Salzburg (The Hills are Alive.......)
I must confess that as hard as it was to resist, it was nearly impossible when looking across the river at this not to hum a little, to myself, songs from The Sound of Music.
Like Brussels, Salzburg was a weekend destination we chose because it was partway between two other cities Randy needed to visit. We had only one full day, so we tried to see as much as we could while dodging the rain.
More after the jump
Our first visit of the day was the Salzburg Cathedral.
The earliest cathedral on this spot was built in 774 by St. Vergilius, perhaps on the foundation of an earlier church (not a cathedral) that had been built by St. Rupert. The current Romanesque Dom was built in the 17th century after fire destroyed the previous building, and reconstruction efforts were initially unsuccessful. A bomb struck the Cathedral during World War II, and it was restored in the Baroque fashion in the 1950s. The Patron Saints are St. Rupert and St. Virgil.
The interior is gorgeous without being over-the-top. It appears as the sort of church where Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart would be baptized in a giant Gothic Baptismal Font (yes, this one)....
...and some of his sacred music would first be performed.
The Stations of the Cross were painted above the archways between each devotional chapel.
For the price on only one Euro the kids could place a phone call to God.
I mean, they listened to a brief introduction in English to the Cathedral.
We, of course, could not pass up the racks of votive candles, or St. Sebastian.
Our next stop was Fortress Hohensalzburg, the castle of Salzburg's Prince Archbishops. The castle as we have come to recognize it, icon that it is, was built in stages over centuries. The most notable expansions was during the reign of Prince-Archbishop Leonhard von Keutschach, whose coat-of-arms bore a white turnip, and this motif appeared often in the decorations of the castle. Both Myles and Brigid enjoyed trying to spot the white radishes as much (maybe more) than Jesus and other Biblical figures and Saints.
We reached the castle via the Festungsbahn, which is almost as fun to say as funikularra.
Included in the price of the tickets were the round-trip funicular rides, admission to the castle, and the audio guides. Again, the audio guides were a wonderful accompaniment so that tour groups of several different languages could walk together. Better yet, Brigid was permitted her own guide. Throughout our tour, she grinned at me, repeating "Mom, I'm learning so much."
The beginning of the tour was interesting enough, reviewing which Prince-Archbishop built which part and when. But one of the highlights, of course, is the climb to the roof for the spectacular views of Salzburg and the surrounding mountains. Or in our case, the raincloud-shrouded mountains.
The hills could be alive, I guess, if I could only catch a small hint of them. Once I saw a cloud break reveal some snow-capped peak (singular, not plural as I expected), but I could not get a picture.
Inside, we walked through the princely quarters, including the Golden Chamber and the Bed Chamber. These were where the white radish showed up the most. Like on a Majolica stove.
And this doorway.
There were a few places within the castle where archaeological excavation has brought to light several discoveries that aid in understanding the early history of Salzburg. For instance, there are a few 1050 AD-ish Romanesque arched doorways that were covered up during one or another renovation over the next several hundred years.
And a late Roman (375 A.D. or so) wall and other structures. Ever since my first trip to Germany in 2001, I have been particularly interested in the Roman limes, the outer reaches of the Roman Empire. I don't know why borders are so interesting to me, but they are. They can be firm and specific in so many ways, on maps and by governance, and yet they can be so fluid, so blurred, so indefinite in reality.
One of the final stops of the tour through the fortress was past this aerophon, known as the "Salzburg Bull." This organ was originally built in 1502, and among they who composed music specifically for this unique instrument was Leopold Mozart. It was an odd point of the tour, near the end and almost an afterthought. Most people just rushed past it. I thought this would have been given more pride of place in the tour, except for maybe the location of the aerophon would not have allowed for good traffic. It was just odd, given how much attention was given to the torture chambers and gruesome collection of medieval torture instruments when the audio guide repeated several times that while there was a holding cell in the castle, no actual torture likely occurred in the castle.
Down from the Fortress, we walked through St. Peter's cemetary which was the inspiration behind the studio set for the scene in the Sound of Music when the von Trapp family was hiding in the cemetery. St. Peter's is one of the oldest, if not the oldest, monastery in all German-speaking Europe. It is, of course, Benedictine.
We ducked into the Franciscan Church briefly as well.
