I finally have the Salzburg pictures. I took so many that I decided to condense a lot and also just get lazy on some of the specifics (meaning, I wont show any of the statues because I can’t name them right now). My internet was also down a lot the past day or so, so I haven’t been able to get in contact with the other side of the world.
Anyway, the trip to Salzburg was scheduled early, 7 AM, and the ride to the border was about 3 hours. On the bus ride there, nothing particularly unusual happend. Frau spent some time talking to us though.. and we had some new people aboard the bus... but other than that, it was the usual half sleep, half talk.
Once we arrived, the first thing I saw was that it was raining... no big surprise since most of the trip has had rain, but this time it wasn’t too cold. Therefore, the first sight I saw was:
...Steven’s huuuge umbrella. It was so large that it was comical. xD... but I couldn’t really use anyone’s umbrella because they wouldn’t hold it still and I would get jabbed be the rims. So, I gave up and just pulled my hood up and just followed the crowd of umbrellas... Since my head was facing downwards during a lot of the first part of our walk, I might have missed some things, but I did see the cool Andräkirche (St. Andrew’s chuch) that was close to where we were let off at Mirabellplatz. Today, Frau led us to Schloss Mirabell where we could see one of the many places of Salzburg that were included in the movie of the musical, The Sound of Music.
For some reason, I’ve never seen the movie for myself, but I’m pretty sure the song they sung was do, a deer...etc. on the steps here:
...haha.. I find that to be a funny picture.. After that part of the Mirabell’s garden, we crossed a bridge:
...and got to another garden sort of thing. This one was quite different though, because there were a bunch of statues of some dwarfs.
Even though it was raining and very muddy, we took the time to pose as all of them in that circle because they were so funny looking. When we were done being silly, we walked back over the bridge and through the garden we had just glanced at. I got a shot of the pegasus on the fountain here:
Of the fountains I’ve seen at the castles, this one is of a nicer variety... so, we kept walking and saw other parts of the large gardens:
(I was too lazy to walk around and enter through the gate... plus it was raining!)
From the gardens, we could also see a silouette of the Hohensalzburg Schloss:
..Next, Frau took through one of the entrances to the shopping areas:
..and we passed by one of the main attractions of Salzburg, the birthplace of Mozart:
... then we walked a ways further to find Mozartplatz or Mozart Square:
Then, closer to the public WCs, Frau introduced us to Igor,
... a painter she had met a while back who sold his watercolor landscapes in Salzburg. Since Frau used to visit Salzburg very frequently, she had known him for a long time. Right around that area, there was also a recent, large, golden ball in the center with a large street chess set (I thought of Courtney...):
After that, we walked to St. Sebastian Church and its graveyard:
According to Frau, the church that is fortified in the wall of the mountain was apparently a hideout for Christians during the crusades. Though, it was full of catacombs.
We walked a little farther and saw the oldest restaurant around (apparently in opperation since 803???)... St. Peter Stiftskeller:
As a side trip, which wasn’t a tourist spot, Frau had us go into a student church of St. Benidikt which had a huge wooden crucifix inside, all made from the same wood... but I didn’t take a picture.
After that, we went back the way we came and stopped at the WC.
At that time, Frau let us be free. With that, we divided ourselves into groups again.. and mine happened to be small and German-less today; Chris, Sarith, Iva, me... and they let me guide.. what fun! Hah...
First stop was the obvious, Salzburg’s domed church (I forgot which saint’s)...
At this point, I’m not sure if I have a picture of the outside of this church... anyway, here’s another shot of the dome’s murals:
After our free stop in the church, we decided that we wanted to go back to the first shopping areas to find a hat shop that Frau had pointed out, for Chris. Chris had owned this really nice cap when he first came (it was the one we used in Wein to try and collect money for street performing), but somehow he lost it at the Party on the Danube... so, he was eager to find a replacement... so we went to this particular hat store and he tried some on for fun:
However, the prices on these were outrageous, so we just had fun browsing. We also checked a couple more that we passed, but the same deal applied.. So he held off on getting one. We still have a week.
Next, it was my turn for fun – food. I made them come with me to the Stiegl Keller,
... another traditional restaurant because I had heard of a few things to have in Salzburg.
It was a little strange at first, going into the restaurant.. just because we didn’t have any German to guide us, but we managed to seat ourselves just fine and get an order placed. It was also pretty nice inside, and we were grateful to get out of the rain.
