Salzburg

I have put Salzburg back on my bucket list as I’m already planning on going back.

How can you not fall in love with a place that looks like a fairy tale? This is the view of the Old Town and fortress from the bridge that leads to Schloss Mirabell.

Mirabell was the home of the Archibishop’s mistress and their 14 children. This is the main garden. A number of the scenes from the movie The Sound of Music were filmed here, incuding the Do Re Mi step scene. It’s impossible to take a decent photo of the steps as they are constantly filled with “Music” tourists creating their own scenes.

This is the side garden of Mirabell, it was usually pretty quite and calm. Throughout the main garden and the tree shaded allees you could find all sorts of musicians, from the guitarist playing with a hat out for donations, to the local community band that plays a regular Sunday morning concert, to a Mariachi band from Texas!

This is the Salzburg cathedral on the left and the white portion is the addition added by the archbishop. It was so he could walk from his residence on the right to the cathedral through the 2nd story walkway. This way he didn’t have to mingle with the common folk.

This is the Archibishops residence. Once the pope found out about his mistress and their 14 kids he called him to Rome. Pope was a bit put out as he himself only had 9 kids with his mistress!

I was here during the annual Mozart festival. Mozart square is right next to the Residence square. There was a piano in the square and anyone could and did play on it. I heard classical, jazz, blues and some modern music played on it. The other side of the Cathedral they have a giant screen set and they show past performance on it for free during the day and night. In front of the Cathedral is the main stage.

I attended an organ concert in the Cathedral and it was the perfect setting for it. It was kind of dark inside so the only photo that really came out was of the organ itself. The music was as beautiful as the instrument that created it.

I took the Fraulein Maria Sound of Music Bike Tour. We got to see the buildings they used for the movies. Some were in town and some were out a ways, great way to see the area, on a cruise bike! We even had the sound track playing as we were out riding down a country lane. We were a group of about 8 and with everyone singing along it was it was just like the scene from the movie. Totally corny and I would do it again in a heartbeat!

This was the house they used for filming the front of the Von Trapp house.

Salzburg’s Old Town is very walkable so I spent a number of hours just wandering around enjoying the views.

There are hillsides surrounding Salzburg. There is a great hiking trail just opposite of Old Town.

This is the start of the hike, pretty steep at the start.

Part of the trail is paved, some is steps and some is dirt.

This is the end of one of the trails, Franziskischloss.

The views from the trail were great!

The mountains in the distance reminded me of home, might be why I felt so comfortable there. I found Salzburgers to be willing to help you see the best of it. I got great advise from folks on park benches, beer gardens and anywhere else that I pulled out my map to decide where to go next.