Salzburg!!

Salzburg!

My extension of my Munich trip to Salzburg happened quite accidentally. I had planned to connect going to Munich with going to Stuttgart to see Tanz der Vampire. The show closed in Stuttgart, however, and I was therefore forced to change plans. While I'm still hoping to see the show when it plays in Berlin during the month of November, I am really glad that I ended up going to Salzburg. I will admit that I haven't been to that many cities. Also, I will say that it's fair to note that a really large city (London, Paris, etc.) is going to have good parts and bad parts in the modern era. That said, Salzburg is, by far, the most beautiful city I have ever seen.

Deserted Street

One of the interesting things about my visit to Salzburg was that it occurred on a national holiday - akin to the United States' Independence Day. The streets were practically deserted, of tourists, and certainly of locals. It was a rainy (although only very lightly), foggy, and grey. This, far from being a bad thing, actually added to the beauty of the city. It was a wonderful, chill day, and the weather fit perfectly with the fall colors on the trees in the hills. Where there were trees in the city, the colored leaves littered the ground. The ghostly absent streets added to the Autumnal mystique. Fortunately, despite this holiday most of the cultural places I wanted to visit were still open. A few closed a bit early, which added to my later desire to return to the city. I also noted that, with a cool but not biting temperature (though it won't, of course, actually stay that way), river running through a smaller city flanked by two hills, and the main town situated in the valley with suburbs outside of the main valley, Salzburg resembles Portland in many ways. I think this made me feel like it was home, in a way.

Outside the Dom and the Palace

I had originally intended to make my first stop the castle, since that is by far the biggest landmark. Initially, however, I couldn't figure out how to get up the hill, and I ended up near the city's main cathedral, the Salzburger Dom. A (semi-)aerial exterior view of the Dom can be seen in the first photo on this post. One of the cool things about the Dom is that it is flanked by other buildings, including one very old Romanesque cathedral and the famous Residenz Palace. This forms a courtyard in front of the Dom. Unfortunately the courtyard was not designed with the idea of taking photos in mind, and my camera was unable to capture the façade of the cathedral. Also, this was made more difficult due to the statue/fountain that is in the center of the square. Currently (or perhaps permanently, I don't know), the statue is covered by a big glass cone, the side of which you can see in the accompanying "best I could do" shot of the cathedral's façade. Hopefully they're restoring the statue or protecting it against seasonal weather. Otherwise, they may be protecting it, but to what end?

It was cool to walk into this cathedral. A lot of people say that European cathedrals begin to blur together after a while. To an extent I agree that this is true, and I don't know that I could tell you which was which without photo reference (with some exceptions). Still, each one has its unique facets. One of the particular things that struck me about the Salzburger Dom was the larger use of painting inside of the cathedral in conjunction with stone and plaster work for decoration. This set the cathedral apart from many cathedrals that are otherwise conceptually and stylistically similar that I've seen so far.

One of the four small organs
with the larger organ in the background

Another cool thing about the Dom was the fact that it has five different organs. There is one large organ at the back of the cathedral, as is customary in these buildings. More intriguingly however, at the crux of the cruciform building, each of the four corners has an identical, smaller organ on an elevated platform. I don't know, but I would be interested in knowing, how these five different organs are used. It would be incredible, but musically nigh impossible, to play them all together. At Lawrence University, I saw two organs used together, and even that was, according to people with expertise in the field, difficult and questionable to do. Nonetheless, the five organ arrangement is decidedly unique to the Salzburger Dom.

The old section of the crypts

Wonderfully, my tour of the Salzburger Dom was not limited to the aboveground elements of the building. I also had the excellent opportunity to visit the Dom's Crypts. In many cathedrals this space is either closed to the actually devout visiters or open only for a small fee. Here, however, it was completely open. I don't know if I was technically allowed to take photos down there, but because there were no people there to be disturbed, I did so anyway. I was very impressed by some of the most ancient parts of the crypt that represented very well the fact that almost all of these cathedrals are built over an older, rougher foundation. This crypt held more than just mausoleums and elements like that. For instance, it possessed a room that was somewhat circular (the walls were flat, but there were enough that it had a circular feel) with newer graves in the walls. Finally, there was a beautiful door leading into a small subterranean chapel. What the theological difference is between this place of prayer and the main cathedral I don't know, but it certainly was a nice place.

Beautiful door!

Mozart's Geburtshaus

After leaving the Dom my next stop, almost entirely by accident, was the Mozart museum located in the house in which Mozart was born. Mozart's family only lived on the third floor, but now the museum takes up the entire building. I can never do justice to the museum's contents and information here, but it was very fascinating. I spent a ton of time there, and I made sure to look at and read every single thing they had on display. Some of the coolest things were learning about the way Mozart lead his life and his relationships. For instance, he spent in total time nearly one third of his life travelling either for performance or conducting of his own works. Another look is how close he was to his sister, and how deeply, deeply he loved his wife despite his reputation in his youth of being a gregarious lady's man. Also very cool to see were things that Mozart had used or touched himself. There were some original scores, facsimiles of notations made by Mozart personally, props from premiers of operas, a facsimile of a piano-forte, and most stunningly and beautifully, Mozart's own concert violin, laid out in the very room where he was born.

