Bavaria Day 5 - Salzburg Old Town
We were correct in our assessment of the weather, and on Thursday for our time in Salzburg it was a bit more overcast. Not to be deterred, we packed our umbrellas and headed out to see the fortress and old town. Just down the street from our hotel we encountered a farmer’s market filling a square in front of an old church, so we wandered over to check out the beautiful produce and baked goods and procured the day’s pretzels. Across the street was the Mirabell Palace, famous for its gardens, which we were pleasantly surprised to find out were free. The bulk of the garden is a large square with flowers planted into colored designs, much more effectively seen from up in the palace I’m sure, but still really cool from ground level. I pity whoever has to mow those lawns in between the flowers though, and expect that it must be done with scissors in some of the really tight corners.
We also happened upon what was labeled as a “gnome garden”, with a bunch of gnome statues. Apparently at some point the statues had all been sold, and the garden is in the process of finding and re-acquiring them, so there were a number of pedestals that were empty, but it seems like they are getting there. There weren’t any flowers or anything in this part of the garden, just statues of gnomes doing everyday things.
Across the bridge from the neighborhood that housed the palace is the heart of the old town. That part of town is all cobblestones and shops, and was delightful to walk around. We made our second stop at the birthplace of Mozart! We saw some signs around that advertised Mozart piano concerts, one of which was set to begin in about 20 minutes, so we figured what the heck let’s go check it out and see if there are tickets. The concert was in a small hall downstairs in an old monastery, and the ticket guy mentioned it was the very beginning of the season, so the crowd was small. Small indeed, as it was only us and two other people in a lovely semi-private piano concert. It was a little awkward, but the music was good, and it was a nice way to spend a little time off our feet after all the walking the past few days.
We were pretty hungry once we got out of the concert, so we sought out lunch straight away. After watching a couple of moves in the chess game on the giant chess set in one of the larger squares, the first place we thought looked good turned out to be closed, but we ended up at a teeny little Polish restaurant run by a super nice guy. We had probably the best pierogis I’ve ever eaten, and after the meal he offered us some kind of polish liquor, which was sweet but not half bad. Wouldn’t want more than a shot of it though, that’s for sure.
The main event for the day was the fortress in the afternoon. There are two ways to climb the hill up to the fortress: on foot, or by funicular, and we chose the latter. The funicular has been around as a way to get up to the castle for over 100 years, which I thought was super cool. We checked out the museum inside the fortress, including the residence of the ruling Bishop, complete with en-suite toilet (though not plumbed). There was also an elaborately molded ceramic stove that was super cool, and beautifully painted ceilings. Also inside was a marionette exhibit, and a really good museum that covered the military history of the fortress, especially in WWI. The most spectacular thing, though, was the view from the terrace on the rear of the fortress, which overlooked half of the city, with amazingly beautiful alps behind. It made figuring out how to take panoramas on my phone necessary, that’s for sure.
It rained a little bit on our way back down from the fortress, but we were well prepared so it wasn’t much of a concern. Really we lucked out with the weather since it was supposed to have rained all day long. We took the funicular back down and wandered the shops a bit more, stopping to get some of the "Mozart" chocolates we had seen everywhere, typified by a pistachio marzipan center (they were delicious). Then it was back to the hotel for dinner and packing up to work our way back to Munich the next day via Neuschwanstein.
We also happened upon what was labeled as a “gnome garden”, with a bunch of gnome statues. Apparently at some point the statues had all been sold, and the garden is in the process of finding and re-acquiring them, so there were a number of pedestals that were empty, but it seems like they are getting there. There weren’t any flowers or anything in this part of the garden, just statues of gnomes doing everyday things.
Across the bridge from the neighborhood that housed the palace is the heart of the old town. That part of town is all cobblestones and shops, and was delightful to walk around. We made our second stop at the birthplace of Mozart! We saw some signs around that advertised Mozart piano concerts, one of which was set to begin in about 20 minutes, so we figured what the heck let’s go check it out and see if there are tickets. The concert was in a small hall downstairs in an old monastery, and the ticket guy mentioned it was the very beginning of the season, so the crowd was small. Small indeed, as it was only us and two other people in a lovely semi-private piano concert. It was a little awkward, but the music was good, and it was a nice way to spend a little time off our feet after all the walking the past few days.
We were pretty hungry once we got out of the concert, so we sought out lunch straight away. After watching a couple of moves in the chess game on the giant chess set in one of the larger squares, the first place we thought looked good turned out to be closed, but we ended up at a teeny little Polish restaurant run by a super nice guy. We had probably the best pierogis I’ve ever eaten, and after the meal he offered us some kind of polish liquor, which was sweet but not half bad. Wouldn’t want more than a shot of it though, that’s for sure.
The main event for the day was the fortress in the afternoon. There are two ways to climb the hill up to the fortress: on foot, or by funicular, and we chose the latter. The funicular has been around as a way to get up to the castle for over 100 years, which I thought was super cool. We checked out the museum inside the fortress, including the residence of the ruling Bishop, complete with en-suite toilet (though not plumbed). There was also an elaborately molded ceramic stove that was super cool, and beautifully painted ceilings. Also inside was a marionette exhibit, and a really good museum that covered the military history of the fortress, especially in WWI. The most spectacular thing, though, was the view from the terrace on the rear of the fortress, which overlooked half of the city, with amazingly beautiful alps behind. It made figuring out how to take panoramas on my phone necessary, that’s for sure.
It rained a little bit on our way back down from the fortress, but we were well prepared so it wasn’t much of a concern. Really we lucked out with the weather since it was supposed to have rained all day long. We took the funicular back down and wandered the shops a bit more, stopping to get some of the "Mozart" chocolates we had seen everywhere, typified by a pistachio marzipan center (they were delicious). Then it was back to the hotel for dinner and packing up to work our way back to Munich the next day via Neuschwanstein.
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