The church is participating in the cause for sainthood for Bl. Franz Jägerstätter
This church is possibly the oldest in Salzburg. The original Church of our Lady was built in the 8th century, and was rebuilt and consecrated in 1221. Once an ordinary parish church, it was ceded to the Franciscans in 1642. This church shows an interesting mix of the original Gothic and Baroque elements that were introduced a few hundred years later. This is one of the churches that I couldn't resist drawing parallels between its incongruous renovations and those we would see in the twentieth century that some would derisively call wreck-o-vations. It reminded me, once again, that there truly is nothing new under the sun.
I mean, look at the Gothic flying buttresses and the elaborate carved side altars in the cloister.
One of the oldest things in the church is something that was probably impossible to move. This carved stone lion on the pulpit dates to the 1200s.
Candles! Must light candles!
We took our turn in line to photograph the kids in front of Mozart's birthplace. It was impossible to miss.
I mean really impossible to miss. There were all kinds of signs pointing to it, and in big gold letters it announces Mozart's birthplace, in German, of course.
While the kids took a drizzly playground break, I peeked into one more church.
St. Mark is a unique parish in Salzburg. Once a church attached to an Ursuline convent, Once the nuns moved to a different convent, the church was just St. Mark's. Only a few years ago it was closed and nearing collapse until the Bishop of Salzburg gave it to the Ukrainian Byzantine Catholic Community. The church was deigned for Latin Rite, but they have adapted it to their Liturgy.
Our day in Salzburg ended with a live music performance.
The Pond Pirates was not what I would have expected for live music in Salzburg, if only because I had my mind on Mozart and the Sound of Music. They were sort of a blues, dancey, ska-ish band--you know, the kind of band that can get a few thousand people to dance in the middle of the street for a few hours.
They were playing on the street outside our hotel at Fairkehr, an event that promoted verkehrspolitische Bewusstseinsbildung, "traffic-political awareness." Some things are so natural in German but difficult to translate into English, not just the words but the concept as well. Form the looks of the festivities, I would have generically described them as being part of a general Green-themed block party, but it was a specifically verkehrspolitische, apparently.
We had an unexpectedly brilliant time, enjoying this look into the kind of neighborhood where we were staying. While we focus so much in planning the Important Sites we Must See when we travel, we sometimes stumble into situations like these, a chance to experience the places like a local. I'll probably come back to this idea when I post about Italy, because where we were in Italy this time not only did we see how the locals lived, we thought we might want to stay and become locals ourselves.
Like Brussels, Salzburg was a weekend destination we chose because it was partway between two other cities Randy needed to visit. We had only one full day, so we tried to see as much as we could while dodging the rain.
More after the jump
Our first visit of the day was the Salzburg Cathedral.
The earliest cathedral on this spot was built in 774 by St. Vergilius, perhaps on the foundation of an earlier church (not a cathedral) that had been built by St. Rupert. The current Romanesque Dom was built in the 17th century after fire destroyed the previous building, and reconstruction efforts were initially unsuccessful. A bomb struck the Cathedral during World War II, and it was restored in the Baroque fashion in the 1950s. The Patron Saints are St. Rupert and St. Virgil.
The interior is gorgeous without being over-the-top. It appears as the sort of church where Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart would be baptized in a giant Gothic Baptismal Font (yes, this one)....
...and some of his sacred music would first be performed.
The Stations of the Cross were painted above the archways between each devotional chapel.
For the price on only one Euro the kids could place a phone call to God.
I mean, they listened to a brief introduction in English to the Cathedral.
We, of course, could not pass up the racks of votive candles, or St. Sebastian.
Our next stop was Fortress Hohensalzburg, the castle of Salzburg's Prince Archbishops. The castle as we have come to recognize it, icon that it is, was built in stages over centuries. The most notable expansions was during the reign of Prince-Archbishop Leonhard von Keutschach, whose coat-of-arms bore a white turnip, and this motif appeared often in the decorations of the castle. Both Myles and Brigid enjoyed trying to spot the white radishes as much (maybe more) than Jesus and other Biblical figures and Saints.
We reached the castle via the Festungsbahn, which is almost as fun to say as funikularra.
Included in the price of the tickets were the round-trip funicular rides, admission to the castle, and the audio guides. Again, the audio guides were a wonderful accompaniment so that tour groups of several different languages could walk together. Better yet, Brigid was permitted her own guide. Throughout our tour, she grinned at me, repeating "Mom, I'm learning so much."
The beginning of the tour was interesting enough, reviewing which Prince-Archbishop built which part and when. But one of the highlights, of course, is the climb to the roof for the spectacular views of Salzburg and the surrounding mountains. Or in our case, the raincloud-shrouded mountains.