After leaving the Mozart museum after what must have been an eternity, I continued to look for the various landmarks I knew I should visit, but the locations of which I did not know. While still trying to find a way up the hill to the castle, I happened upon the St. Peter's Benedictine monastery, founded in 696 and is considered to be the oldest north of the Alps. I did visit the darkened inside of the building, and it was neat to see. Here there really were people praying, but I still got off a few photos. Here again, it seems like more paint was used for decor than in other churches and cathedrals in other cities. In this particularly building, however, the painting was even more distinct because, unlike the Salzburger Dom, it wasn't so integrated as accenting to the other decoration, but in large standalone paintings behind the altar and along the walls of the cathedral. The building I visited was honestly not the biggest pull in this region, however.

The graveyard with the cathedral and monastical building.
Taken from the crypts.

The main attraction (though that word might not be appropriate) was what I believe was the original monastical building behind, and more importantly, its surrounding cathedral and crypts. Between the cathedral in front and the monastical building behind was a beautiful cathedral with marble gravestones and quaint paths between. It was interesting to note that, while the graves looked like they had come from some other time, their dates ranged from a couple hundred years ago to modern day burials. It was wonderful to see such a beautifully maintained space for burial with shrines, well-wrought gravestones, and flowers. While I was in this area I also visited the crypts. These crypts, rather than being underground beneath some church, were carved directly into the rock on the side of the cliff (this cliff is at the foot of the same hill topped by the castle). It was neat to go up and see these rugged, fairly simple crypts for burial. I believe that the crypt I visited is just one of several, but that the others are still private burial shrines.

Finally, after going through the graveyard and really getting my bearings, I found the little tram that goes from the foot of the hill up to the top and opens directly into the castle, Festung Hohensalzburg. For a long time, Hohensalzburg had no transportation to the summit other than by foot. At some point a winch trolley system was introduced, which can still be seen, but the modern tram-elevator system is definitely a recent development. I'm certainly glad I didn't have to walk all the way up to the summit, however. In fact, I don't know which face of the mountain is walkable, most looked as though they would have to be scaled. That is, of course, why a castle was built on such a defensible location. Once I was inside the castle, I primarily occupied my time with four different activities: walking around outside the castle and exploring all the different nooks and crannies, looking out over Salzburg and its valley, full of fall colors and autumnal mist, the tour of the battlements and salt stores (which also included general information about the castle's history), and the tour of the princely chambers.

I think one of the coolest things about the castle was just having the opportunity to walk around inside the exterior walls but not actually inside the buildings. As a boy you always imagine that everything in the medieval world is made up of castles all over the place. Castles certainly existed and were important, but nonetheless few and far between and very expensive in the grand scheme of things. Nonetheless, it was sort of a satisfaction of that youthful medieval fantasy to walk around such a large and, in at least some ways, very quintessential example of a medieval castle. It was neat to see the murder holes, arrow slits, and wider lookouts through the wall. It was also interesting how, at least in this particular castle, the walls weren't one solid ring around the castle, but rather there were several different walls with different "bastions," some sticking further out and some being closer in to make, through irregular defenses, an assault more difficult. I also had the opportunity to look at a courtyard (with a tree in changing colors!), two wells for drawing water (crucial in a siege!), and some cannons, too, (it's an important factor that castles and gunpowder did overlap for a while)!

The two tours were also very neat. I'm not including a photo of the first tour, but it was through the salt stores and the battlements. The salt stores are above the stables, and were important in light of Salz-burg's most prominent resource. It was important to keep at least some of this reserved in the keep as it was the main source of wealth for the city and for the archbishops that ran the castle and the area. Now, though, that salt isn't so expensive, they have an exhibit in the main salt storeroom demonstrating the development of the castle over time, from a small keep to its current massive scale. After this we ascended to the top of one of the outer towers, which had an observation platform built on top of it, allowing for a 360 degree view of Salzburg (as far as the mists and fog would allow). I'll put more of the beautiful pictures from this at the end of the post. After returning from the tower, I went down a very long, narrow passage within the battlement, looking out the narrow windows (which have glass but at some point might have been open for defense). At the end of this passage was the "Salzburg Bull," a large mechanical organ that now has a barrel organ in it that was so loud it could be used to wake the whole town in the mornings and to make announcements from the archbishop.

The second tour was of the archbishop's princely apartments. It was really interesting to see how, in some ways, these were simplistic, made mostly out of painted wood. Still, the concert room was really cool, and impressive that even in such a remote castle, music was so important to the archbishops. Also, the heater was very ornate. Much of this tour was actually a history museum, much of which was dedicated to World War I (it seems the region was involved in the war, somehow, perhaps even the castle itself). The actual princely apartments were definitely the coolest thing here, but it was interesting to see the uniforms, weaponry, telegraph equipment, and skis from the war.

Also, here are some woodworking photos for Dad:

My intention is to return to Salzburg; there is another Mozart museum (in his own house), another monastery, and several other palaces I would still like to see. My next trip, however, will just be a day trip. Yes, train rides are two and a half to three hours long, but it's the best and cheapest way to go. It will be nice to return while it's still Autumn, since the city is so beautiful right now!