Exploring Salzburg

Today we begin the craziness of packing in as much as we possibly can to take full advantage of all the free site-seeing included in our Salzburg Card. Our first stop is St. Peter's cathedral, cemetery, and catacombs.

St. Peter's cathedral.

One of the ceiling panels at St. Peter's depicting the story of Peter walking on water.

The organ at St. Peter's.

St. Peter's and the attached cemetery.

A view from one of the catacomb windows.

Tourist information says that the cemetery scene at the end of The Sound of Music was shot at St. Peter's but they were actually shot on a sound stage in California. It was still interesting to see the site they used for inspiration for the design.

We caught a ride on the oldest funicular in Austria (built in 1892) to the top of the hill to explore Hohensalzburg Fortress, the fortress museum, and marionette museum.

A collection of marionette shoes - my favourite are the little duck feet in the bottom, right corner.

Marionettes used in a production of Aladdin.

A short video clip recorded on the television screen showing excerpts of various marionette productions held at the Salzburg marionette theatre.

Marionettes used in a production of Mozart's life story.

The fortress museum had my favourite display of old armour.

I love the simplicity of the design, yet it also makes the armour come to life as the figures are placed in the position of an advancing army.

This device was used to force prisoners' mouths open for torture.

One of a small number of royal rooms preserved in the fortress.

A view from a fortress tower.

A view from a fortress tower.

As we walked through town we stumbled upon this shop with hundreds, if not thousands, of painted eggs. We didn't see them anywhere else, but they must have some kind of cultural significance.

We walked through part of Mirabell Palace gardens to reach the Salzburg Baroque Museum. The museum was quite boring, but there was an interesting woman who seemed to be composing something on a grand piano in the middle of the room. She kept rubbing the edge of the piano with two pencils, creating a sound we could hear throughout the room. As we walked past her we could see that she had worn the finish off the piano with all her rubbing, so obviously this wasn't a new thing for her. She played a few chords and then closed her eyes, swayed a bit, and rubbed the side of the pencils furiously on the edge of the piano, varying the speed slightly until she decided to play a few more notes. Quite amusing for both me and Melinda as we both play the piano but have never seen anyone use such a "technique". A couple of people were with the woman at the piano, almost seeming to wait in great anticipation as she worked through her "process".

A view of Hohensalzburg Fortress from a fountain in front of Mirabell Palace.

We visited a couple of Mozart museums. One of the museums was built in a residence where Mozart lived for part of his life - there is a special exhibit of Haydn's life so we were able to learn a bit about both composers. The other museum was built in the home where Mozart was born on January 27, 1756 - it was quite an extensive exhibit with plenty of interesting information about Mozart and his family.

An adorable rain cap I found in a hat shop window.

If I ask Melinda to hold my camera for me for just a minute, I'm guaranteed that she'll snap at least a couple of photos. She fell in love with the solid "click" sound the first time I asked her to take a picture of me and now she jumps at any chance to use my camera.

Climbing on a dumpster full of dirt to see over a fence made of sheets of tarp used to protect the restoration work on the fountain used in The Sound of Music when Maria is singing "I have Confidence in Me".

The famous fountain undergoing restoration.

We ended our day by visiting the Panorama Museum to take a look at the almost two hundred year old painting (the circumference is twenty-six meters or eighty-five feet). Visiting the museum wasn't a big priority for us, but it turned out to be quite beautiful and interesting. The museum has set up a reduced copy of the panorama with a small screen mounted on a bracket that can be moved up and down and side-to-side over the panorama. The screen contains a modern photograph of Salzburg, using the same angle used in the panorama painting. As visitors move the screen over the painting, the view moves to match the panorama behind.

Panorama close-up.

Panorama close-up.