Day 3: 29 June 2010

Overslept big time this morning…completely by accident.  Our alarm never went off and we didn’t get up until 9:45am! Guess the Snooze Hotel really makes you do just that.  The Snooze is located outside the old town of Salzburg, which we discovered was about a 25min. walk ending through a tunnel in the mountain that surrounds town.  Today was frustrating…not only were we running late, but our map reading skills were sub-par and we were starving and on our way to dehydration b/c we hadn’t yet figured out which kind of water was w/out gas!  (Note to self: mit means with and ohne means w/out!) Pizza To Go seemed a bit out of place amid the wrought iron signs on the classy Getreidgasse Street, but it def. hit the spot!  We enjoyed our pizza so much, in fact, that we completely walked by Mozart birthplace clearly marked by all the tourists.  Speaking of tourists, Salzburg is overrun by them: bus tours, school groups…you name it, and they’re here Way too many people that take the quaintness away from the city and make it feel far from authentic Austria.  I’m not sure what I pictured Austria to look like…maybe exactly the way it did in the Sound of Music, but Salzburg wasn’t the small town I imagined.

Anyway, we finally got our act together and purchased a 25E 24hr Salzburg Card that gets you into most major attractions.  Thus began our race around Salzburg to get the most for our money!  Our first stop…Mozart’s Residenz, the Dance Master’s Hall that his family moved to when he was 17.   Once again, the Residenz was a reconstruction due to damage suffered in WWII.  Took the audioguide and met the Mozart family.  Born in Salzburg in 1756, Mozart and his sister, Nannarl, were child music prodigies who traveled all over Europe to perform for royalty (starting when Mozart was 5) with their father, Leopold, an accomplished violinist.  The audioguide was somewhat informative and featured many of Mozart’s works, but we probably learned more from the video presentation at the end of the tour.

Next, we walked to nearby Mirabell Gardens, created by the prince-archbishop. and made famous by the Sound of Music when Maria and the children sang Do-A-Deer on the steps by the fountain, and ran through the arbor here.  After talking to the Cotter’s and Caitlin, we decided not to do the Sound of Music tour, but try to find the places ourselves because all are public places that the tour rushes through.  It was a judicious decision as we were able to visit nearly all of the sites on our own while saving 80E. 

From the Gardens, we wound up at Pizza To Go, and couldn’t resist another piece to tie us over.  Found our way to the Cathedral, which was very impressive.  Can’t really describe it b/c it was different than all the other Cathedrals we’ve been in…but it was beautiful!  Apparently some kind of ordination of priests was just getting out b/c there were clergy everywhere, and lots of families in their traditional Austrian clothes. 

Near the Cathedral is St. Peter’s Church and Cemetery.  Supposedly the get-away cemetery scene at the end of SOM was based on this place, but filmed in Hollywood.  According to Rick, Austrians rent gravesites, in hopes that their family members will continue to pay for the spot for generations so most here were beautifully taken care of.  The cemetery was def. a bit different than the movie…The wrought iron gates were still present, but the mausoleums were not very deep, and the stones were flush against the wall so the Von Trapps could not have hidden in the real cemetery.  We got the idea, though.

From St. Peter’s, we passed by a life size chess set behind the Cathedral, grabbed a chocolate covered brezel (really like a donut here in Austria), and caught the funicular up to the Hohensalzburg Fortress, a highly visible landmark on top of the hill protecting the town below.  Took a quick audiotour of the salt storage room & torture chambers, and got a great view of Salzburg from the ramparts.  (Side note: Learned here that Salzburg means Salt Mountain due to the salt mining industry that was common here.)  We were also quickly viewed the royal apartments of the prince-archbishop.  Not much furniture remains here b/c Napolean took it all when he conquered Salzburg.

Although the castle closed early, we were able to walk around the grounds for a while.  In one direction, we went as far as the Nonnberg Abbey (from SOM) and tried to imagine the children asking for Maria here or the Von Trapps making their great escape scene with the help of the nuns.  Afterwards, we walked back along the Monchsberg park area high above the town.  We ended our walk at the Festival Hall from the SOM, but unfortunately could not get inside b/c it is rarely open.

Took Rick Steves up on his suggestions for dinner and tried St. Paul’s Stub’n Beer Garden.  Nearly had a breakdown as we were starving and couldn’t read the German menu.  After 10 min. w/ our German glossary, the waitress finally came over and gave us the English version.  Joe decided to be adventurous and try kasnock’n…basically a smoky version of mac n’ cheese made with what I think was goat cheese (yuck...though Joe didn’t mind it too much).  I sampled roast pork w/ a knobel (bread dumpling…like stuffing).  Probably won’t be our favorite meals of the trip, but they were decent.

The walk back through town was completely different than the morning.  Late at night, few people were out and it was very quiet. Tried to catch a bus back but found out from a hungry cab driver that there was “a problem with the buses” tonight.  After running all over Salzburg, the last thing we wanted to do was walk home, but walk we did…right into the “bus problem.” Directly outside our room, work crews were resurfacing the road! Add asphalt to the smells in our room…