Living in Munich is fantastic. It’s so central and therefore makes it easy to get to so many places we want to visit in Europe. So on the spur of a moment over lunch on Saturday, we decided we would catch a train to Salzburg and stay the night. Easy…well, sort of. I booked the train tickets on my phone and resolved to sort out the hotel on our way there.
The journey takes about two hours, but didn’t start well. There’s something to be said for forward planning, because we didn’t get a seat for the first hour. To top things off, we were robbed. Trap for young players – watch out for thieves before the train is set to leave! We’d put our padlocked small suitcase on the luggage rack above the seats and turned our backs to make a call to Mr C in Australia. In the middle of the call, Mr C noticed a man watching us intently from behind. and sure enough we later found that the zipper on our locked bag had been split open and a pair of sunglasses were missing….could have been worse I guess. Lesson to self: always keep your luggage within view…dah!
Late Afternoon & Evening
Once we settled into our hotel (the Bergland) we thought we’d take a walk into the old town and get an idea of what we would like to visit the next day. The old town is actually split into two by the Salzach River.
The north side, where our hotel was located, appears to be the newer part of the “old town”, and its main attraction is the Mirabella Palace and Gardens.
The south side is larger, older and includes all the other main tourist sights. So we decided to start there.
Salzburg is the place where Mozart was born, of course, and there’s plenty to see on that score, but we decided to avoid Mozart on this trip. Maybe next time! What couldn’t be avoided was the annual Salzburg festival which we hadn’t realised was taking place that weekend. We really are boguns! The city was full of music, from buskers to special exhibitions and performances and opera in the square at night (more on that later). But after the train trip, all we really wanted to do was sit down and have some coffee and ice-cream. Great decision! We got to see the people wander by and soaked in the atmosphere under the glare of Mr Amadeus.
We followed this up with a wander down the main shopping strip, Getreidegasse, as we knew all the stores would be closed the next day. We were really excited to find a couple of Christmas decoration stores and bought some pretty little hand painted eggs for our tree.
By this stage we’d found our second wind so we decided to walk up the hill and see the city from the top of the old town walls. We found a small lane heading up the hill just across from the Müllnersteg bridge that takes you past Müllner Kirche (church).
We took it slowly and watched the late afternoon sun slowly dip under the horizon. From along the ridge we got some great photos of the old town with the Fortress in the distance and amazingly there were absolutely no crowds to compete with. I would really recommend this as an alternative option to the Fortress for views. The fortress is buzzing with tourist crowds and the peace and tranquillity of this walk is something which left a deep impression on me.
The trail we took eventually led us to the Salzburg Museum of Modern Art, and we were surprised to find that there was a James Turrell Sky Space installation. We spent a good 15 minutes or so inside – entirely on our own – watching the light change imperceptibly. A rare experience.
Back in town, we stopped for a quick schnitzel dinner and then wandered some more. Apart from some next-level buskers, we were surprised to find a big crowd in the square below the entry to the fortress funicular. As opera tickets can be very expensive, the town airs the nighly performances from 8pm on a huge screen in the square. It’s organised into a seating section and a dining section. Alternatively, if you’ve wandered in without notice, like us, you can buy refreshments and just stand at the edge and watch the show. We stayed for a while then wandered home so that we could be up bright and early for the next day.
A Morning & Afternoon
We started the day with a quick wander around Mirabella Palace Gardens which even at that early time of the day was full of tourists.
The gardens were pretty and carefully designed and organised, and it was worth a detour – but we didn’t spend a lot of time there as breakfast was calling!
Our main objective for the day was to visit the Dom Quartier, which is actually a collection of spaces including the Cathedral, Residenz, Museums and Monastery which have all been connected into a single interconnected visit. No photos allowed unfortunately, but we spent a great couple of hours looking at the sumptuous palace interiors, getting an eagle eye view of the Cathedral from the organ stall- not possible on a normal Cathedral visit – and marvelling at some very beautiful works of sculpture, both ecclesiastical and secular. I was very excited to see a whole room of cabinets of curiosities! Each cabinet was chock full of wondrous things. Here are some photos of the Dom Quartier from the official website to give an idea of what we saw:
We followed up our visit to the Dom Quartier with a visit to the Cathedral – this time at ground level. An imposing structure in high baroque style.
After a leisurely lunch, we moved on to the Cemetery in the north east quarter of the old city. It was interesting enough but crowded.
There are catacombs below the cemetery, but we decided to leave these for another visit and continued on to explore the southern side of the old city across the river as we had little time left before catching our train.
In the process we stumbled upon another cemetery attached to the church of St Sebastian. It will become obvious over the course of this blog that I really enjoy visiting cemeteries – I’m hoping that this doesn’t come across as too macabre, but there is something very peaceful and often quite beautiful about most of the cemeteries I’ve visited – and German cemeteries, I’ve found, are particularly sublime.
By contrast to the previous cemetery, there were barely any people here despite the fact that it was actually a much more interesting place to visit. The cemetery is set out in a cloister-like arrangement with a chapel and garden at its centre.
The tombs are dotted throughout the interior garden and line the cloister walls.
There was a proliferation of skull and bone sculptures – more than you would usually see – and the chapel had some fine tile work – though unfortunately the entry gate was closed to the public on the day we visited.
After this visit we hurried on towards the station and caught our train home – still with plenty on the agenda for our next visit to Salzburg!
