Weekend Bonanza Part Two (Salzburg)

On Sunday, Melissa and I got up around 7:00 AM, had breakfast at The Tent, and then made our way to the Munich train station. We took the 8:27 AM train to Salzburg, Austria and got there around 10:30 AM. This is when we visited the first tourist information center of the trip that actually provided a free map of the city, as well as information that proved useful to our touristy needs. We both got a "Salzburg City Card" that cost us 24 Euro each, but allowed us to access most of the city's museums and attractions for free or highly reduced prices.

After a short bus ride we got off well past the stop we should have (a reoccurring theme in our travels; I hope to successfully navigate a city transportation system on the first try at least once before I leave), and then took a little railcar up to the "Festung Hohensalzburg", the Fortress in on a hill the middle of Salzburg. This fortress is the largest intact fortress in Europe, and was never taken by force. Apparently it was only taken once, and at that time it was surrendered to Napoleon for political reasons before any fighting began. This place was huge!

Just as we got inside the inner walls it began to absolutely pour. We took refuge with the walking audio tour of the castle (the inside). This tour took about 40 minutes, and towards the end we worked our way up to the top of the highest tower, right in the middle of the caste. I was worried that it would still be raining, but when we stepped out of the stairs it was absolutely bright and beautiful. The view was incredible! I took as many photos as I could without getting too redundant. You could absolutely see everything from up there! The entire city and valley laid out before us with the mountain horns poking through the clouds off in the distance. We were up there for a good ten minutes before the tour ended. Next Melissa and I walked through the museums in the castle and the state rooms (again, free with our handy cards). They were interesting, but not nearly as good as the view had been from the tower.

When we were all done looking through the fortress, we stopped and had lunch at one of the cafes situated on the castle walls. Let me tell you, it was something else to be sitting on the edge of this giant fortress looking out at the city below us. Again the view was incredible, and I took a lot of photos.

After lunch we toured the "Salzburger Dom" (the city cathedral) and went through it's audio-toured museum (free, with the cards; see, the pattern is developing). The cathedral was just as impressive as all the others that we had seen, and it was nice to walk through and see its collection of art and artifacts from the Salzburg area. After the cathedral came the local Residenz with its museum and state room tours (again, audio guided and. . . free with the card). The Residenz itself was relatively small, especially when compared to the exquisite imperial Residenz in Würzburg and the large one in Munich. An interesting note is that the University of Salzburg actually utilizes half of the building for offices and classrooms. Could you imagine taking math class in a five-hundred year old building designed in princely splendor?

It was getting pretty late by the time we had finished walking through the Residenz art gallery, so we started wandering back to the train station. On the way we walked through the gardens of Mirabell Castle, another palace in the heart of Salzburg. We had a light dinner at the train station, and made it home at just after midnight without any major incidents. All-in-all, it was a ridiculously successful and awesome weekend, even without the constant guidance of Rick Steves. In the end, Salzburg was by far much more exciting than Munich, and we were finally able to actually go through some museums, which was very nice.

So with that said, "Where to next?".