Land of Mozart and Maria

This morning we caught the train from Vienna to Salzburg. After we found seats on the train I realized that by the time we reached Salzburg it would be mid-afternoon so we should pick up some lunch before the train left. We had a little less than twenty minutes before departure and we took turns racing to buy food at the little grocery store in the station. I managed to make it back to my seat with about ninety seconds to spare before the train pulled out.

We travelled to Salzburg with the now-familiar confusion of deciphering signs in different languages and asking for directions from people who speak minimal English. I had the address of our hotel, the bus number to catch, and the name of our stop. Shouldn't be too difficult, right? The woman at the information kiosk at the train station assured me that the buses display the names of each stop. We got on the bus and I kept an eye on the display screen for the first two stops and realized that it was obviously out of order. I had checked the location of our hotel on a map a day or two earlier so I at least had an idea about the area of the city where the hotel was located and I knew it should be about a ten minute drive. We quickly pulled out a map of the city and searched for street signs or landmarks so I could figure out our location. Our frantic conversation went something like this:

Melinda: "There's a sign! It looked like 'arsper-something'!"
Me: "Did you catch any of the spelling?"
Melinda: "Ummm... not really."
Me: "Could it be 'Auerspergstrasse'?"
Melinda: "Yeah!"
Me: "Okay, I've found that road - anything else? I need to figure out where we are on that road."
Melinda: "Nothing yet. Don't they use street signs here?"
Me: "Oh - there's one - Mirabellplatz. Why do they have to use such a crazy font? I can barely read it! Platz... Platz... maybe that's referring to a plaza and not a street. Here it is! Anything else?"
Melinda: "There's another on! I saw 'Schraneng' or something?"
Me: "Maybe 'Schrannengasse'?"
Melinda: "Sure, maybe, I don't know!"
Me: "Aha! I think I know where we are. Okay, we should go around a corner and over a bridge across a river, then turn right, then left, then it looks like we'll go through a tunnel, then we'll be getting off. Keep looking for street signs so we can make sure we're in the right place as we get closer."

We found what I figured would be our stop and got ready to get off the bus. An older couple were ahead of us at the exit at the back of the bus so they stepped off, then Melinda, and the doors began to close just as I reached the bottom step. I knew I couldn't jump off in time with my huge backpack strapped on, so I stuck my hand out, expecting a sensor to make the doors open again, but it didn't work. The hand I stuck out was holding the map and I watched Melinda's eyes open wide in shock as the doors closed over my wrist with the map sticking out in front of her face. I yanked my hand back through the doors, leaned back to smack the button to request a stop, and looked for a button to reopen the doors but it seemed that only the driver had control. I heard myself make some sort of gasping, questioning sound that came out as sort of a loud squeak as I stared desperately at the rear-view mirror, forcing myself to resist the urge to yell something in English, such as, "Let me out! My aunt and uncle will kill me if I leave my cousin on the sidewalk in a foreign city!" As I felt the gears engage to pull ahead, the driver glanced up and saw me staring at him with eyes that were likely the size of dinner plates. Thankfully he clued in and opened the doors.

We left our baggage in our room and headed into town to visit our usual first-stop: the tourism information office. When we leave our hotel and walk into town we walk through a tunnel blasted through a cliff-face, past a massive doorway with impressive sculptures, past and the horse fountain, and alongside the Festspielhause (where the music festival scene at the end of Sound of Music was filmed).

The Horse Fountain.

Massive doorway with sculptures.

Happy Canada Day!
A family proudly wearing t.shirts announcing their nationality.

At the tourism office we each purchased a forty-eight hour Salzburg Card for thirty-two euros and the pass gave us free access to public transportation, free admission to over twenty-five sites, and discounts at numerous shops and further tourism sites. We knew we'd wring as much out of the cards as we possibly could. We each went through the brochure and marked the sites we wanted to see, ending up with about twenty different places to visit... and only forty-eight hours in which to take them all in. Using a map of the city, I marked it with numbers to correspond with the sites where we had free entry, figured out the opening and closing times to maximize our time, and the fun begins tomorrow morning.

This afternoon we explored the old town, visited Salzburg Cathedral, explored the gardens at Mirabell Palace, and listened to one traditional song played by a brass band in the park.

Salzburg Cathedral - one of my favourites.

So many cathedrals are full of gold or somber colours, but I loved the cheerful colours and beautiful details found at the Salzburg Cathedral.

Video of the interior of the cathedral.

Video showing the ceiling in a side room at the cathedral.

We walked along the river to reach Mirabell Palace and took a little detour to walk up a long flight of steps to reach Kapuzinerkloster (a monastery at the top of a hill - the yellow building in the photo below). We weren't in a rush to get anywhere in particular and I figured there would probably be a nice view from the top.





We walked back down the hill and found our way to Mirabell Palace. One of the quirky features of the garden are these dwarf statues, described as "weird" in one tour book.




The grounds are open to the public and they featured prominintly in the last minute of the Do-Re-Mi montage filmed for The Sound of Music (click here to watch the montage - scenes filmed in the Mirabell gardens start at 3:57 in the clip).

During Do-Re-Mi, the kids all tap this statue on the head as they file past.

Another famous Do-Re-Mi site at Mirabell.
(The fountain in the background was also used.)

A little touch of home.

The tunnel we walk through between the old town and our hotel.

We've definitely been enjoying weather which begs for a watermelon snack.