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Exploring Salzburg

Busy day yesterday with visiting Mozart's birthplace and his apartments as well as visiting the Salzburg musuem, taking the cable car up to the fortress. Salzburg is a wonderful city and I have fallen in love with it. And I swear Disney could not do a better job with the whole Christmas thing - amazing! I am so glad I am seeing it at this time of year. I'll be back in warmer weather to see another side of it.

A thrill for me was visiting the place Mozart was born and grew up. Even saw a piano he composed on. Wow. Can you tell he is one of my favourite composers - second only to Mr. McCartney. Both buildings were recreated to be like the time he would have lived there so that was very interesting. Copies of letters he wrote to his mother and sister...just a great insight into his life. After visiting the house he lived in before he moved to Vienna I walked over to Mirabell Gardens where some outdoor bits of the Sound of Music was filmed. (where they are running around a fountain, etc.) There I visited the Baroque museum which was a bit boring but included on the Salzburg card so why not. By this time it was drizzling again so a good respite from the rain. The Salzburg museum was interesting in some ways- I hadn't realized that Salzburg was founded by archbishops of the RC church. Oh well I won't hold that against it!!! It was full of religious stuff so that was boring to me - I am glad it was included in the pass and I didn't actually have to pay for it. The most outstanding thing about the museum to me were the sliding glass doors to the bathroom! But I was determined - when you are on the road you take advantage of pampering your bottom with nice toilets. It took me a while to figure out how to get in there! It is a very new museum. Downstairs was the Panorama museum with a Sound of Music display - now you're talking. I did enjoy that. There is an ice rink in front of the museum - Mozartplatz. (statue of Mozart as well) is the name of the square. The entrance to the Christmas market starts there too . I walked through and browsed a bit and got bratwurst and a bun. Sehr gut!

Advent market with St. Peters Archabbey in the background.


St Peters cemetery - where the Von Trapps hid from the Nazis in the movie. (though not in real life)
I took the cable car up to the Hohensalzburg Fortress and walked around but did not go inside the buildings as did not have time. A beautiful view over Salzburg on one side and to the mountains on the other. It is the largest preserved fortress in Europe. I knew it was a good view and with rain/sleet predicted for the weekend I thought I had better get up there and see the view in case there was no other opportunity.
View from the fortress towards Salzburg
At 4 p.m. I attended the Advent concert in St. Peters Archabbey. Somehow I had thought it would be right in the church but it was in a room. Anyway the music was lovely - there were two sopranos, a violinist and a pianist. Simple but perfect.

The sun barely peeked out however it was calm and quite warm. I went into a shop to buy a bottle of water on the way to the bus and when I came out there were gale force winds. It was quite scary actually and came up so suddenly. A lady at the bus stop told me we never get winds like this here! I got back here safely though.

Here's hoping the weather changes for the better. I am enjoying Salzburg but must come in warmer weather.

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