the one on Mt. Pilatus in Switzerland. But the oldest one I think they said.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Then back up the hill and away from the castle toward the over end of the hill.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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It made for some really fine views of the mountains and valley.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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It was almost as if Autumn had come and stayed.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Looking over the town from the far end of the hill, back toward the castle.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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There was even a soccer field hidden away in the forest\/meadow combination that spanned the hill.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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And really green moss on the trees.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Wide open field near the somewhat hidden monastery back here. Would it be surprising if instead of coming home, I came back to Salzburg to live out the rest of my life. I think not.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
I made it to the edge of the hill and walked down on the old town side to explore the town and the blue dots on the map.<\/p>\n
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Now down on the valley floor back in old town walking through this palace quarters, apparently the prettiest hall in Europe in which one can marry.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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A really big cathedral. The Holy Trinity one in Salzburg.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
I was heading to the cemetery where Mozart’s family was buried, all except for him. The cemetery had some pretty cool tombstones and crypts.<\/p>\n
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This is one of the coolest looking crypts I’ve seen. Check out the serpent crawling through the skull’s eye.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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So many flowers honoring Mozart and his family. Really kind, and about 250 years too late I think.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Next, I walked about part of another steep hill along the blue tour route. Unfortunately, my light was fading so I made an executive decision to skip number 8 on the tour map, which would require a walk all around a hill this side of the river. But I did make it up to one of the viewpoints marked on the map.<\/p>\n
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The old town from a different angles. I really like the roofs of all these buildings and how everything is connected to each other. Plus the rooftop lounge in the lower left corner. Pretty sweet. Reminds me of hanging out on the roof of Susanne’s apartment in Luzerne back in 2002.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Walking around the edge of the hill toward the left to look at the castle again.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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There was a path leading further down and to the left but I decided not to take it. I wanted to see the rest of what was on the marked tour map.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
I saw a plaque memorializing the man who wrote the lyrics to “Silent Night” or “Stille Nacht,” as he probably saw it. Then it really got dark so I walked around just looking at the town. Eventually, I grabbed a bratwurst and called it a night, heading back to the hotel to grab my luggage and get on a train for Vienna, hopefully early enough so that I don’t have to walk around Vienna’s streets for 2 hours looking for a place to stay. But back near my hotel I saw this:<\/p>\n
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A new Cirque du Soleil! Saltimbanco, I’ve never heard of it before. Weird.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Anyway, I boarded the train and was off to Vienna. So I didn’t get to see Mozart’s house. In fact, I completely forgot about it, because I was so focused on completing everything on that map, which I successfully did, minus number 8. But that means I must go back to Salzburg and see where Mozart lived. Especially because, doing Salzburg in a day, was not the way to go. It definitely needs at least 3 for in town to be really comfortable. And then there are castles at the nearby mountains for day excursions and such. It would be wonderful to spend at least a week there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I got into Salzburg the night of the 26th and hoped to find a place to stay. Unfortunately, the first hostel I tried was fullup and 2 out of the 3 they recommended were either non existent or also full. But the third one was a quaint hotel in a remote part of town conveniently […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1012,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1010","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-austria"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lebca.com\/fromrussiawithlove\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1010","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lebca.com\/fromrussiawithlove\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lebca.com\/fromrussiawithlove\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lebca.com\/fromrussiawithlove\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lebca.com\/fromrussiawithlove\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1010"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.lebca.com\/fromrussiawithlove\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1010\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1428,"href":"https:\/\/www.lebca.com\/fromrussiawithlove\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1010\/revisions\/1428"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lebca.com\/fromrussiawithlove\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lebca.com\/fromrussiawithlove\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lebca.com\/fromrussiawithlove\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lebca.com\/fromrussiawithlove\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}