note: salzburg is just inside the border of austria. we were very surprised by how close it was to germany.
saturday, 6/27
we woke up at 3 (okay 3:30) to get dressed and walk to the train station to get on our first train of the day. i had yet another lesson in german culture on that train at 4:30 in the morning. in the states, it’s illegal to walk around, carrying open containers of beer. but there is no such law here in deutschland. a guy lumbered onto the train carrying an almost-full mug. he walked past me a couple times and i worried that he would spill his drink. {don’t worry, that comes later} he finally sat down on a chair near the front of the train. he was so out of it. he fell asleep (obviously), and as the train moved back and forth, so did his mug, along with the beer inside. we were surprised at how well he held on to it, but we were just waiting for it all to spill out. it was quite comical actually. as expected, the train lurched, causing some beer to escape onto the floor. he woke up, put his beer down on a ledge, and went to the bathroom. the train was still moving, so at some point, the mug tipped over and fell off the ledge, and the rest of the beer was now all over the floor. yummy. the train came to another stop, and i saw the guy get off the train. 2 minutes later, i saw him get back on through a different door, and as we got off a few stops later, we saw him sitting on a chair in the back, completely passed out. #yolo?
anyway, we finally arrived in salzburg and the first place we went was to mirabell palace, aka: set of part of the sound of music. tayte already mentioned in a previous post, so if you want to read more about it, you can go here, but he mentions it about as much as i just did.
i wish we had gotten a picture of this horse’s face. tayte described it as “derpy,” which is the most perfect word.
we walked by mozart’s birth house as well as his normal house, but we didn’t go in. however. there are these mozart chocolate things that are chocolate and pistachio and the most delicious thing in the world. the only thing better than it is the mozart chocolate ice cream. (and i don’t even like pistachio stuff)
since we were carrying our big backpacks, we decided to find our hotel to drop them off, then continue on with sight-seeing. so we walked and walked and walked and walked…and walked. tayte’s phone was leading us on a wild goose chase, i swear. we found ourselves semi-near that fortress on top of a hill, so we decided to just suck it up and walk up the dang hill with our backpacks in the rainy, deathly humidly hot climate, then go find our hotel after. the fact that the phone said we were still 32 minutes away from our hotel also made that decision fairly easy. the fortress was cool. i mean, this thing is huge! and it’s all the way on the top of a hill, and it’s massive. i hated walking up to it, so i’m pretty sure i would hate walking up there carrying a bunch of rocks and stone and stuff.
back in like 100 ad was when the very first thing was built up there, and it expanded to the huge fortress it is today over the next thousand years. they had a presentation going that showed how the fortress changed over time. i was thoroughly impressed.
we also took this audio tour that led us up to a super high tower that overlooked salzburg. it was awesome.
picture time:
carcassone, anyone?
it’s gotta be at least 9 points!!!
after this, it was time to go back to our hotel. this walk included a nice stretch of
underground bunkers from wwII
we finally made it to our hotel, and were super excited because we saw a sign that said they have air conditioning! (which, if you remember, is very not usual). we got up to our room, which was super nice, and noticed that they did have an ac unit, but there was no way for us to turn it on.
false. advertising.
we were starving, we were exhausted (please remember that our day started at 3), and we were so sweaty and gross. it would have been amazing to shower, but we knew we would get gross again when we went to find dinner, and we didn’t have enough clean clothes for two showers. so we decided to take a short nap before going back out and finding something to eat. i have this thing where i don’t like sitting on couches or beds (or anything but the floor, really) if i’m super sweaty or super gross, so we literally took a 30 minute nap on the hardwood floor, using our backpacks as pillows.
it was the best nap ever.
we woke up so refreshed, went and found dinner (and ice cream, obviously), and then came back to the hotel, showered, and slept like babies.
side note: for dinner, i tried wienerschnitzel for the first time, and tayte said the dinner we had was in the top 3 he’s had since being in europe. #winning
sunday, 6/28
after breakfast at our hotel, we set out to see some more stuff. pretty much the only things left for us to see were some cathedrals. we really wanted to go to a mass, but we didn’t have any nice-ish clothes with us. also, we had our huge backpacks and that would be weird.
i had to.
i'm that person.
see that building way up there at the top? that’s the fortress we were at the day before.
yes, that is a lot of walking.
mozart.
floating in the air.
yes that’s a real person.
he gave us a postcard.
...we like fountains.
first stop (after all those mini ones): dom zu salzburg. we found a museum for the dom, which tayte hadn’t seen before, so we decided to give it a try. it was pretty cool. it was an audio tour, and it led us all around. the cool thing about this cathedral is that it’s a palace too. the arch-bishop was the prince too, so it’s religious (hello it’s a cathedral) but all the rooms had all the decor and paintings and stuff you’d expect to see in a palace. it was very pretty and the rooms were cool and we saw lots of very old, very historic, very bejeweled relics that are still used in religious ceremonies…and that’s about all i know.
best part about that museum: they had lockers for our big backpacks, and we kept them there until we were making our way back to the train station.
you can take a little ride in one of these carriages.
they even let you sit up front!
different view of the same fountain i’m standing in front of earlier
inside the cathedral
tayte LOVES pretzels.
like a lot.
this was his snack
…for the rest of the day.
next up was st. peter’s cemetery. the cemetery they used in the sound of music was just a set, but they based the look off of this cemetery.
note: i’m eating ice cream.
again.
then we starting going up lots of stairs to the catacombs. it’s crazy to think that people actually used these rooms. according to the pamphlet, holy masses are still celebrated in these rooms today.
cool view from one of the viewing platforms
view out one of the windows
along the way up
we saw other cathedrals as well. i find it fascinating how different each cathedral is,
and there’s so much stuff in each of them!
we took a minute to sit in one of the pews in this church. i remember thinking that if i actually attended church here, i think i would find new things every time!
i also noticed that all the paintings and decor start fairly high up the wall. from the pews, you literally have to raise your head to be able to see even the lowest hanging pictures. i realized it’s probably to keep you always looking up.
so ornate.
coolest
ceiling
ever
this one was much simpler than other cathedrals
our time was about up at this point, so we went back and retrieved our backpacks, went to the train station, and headed back home.
in the words of annie, "i think i'm gonna like it here." i like traveling around, i like seeing new things, i like europe, i like chocolate, but mostly i like being back with this kid:
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