The first view of Salzburg is an impressive one since the city is bordered by huge mountains that seem to spring from the ground and soar skyward. No foothills here.
Using Rick Steve’s handy “Germany” travel book, we checked into the Bergland Hotel, a modest, family owned hotel that features 18 recently modernized rooms and free parking off the street.
Each morning the owner selects classical music to meet his mood and plays it at the front desk. On good days he takes requests and allowed me to choose some Mozart selections for our breakfast.
His mood is often affected by the construction of an apartment building across the street. To smooth any complaints about noise and dust he has offered guests free breakfasts. Works for us.
With our car safely behind a steel gate, we took his suggestion to use local transportation and the #4 trackless trolley delivered us to the Old Town district in just a few minutes.
Salzburg’s Old Town is cleaved by the Salz (Salt) River. It is not so named because it is salty but because it was the main route for delivery of salt mined upriver. At one time salt had about the same value as gold and very important to the economy.
The wire fencing on this foot bridge is covered with small, colorful padlocks. We understand the locks are placed by lovers who vow their love will last forever.
If so, this should make Salzburg the love capital of eastern Europe.
We fell into being regular tourists quite easily by wandering through the narrow streets of Old Town and peeking into small shops and restaurants.
One thing was hard to miss. Mozart was everywhere!
When the salt trade went south, there was Mozart to pick up the slack. Salzburg seems to know a good thing when they see it and the local boy is still a big attraction.
All tourists worth their salt head to Mozartplatz and stand in line to have their picture taken at the base of the Mozart statue. Lots of handing over cameras to get a shot of couples. Often results in pictures with heads or feet cut off so it’s best to give a quick check afterward.
Facing the camera at the Mozart statue gives you a look at the Salzburg skyline and it is filled with steeples.
I must say that my eagerness to shoot every steeple in sight quickly waned because they are everywhere.
Same thing with statutes and fountains. This one usually had tourists waiting in line for photos. At times the wind would change giving everyone a quick shower. Watching them scramble was fun.
Our goal was to reach the fortress overlooking Salzburg. On the way we passed the main cathedral of the city and Mozart’s home church. It is built of the local limestone and is impressive in every way.
What’s inside is even more impressive. Five organs for starters, all bathed in light from an overhead dome. What sets it apart from other churches is that Mozart’s first musical efforts were heard by audiences seated in these very pews.
They were not the first audience however. That pleasure belonged to the Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg, Mozart’s boss who commissioned many of the works we hear today.
The Prince-Archbishop also was responsible for the construction of the fortress that looms over the city. At one time there was a tussle between the Roman Catholic church and local royalty.
To make a point, the church constructed a fortress intended to impress the royals and to squelch any ideas they had of taking over by force.
It must have worked because there never was a shot fired in anger by any of the canons had in place.
Today the fortress is available to the public and the only anger expressed is by wives who declare, “I will not climb that tower just to see what’s up there.” That was the situation in our first crude attempt of a picture with our GoPro camera on a selfie stick.
I did climb the tower, and by golly she was right…there’s not much to see unless you’re interested in medieval defense construction methods.
“That’s more like it,” Louise said when I suggested we have something to eat and drink at the little restaurant that occupies the best location to photograph the Untersberg, a most impressive mountain range that towers over the city. We asked a young German couple to take this shot. We returned the favor, of course.
Coming down the mountain we waited for the #4 bus at a most interesting spot. Across the street was an important looking building, but above it was an almost vertical limestone mountain with a huge notch cut out of it. They must be proud of it because the entire cut is lighted at night. We made a note to ask about it at the hotel.
The story is that in the 1600’s the city fathers wanted to gain access to the other side of the Monchsberg so they began to cut it out. Work went on for centuries with little progress until tunneling techniques came into being. They stopped the cut, bored a tunnel and decided to honor the effort of the notch. What else could they do…fill it in? The limestone that was quarried was used to build the main cathedral so that was a plus. The minus is that occasionally the hillside cuts loose killing anyone foolish enough to live at the base.
On our way back to the hotel, bus #4 stops right at the Mozart home…the one they bought when the money started rolling in.
It faces a small, well-cared for park and is open for self-guided tours assisted by audio guides.
“Photos are forbidden,” reads the sign in several languages, but near the end people began sneaking out the cell phones for a quick pic. This one was taken near the end when Louise had run out of steam.
She had enough energy to stand next to a cutout of Mozart. Turns out he was short, pimply with a big nose and an attitude rather difficult to deal with…probably since his father doted on him as a child. Amadeus, we learned, translates to “Beloved by God.” Tells you something, doesn’t it?
On our final day in Salzburg we decided to learn more about the newest replacement for the long-gone salt trade. Locally it’s known as SOM but we know it better as “Sound of Music.” We signed up with Bob’s Special Tours for a close look at all the location sites used in the movie. Our tour guide was Chris.
He arrived at our hotel at 8:30 AM sharp and collected the other four tour members at their hotels. We like the idea of a more personal tour rather than the big-bus companies.
While the tour was personal, it was fast. In order to get in two tours a day it was his job to get us to every location before the big bus arrived. We gazed across a small lake at the rear location of the von Trapp home. On our way back to the van we brushed against bodies arriving from the rival tour company.
And so the day went. On arrival at the location containing the von Trapp gazebo, we learned that it was moved from its original site because neighbors complained of constant abuse by tourists who insisted on singing, “16 going on 17” at the top of their lungs at midnight.
When the previous tour moved on, we slipped in to the gazebo before the next big bus tour. We took a few quick pix to show we had been here,
and caved in to a demand by Chris that we kiss. Now not only was he a tour guide but a director. We did as we were directed.
On our way out he paused the van long enough for me to grab a shot of the tree-lined roadway where Julie Andrews and the kids skipped along, hung from the trees and sung their hearts out. I had 15 seconds to shoot this so I hope you appreciate it.
Since many of the locations for “The Sound of Music” were not in Salzburg (think Hollywood movie lots), Chris had to stretch to give us value for our money. That included a 1 1/2 hour tour of the countryside while he played selections from the movie soundtrack. We ended up in a small village with a good sized church. Not cathedral size but big for the locale. For the marriage of Maria and Captain von Trapp, the director, Robert Wise, planned to use the overly large Salzburg Cathedral. The current Archbishop had other ideas and turned down the request.
That started a scurry to find a replacement but nothing nearly that size was anywhere to be found. Wise decided he could use a smaller church and could “fix it in post-production” back in Hollywood. So, they ended up here, much to the delight of the villagers as it started
a small, but consistent, local industry fed by people like us. We had 15 minutes here.
On the ride back, Chris surprised us with audio interviews with director Robert Wise, Richard Rogers and the young starlet who played the part of Liesil. It was a nice filler until we reached our last stop, the Mirabell Gardens where Julie Andrews and the kids sang and danced to “Doe, a deer, a female deer,” around a fountain.
2 Responses to D06: THE HILLS ARE ALIVE…WITH MOZART