The hills could be alive, I guess, if I could only catch a small hint of them. Once I saw a cloud break reveal some snow-capped peak (singular, not plural as I expected), but I could not get a picture.
Inside, we walked through the princely quarters, including the Golden Chamber and the Bed Chamber. These were where the white radish showed up the most. Like on a Majolica stove.
And this doorway.
There were a few places within the castle where archaeological excavation has brought to light several discoveries that aid in understanding the early history of Salzburg. For instance, there are a few 1050 AD-ish Romanesque arched doorways that were covered up during one or another renovation over the next several hundred years.
And a late Roman (375 A.D. or so) wall and other structures. Ever since my first trip to Germany in 2001, I have been particularly interested in the Roman limes, the outer reaches of the Roman Empire. I don't know why borders are so interesting to me, but they are. They can be firm and specific in so many ways, on maps and by governance, and yet they can be so fluid, so blurred, so indefinite in reality.
One of the final stops of the tour through the fortress was past this aerophon, known as the "Salzburg Bull." This organ was originally built in 1502, and among they who composed music specifically for this unique instrument was Leopold Mozart. It was an odd point of the tour, near the end and almost an afterthought. Most people just rushed past it. I thought this would have been given more pride of place in the tour, except for maybe the location of the aerophon would not have allowed for good traffic. It was just odd, given how much attention was given to the torture chambers and gruesome collection of medieval torture instruments when the audio guide repeated several times that while there was a holding cell in the castle, no actual torture likely occurred in the castle.
Down from the Fortress, we walked through St. Peter's cemetary which was the inspiration behind the studio set for the scene in the Sound of Music when the von Trapp family was hiding in the cemetery. St. Peter's is one of the oldest, if not the oldest, monastery in all German-speaking Europe. It is, of course, Benedictine.
We ducked into the Franciscan Church briefly as well.
The church is participating in the cause for sainthood for Bl. Franz Jägerstätter
This church is possibly the oldest in Salzburg. The original Church of our Lady was built in the 8th century, and was rebuilt and consecrated in 1221. Once an ordinary parish church, it was ceded to the Franciscans in 1642. This church shows an interesting mix of the original Gothic and Baroque elements that were introduced a few hundred years later. This is one of the churches that I couldn't resist drawing parallels between its incongruous renovations and those we would see in the twentieth century that some would derisively call wreck-o-vations. It reminded me, once again, that there truly is nothing new under the sun.
I mean, look at the Gothic flying buttresses and the elaborate carved side altars in the cloister.
One of the oldest things in the church is something that was probably impossible to move. This carved stone lion on the pulpit dates to the 1200s.
Candles! Must light candles!
We took our turn in line to photograph the kids in front of Mozart's birthplace. It was impossible to miss.
I mean really impossible to miss. There were all kinds of signs pointing to it, and in big gold letters it announces Mozart's birthplace, in German, of course.
While the kids took a drizzly playground break, I peeked into one more church.
St. Mark is a unique parish in Salzburg. Once a church attached to an Ursuline convent, Once the nuns moved to a different convent, the church was just St. Mark's. Only a few years ago it was closed and nearing collapse until the Bishop of Salzburg gave it to the Ukrainian Byzantine Catholic Community. The church was deigned for Latin Rite, but they have adapted it to their Liturgy.
Our day in Salzburg ended with a live music performance.
The Pond Pirates was not what I would have expected for live music in Salzburg, if only because I had my mind on Mozart and the Sound of Music. They were sort of a blues, dancey, ska-ish band--you know, the kind of band that can get a few thousand people to dance in the middle of the street for a few hours.
They were playing on the street outside our hotel at Fairkehr, an event that promoted verkehrspolitische Bewusstseinsbildung, "traffic-political awareness." Some things are so natural in German but difficult to translate into English, not just the words but the concept as well. Form the looks of the festivities, I would have generically described them as being part of a general Green-themed block party, but it was a specifically verkehrspolitische, apparently.
We had an unexpectedly brilliant time, enjoying this look into the kind of neighborhood where we were staying. While we focus so much in planning the Important Sites we Must See when we travel, we sometimes stumble into situations like these, a chance to experience the places like a local. I'll probably come back to this idea when I post about Italy, because where we were in Italy this time not only did we see how the locals lived, we thought we might want to stay and become locals ourselves.
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