I ordered Bierkäse, which was basically a simple typical meal for this side of the world:
..the cheese was different than what we were all used to of course (rubbery), but all together, I enjoyed it. The real deal, however, was the dessert – the Salzburger Nockrel! Which, we found could feed an army. Sadly, I couldn’t get a shot of the whole thing before the waiter divided it for us, but if you can imagine, here is a fourth of the creation:
The full thing was created to look like the mountains, and the way the merange rose, it did. So, it was definantly an experience... the catch was – it was all just egg whites, basically... but for a lot of fluff and foam – it filled us up really fast! The only part of the dish with a decisive flavor were the rassberries on top. Still, even with that, we couldn’t all completely finish. So, if I had to guess.. between the four of us (The girls had small cups of soup and Chris only had a drink), we could only eat a little less than 3/4ths. xD... But the waiter seemed really happy when I first ordered it, so.. it’s all good. We got the experience there.
After that, like the crazy people we are, we decided to follow through with Sarith’s wish – to climb to the Hohensalzburg Castle that we had seen through the fog on top of the hill-mountain....... because it cost money to take a cart.. haha. So, we trecked and burned some fluff! But of course, the view from up there was cool:
...we could see the square we had come from.
When we walked all the way up the hill for the Hohensalzburg Schloss, it was then that we realized the obvious, entrance fees! Hah! So... we went back down the hill xD
..and we got a shot of the castle again...
We paused for a short scenic shot again, but then we started to walk further up the mountain-hill thing... just because we were already so far up.
...but as you can probably see, we somehow got to residential areas. These were mansions! In fact, for one of the places we saw:
We couldn’t tell if it was a legit castle or someone’s mansion because there was construction on the backside... either way, we were losing time, so.. we decided to find our way back to the city. With all of our wandering around, we weren’t exactly sure of the best way to get back down. But, we poked around... and saw this little path through the mansions..
...so, we took a chance of getting lost and made it to a staircase down to Salzburg!
What fun! We also got a cool shot of the 3 big things and the rooftops of Salzburg:
Anyway, since we were back to the shops, we stopped at the souvenier stand and got some stuff. Particularly, Iva got us some Mozart balls to try.
It was intresting to finally try this little chocolate that’s sold all over the two Austrian cities we had visited. It seemed like it was dark chocolate on the outside, and then it had some white (could have been coconut? I kind of forgot).. and then another layer in the very middle of something oranger... which wasn’t the best flavor to end with in my opinion... but overall, the first two layers were good.
As we walked along, we just observed the streets.. slowly making our way towards the place the buses left us at Mirabellplatz. We even saw a moving statue (street performer)
When we made it out of the shopping area again, this is what we could see:
We also saw some other monuments as we walked, but I have no idea what a lot of them were, so I’ll refrain from getting too detailed. Although, we did stop in the University Church:
The inside seemed to be getting renovated or something, but we saw the typical drawing of what it will eventually look like covering the construction:
So, since it was dry inside.. we decided to rest in the church for a bit..
... I guess to kill time? Maybe we were just tired. Anyway.. it turned out that we were not as clsoe to the bus as we thought... so we had to really hurry to get back in time... but then we got a little forgetful.. by the time we remembered that we had to walk throught Mirabell Palace’s garden, we were already late xD... But, we made it! Frau was waiting on the corner for us... last ones, psh!
Oh well, last stop was Hellbrunn Palace:
Though, my shoes were soaked and muddy... and I’m sure we were tired, we grudgingly accepted more! Here, our tour began:
Overlooking this place, you could already see the expanse of the fountains:
This place was for one of the archbishops who really liked fountains.. so he made this place full of fountains... and tricks. Everything we saw was powered by water... but there were also a lot of times in the tour where the guild would turn on the trick fountans and we’d get soaked... L
I got especially owned when I was looking at this model here.. fully moved by water:
Anyway.. even though we were already wet again, someone in the sky decided it’d be better to drench us, so it began to rain some more:
Thankfully, it wasn’t really strong, so with our last bit of time, some of the others went down to try and see the Gazeebo:
While the rest of us went for the WC or in my case, a drink:
What a normal bottle! It was the first drink I had all day...! Still cost an arm and a leg xD.. oh well... we hopped back on the bus and repeated the ride there... excpet, this time...
The sun decided to show just as we went home......... psh!
But, maybe it will last for Passau tomorrow.
Until then!
Sad things are happening back in the states while ya'll are gone. Sad things. =[
ReplyDeletebut i'm glad you're having a funtastic time! =o]