Retirement, techie style: Salzburg

We spent 2.5 days in Salzburg, which was more than enough time to see everything. Rick Steve suggests doing a day trip from Munich, and that is certainly enough to see the main sights. But we enjoyed seeing the town at our leisure.

We had the sense to have booked a hotel with good air conditioning, since the weather was in the high 80s and low 90s each day. We arranged to spend the hottest part of the day reading in our hotel room.

Friday afternoon we wandered through the main drag (our hotel, the Radisson Altstadt, was right on the primary shopping street), checking out Mozart's house (so-so) and various shops. Our hotel had a special "Pfifferling" (chanterelle) menu, and with those being Jay's favorite mushrooms, we had to eat there. The building the hotel was in was built in 1377, so there were a few funky aspects, but I would recommend it as a place to stay. We also arranged to go to a Mozart dinner and concert the next night at the "Festung" (fortress).

How about a few pictures of this fortress:

From the Mozartweg footbridge. This was the home of the Prince-Archbishops who ruled Salzburg for centuries. It was impressive enough that no enemy even tried to storm it..

And at night, from near the cathedral.

And here is it from Schloss Mirabell (near the Mozart Residenz where he lived as a young man.)

And here are a few views looking down from the fortress (or at least the grounds around it) onto the town.

The Festung dinner was quite adequate, and the concert was very good. Rick Steve describes it as a "Mozart's greatest hits" show, and that was close to right (only about half the program was Mozart). Going for dinner makes it easier to get to the concert on time, and it includes admission to the various castle rooms, including a very nice marionette museum (remember the marionettes in the Sound of Music?).

I think one is legally required to include a picture of the statue of Mozart (this town is gaga about Mozart)

We did the Rick Steve's walking tour our second day, but that only kept us busy for about two hours, so not nearly as compelling as the Munich tour. We took the elevator up to the area near the Festung (a monastery and a lovely woods to walk through) for the afternoon.

On the third day, we had sort of run out of things to do in the immediate neighborhood, so we rented bikes to go out to Hellbrunn Palace, about 4km out of town (along the river), on the (correct) theory that it would be cooler there. This was the summer home of the aforementioned Prince-Archbishops. Also Hellbrunn is noted for its "trick fountains", which surprise you with water being squirted at you, so that was another chance to cool down.

The palace has a lot of small grottos; this one contains a "magic hat" that shoots into the air via a water spout when the magic valve is opened. These water effects were all created in the 17th century, as sort of the "hi-tech" toys of that era.

Another homage to Mozart in one of the palace rooms.

The original of this little guy is in one of the grottos, but I got a better shot of the museum copy.

That afternoon we went to the Mirabell Palace, which supposedly has the most beautiful room for weddings (it's sort of the city hall now). We got to see the staircase going to the room, but not the office, since it was Sunday. You mostly walked around the gardens, including one that had a variety of statues of dwarves. They are apparently all modeled on real individuals. Here are the ones I liked best

Clearly, rubbing their noses must be good luck.

We discovered Nockerl, a Salzburg dessert. It's a not too sweet meringue with a bit of a raspberry sauce. We ate at a small hole in the wall shop that claimed to have the best Nockerl in town. Since we only tried the one, we can't attest to the accuracy of the statement, but it was good. This is the typical size of a Nockerl serving. It's intended to serve one (and we saw many people finishing a whole one off), but we were only able to eat one segment each, and that was about half our lunch.