| Submitted by: Evelyn C. LeeperUnited States |
| Submission Date: 10 February 2005 |
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There were a lot of
bookstores; it's nice to be in a country where people read. In one
square we saw two men playing chess on a board on the ground about
ten meters on a side with pieces about a meter high. Something
about how they played made me think this was more to attract viewers
than to play a real game (and they were back at it the next day as
well). We heard the Glockenspiel (carillon) at 6 PM and then
returned to the hotel for dinner.
Dinner was garlic cream soup, pork cutlet with vegetables and
potatoes, and a fruit compote for dessert. Some people went to a
chamber music concert; we wrote logs, since chamber music is not our
favorite and 50 schillings (US$20) each seemed steep for something
we had only mild interest in.
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We started our city tour with our guide
Sieglinde by walking to the Mirabel Gardens. (I asked if she had a
brother Siegmund; she didn't.) The gardens (and palace) were built
in 1606 by Prince-Archbishop Wolfgang Dietrich for his mistress (and
mother of his twelve children) Salome Alt. The gardens take twenty
gardeners to maintain, digging up old flowers and planting new ones
('Sounds like bell Labs,' was Steve's comment).
On the Makartplatz we saw the Mozart Wohnhaus, where Mozart
lived from 1773 until he left home. Also on the Makartplatz is the
Church of the Trinity. Salzburg has a lot of Catholic churches, but
only two Protestant churches and one synagogue.
We then crossed the Salzach River and entered the Old Town,
seeing Geburtshaus Mozart (Mozart's birthplace), or at least the
outside of it. Salzburg didn't have much use for Mozart when he was
alive (nor he for Salzburg, come to that), but now that he's been
dead two hundred years his face and name are everywhere in the city.
Sieglinde pointed out the ironwork signs hanging over the
shops, showing what was for sale there, a hangover from times when
most people couldn't read. (You saw an updating in the film THE
HANDMAID'S TALE.) We saw several churches, including Salzburg
Cathedral and St. Peter's. The churches (and the statuary in the
Mirabel Gardens) show damage from acid rain.
St. Peter's Monastery, set right against the mountain, was
founded in the 7th Century and is the oldest in Austria. When it
built its bakery, it dug a tunnel through the mountain to divert
water to run its mills; this water was also used to flood the
streets clean once a week. St. Peter's Church used to have a
Renaissance interior but when Salzburg Cathedral was rebuilt, it
decided to compete and was renovated in the Baroque style. Nowadays
you can't change anything in a historic building, but this was not
always true. I wonder when it was decided that what was old was
historic and couldn't be changed. And there are still places where
this isn't true, though massive changes usually generate opposition
from other parts of the world. So Chinese attempts to modernize
everything were somewhat halted (though many would say not soon
enough in Tibet), and other countries have realized that keeping the
old generates tourism. Italy knows that if it straightens the
Leaning Tower of Pisa no one will come see it any more. (The
problem is there is that, unchecked, it will lean more each year
until it falls over.)
But this is a log about Eastern Europe, not Italy. So back to
our sightseeing.
Salzburg Cathedral was first built in 774, then rebuilt and
reconsecrated in 1628. On October 16, 1944, during the bombing of
the city, a bomb fell on the dome, destroying it. After the war the
dome was rebuilt (identical to what it was before, using old
photographs as guides--see above comments on how no one can change
anything any more) and the Cathedral was finished in 1959. The
interior has elaborate stucco work as well as paintings on the
ceiling and upper part of the walls. One of the smaller organs was
playing while we were in the Cathedral (it has five organs: four
small ones and a big one having 10,000 pipes). Sieglinde also made
a point of showing us the bronze baptismal font where Mozart was
baptized. This seems to be its main claim to fame, since as an
intrinsic piece of art it seems inferior to, say, the font in Liege,
Belgium.
We went from the Cathedral to the Residenzplatz, but got more
interested in the three hot air balloons being inflated there. They
seemed to be advertising balloons, but we never saw them take off
(and indeed they may not have, as the weather was questionable all
day).
This was the end of the city tour. The other four were taking
tours of the Bavarian Alps (appealing because they went to Germany,
thereby adding another country, but for little else), but Steve,
Mary, Mark, and I returned to the hotel, freshened up, picked up our
cheese and crackers for lunch, and went to the fortress
(Hohensalzburg).
The fortress sits atop the Moenchberg, a forested ridge
overlooking Salzburg. There is a path but we took the funicular
which left from behind St. Peter's (27 schillings round-trip).
While Mary waited on the small plaza overlooking the city, Steve,
Mark, and I took a guided tour of the fortress. This involved a lot
of stairs, as one of the high points (no pun intended) was the view
from the watch towers on the roof.
The fortress was started in 1077 and last added on to in 1677.
