Salzburg sites

It was time for us to return to Austria, and though we had a week or so left, we knew our vacation was coming to an end. Salzburg was our next place…the birthplace of Mozart and the home of the Sound of Music, both of which are played to the hilt for the tourist. Being the tourists that we are…

We did manage to roam around, picking up pictures of various places from the sound of music – we happen to be watching it right now – and I’ve found a few places that came right from the movie! I didn’t get pictures of everything but I did get a few shots of some of the places. We had walked up to the convent where Maria was and also passed by the field where she and the children sang. Lots of shots in the movie of the castle and various city locations. It was cool to see them and know that we had been there too! The first one is a picture of the convent when she is leaving to go be the governess.

The old town and the castle district were our first tourist excursions. Sad to say, once you’ve seen 20 old towns, they begin looking all the same. Cobbled streets, old buildings, beautiful statues, ornate ornamentation, classic, renaissance, baroque, rococo, all styles of buildings that I now have seen but still couldn’t identify with any authority. It seems that over the years they’ve taken to re-building and remodeling in the current style of the day. Most buildings boast 2 or 3 different styles even in the same room!

Sad to say, the rain came while we were in Salzburg. Our trip up the hill to the castle was wet, to say the least. They have preserved the castle as a museum and have included much of the original structure along with a great portrayal of life during the period around Salzburg. There was more to discover through the courtyard area but the drenching rain drove us down the mountainside and into the relatively drier cathedrals and museums.

If you hadn’t heard before, you would know within 10 seconds of arriving in Salzburg that Mozart was born here. It is proclaimed everywhere you look so, of course, we had to check out his humble beginnings, and humble they were. The home has been “preserved” and is now a museum, sharing information about his early life and his family. The sojourn of his life was continued in Vienna. It was interesting, and dry, dry from the wet outside.