You Go Nate!

RUNNING AROUND SALZBURG IN NOTHING BUT DRAPES!


...and having a marvelous time.

After a busy week of teaching and as it was the first day of summer I decided that I should celebrate by taking a Saturday trip to Salzburg, Austria. So I hopped on a train with my book, my ipod, and my camera, and headed east.

It wasn't long on my two-hour train ride before I began to see the great giants on the horizon: The Alps!

Before long the train crossed the Salzach river and made its final stop at the Salzburg Hauptbahnhof. With beautiful weather and a full day of exploring ahead of me, I eagerly set off to the old town.

Of course my first stop was to the house of the the most famous of Salzburg citizens: Christian Doppler, who as you will no doubt remember was the one who invented the Doppler Effect, Doppler Radar, and of course, Super Doppler.

On the way I passed some building dedicated to a rather obscure composer of music named Mozart. The "Mozarteum" is the Salzburg University of Music and Dramatic Arts.

After being thoroughly overwhelmed by the site of Doppler's house, I walked a few doors up the square to find Mozart's house. He wasn't home, seeing as he's been dead for some time. However, this was the house where he spent many of his teenage and young adult years. It is now an interesting museum dedicated to the composer.

After touring the Mozart Wohnhaus, I wandered the streets snapping photos and people watching.

Soon I found myself on the most busy pedestrian street in Salzburg, the Getreidegasse.

The street was packed with tourists, particularly in front of Mozart's birth house. It was touristic chaos at its worse as people were trying to photograph each other in front of the plaque while tour groups were being shouted at by their guides. Come on people, what about Doppler!

Inside Mozart's Geburtshaus there is little that is authentic and the museum was recently designed in a sort of modern art-ish way. However, there was one treasure that I snapped a photo of before being told "No photos:"

This is Mozart's piano on which he reportedly composed The Magic Flute, The Abduction from Seraglio, and the Requiem.

After touring the Geburtshaus I was back on the Getreidegasse. This street is famous for the many ornate iron signs that hang from the shops.

Even the McDonald's had a fancy sign...

With my trusty Rick Steve's Germany & Austria guidebook I had all the information I needed for my do-it-yourself tour of the city.

Next it was on to the Salzburg Cathedral.

Salzburg is one of the best preserved Italian Baroque-styled cities north of the Alps. The Cathedral is a fine example of this and is a wonder to behold. Mozart was baptised here and served as ward organist for two years.

Right now the European Championship Soccer Match is being played between qualifying nations (including Germany... more on that another day) in Austria and Switzerland. Thus "Fußball" banners are everywhere and a huge makeshift festival stage was erected in Mozart Platz next to the Cathedral.

But the continental soccer tournament is not nearly as interesting as this exciting water wheel! An ancient canal system with water wheels has served Salzburg since the Middle-Ages.

Speaking of the Middle-Ages, the purportedly oldest restaurant in Europe is the Stiftkeller St. Petri, where Charlemagne dined in AD 803.

Next I hiked up the large central "park," or hill as it were, to get a great panoramic view of the city.

And the magnificent Salzburg Castle...

Hey there good-lookin'....

I thought the woman with a nice DSR camera would take an excellent photo of me and the city. I was wrong... Seriously, who cares about my feet?

I traversed the hill to the castle where I made it up to the gate.

I decided I would pay the money to go inside another day and instead snapped a few photos from that angle.

I came down the other side of the hill and found a cool palace with the Alps as backdrop. (That's the same mountain that you see in the background of the lake in Sound of Music. The lake and mansion were very near but closed to tourists.)

I soon found my way back to the river.

...and explored some more of the ancient narrow streets off the beaten tourist path.

...following up the river I made a complete circle of the city from where I began in the morning.

Mozart balls!

My final destination was another hill opposite the Old Town for a final commanding view of the city.

With it being the longest day of the year this far North, it was 7pm and still the sun was high in the sky for my journey home. Exhausted from all my walking and pleased with my day, I enjoyed passing the rural Bavarian scenes as my train took me back to Munich.

When I got back to Blutenburgstraße I caught the tail end of the Blutenburgstraße Festival held right outside my building. You can even see my roommate Boris in the khaki shorts next to the buildlings on the right.

So it's been a full and a fun day. I hope to go back to Salzburg again and see even more. Be sure to check out my full Salzburg photo album below...

Salzburg

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