How they got the materials up the hill would be a good story, though
maybe the other side isn't as steep. It served its purpose well,
which was not so much defending the city as it was protecting the
prince-archbishop from being attacked by the people. Napoleon's
troops did manage to take it, and sent everything not nailed down
back to France, so the rooms are bare of furniture. The only thing
they left was the incredibly ornate stove--the only heat in the
whole complex.
We also saw the torture chamber (usually Mark's favorite part
of these sorts of tours) and a pair of museums, one of the household
regiment (emphasizing more their bravery in World War I than their
actions in World War II) and the town museum with the usual
collection of armor and weapons. We wandered around the grounds and
courtyards a bit, getting somewhat lost, and eventually found our
way back to where Mary was waiting.
I have to say the most interesting aspect of the fortress is
its location atop the ridge, since inside it is not all that
different from other castles and fortresses in Europe. And for that
matter, Salzburg is similar to other European cities. It seems full
of tourists--certainly in the Old Town, but even in the areas
outside the Old Town. Maybe this isn't surprising, since our hotel
is near the Mirabel Palace, a major attraction. Still, if this is a
slow tourist year, I'd hate to see what it's like here when it's
busy.
After seeing the fortress, we returned via funicular to the
base to catch the 3 PM catacombs tour. This was a good thing, as
this turned out to be the last tour of the day (the books indicate
the catacombs are open until 5 PM). Just inside the gate, not up
into the mountain, are the graves of Mozart's sister Nannerl and
Joseph Haydn's brother Michael. Also there are panels of paintings
from Durer about the plague. The catacombs are *above* the entrance
rather than below as one might have expected. It is surmised that
at one time there was an entrance at the top of the ridge, possibly
destroyed by a subsequent landslide. Since the fortress postdates
the catacombs' use as a secret place by several centuries, this is
possible. (Constantine converted to Christianity about 300 A.D.,
thus obviating the need for Christians to hide any more. It would
have been a nice irony if the catacombs had been used to hide Jews
in World War II, but they weren't.)
We first saw the 4th Century St. Catherine's Chapel. Lower
than the 3rd Century St. Maximus Chapel, it lends credence to the
idea that the catacombs were built top down. It had a separate side
room for the as-yet-unbaptized. (At this time, only adults were
baptized and then only on Easter Sunday and Pentecost Sunday.
Contrast this with Mozart's baptism when he was one day old--in his
time there was a special rush because of infant mortality.) In 1178
the chapel was reconsecrated to Thomas a Becket, martyred by Edward
II. (One woman on the tour confused him with Thomas More, martyred
by Henry VIII.)
The St. Maximus Chapel, dating from 250 A.D., was also carved
out of the rock but higher up. It was originally in the shape of a
cross, but one of the arms was lost in a landslide. So from 1669,
mountain cleaners examine the rock face each spring and patch the
rock where necessary.
We were a little disappointed that we didn't go deeper into the
mountain and see more tombs, but I guess we'll have to go to Rome
for that. There didn't seem to be any more than we saw, so I think
there were probably not extensive tombs.
We descended to the courtyard where Mary was writing postcards
and ate our lunch of cheese and crackers. By now it was getting too
late to hit another museum, so we decided to see the 'Magic Flute
House' in which Mozart wrote--you guessed it--THE MAGIC FLUTE. I
bet you're thinking, 'But didn't he write that in Vienna?'
(Actually, you're probably not, but I'm going to give you the
benefit of the doubt.) Yes, he wrote it in Vienna, but then they
dismantled the house and brought it to Salzburg, where they put it
in a garden next to the Mozarteum. Well, that's what the guide
books say, but we couldn't find it--it may be behind a closed gate
except when tours are running. We did see Christian Doppler's
house, which led to a long discussion of cosmology, to which
Kopernicus's statue nearby added a coincidental note.
We took a quick look at the Dwarf Garden in Mirabel Gardens,
with its dozen dwarf statues commemorating court dwarfs (whether
specific ones or just dwarfs in general isn't clear). We returned
to the hotel, but Mark and I went out again to see Salzburg's one
synagogue, on Lasserstrasse ('La{erstra{e'), near our hotel. This
turned out to be a relatively nondescript building, probably dating
from the 1960s.
We returned to the hotel just as it started to rain. And it
continued to rain. This was unfortunate, as our dinner was at the
Stiegelkeller, a beer garden in the Old Town (in fact, quite near
the base of the funicular). Because the streets in the Old Town are
so narrow, the bus could not get very close and we had a fair walk
in the pouring rain. The streets were deserted because of the
weather and so was the beer garden--at least we were indoors.
Dinner was skimpy--frittaten soup (a duck broth with a slivered
crepe in it), turkey curry and rice (!), and a yogurt torte. Though
a few more people showed up, the activity never got very lively and
the whole excursion was somehow not worth the effort.
After dinner, we had to pay for our drinks, not included on
this tour. Steve and Mary were in the restrooms, so I paid for
theirs--60 schillings, for which I gave the waiter 100 schillings
and got 30 in change. |
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