Salzburg 2

Salzburg was the one city on this Austrian leg of our tour that Melinda had never been to so she was looking forward to exploring and seeing lots of the sights. Unfortunately the rain interfered a little, especially with our walk along the river, but we still saw some very interesting things. I think Mel will come back here again!



St. Peter's Church was one that we didn't get to visit inside on this trip.




You can see how the graveyard hugs the rock wall of Monschberg here. Monschberg means monk's mountain, I think. Legendary medieval hermit monks are said to have lived in caves up here.




Remember the cemetary we saw yesterday? Here it is at the foot of the fortress. I think I forgot to look up (look w-a-y up, as the Friendly Giant used to say!) the day before.




Hidden in a basement beside a waterfall(which was part of the canal system dating from the 13th century bringing water 16 miles into the city) was this little traditional bakery. There was Roggenbrot (rye bread) and some other kind of bread but we got sweet rolls for a morning snack.




A giant chessboard painted on the street, just across the square from the fountain I showed you yesterday.

I wasn't able to take any pictures when we went inside to see the Salzburg Panorama this morning. Painted in 1829, the circular painting showing a 360 degree view of the city at that time is fascinating. It was fun to try and pick out today's landmarks. Apparently this type of painting of cities was popular at that time and this one spent ten years touring the great cities of Europe, showing off Salzburg. Along the walls were smaller paintings of other cities around the world at that time. It was fun to try and guess which painting depicted which city. This little stop was well worth the 2 Euros admission price.




Salzburg Cathedral was consecrated in 1628 but was rebuilt after a bomb blew through the dome during World War II. The altar, according to Baroque terms (the style of the building), is like the center of a stage with sunrays as spotlights.



The ceiling is designed with many windows to represent Heaven and the light of the world. It truly was bright, even on a grey rainy day.




Two of the four pipe organs that provide surround sound. Mozart played here for 2 years.




Such beautiful details cover every inch of the Cathedral walls and ceiling.




It looks like Mary is wearing a golden crown here but really the crown is being held by 2 angels on the facade of the church behind her. Very clever optical illusion, isn't it?!! (If you click on the picture it will enlarge it and you can see all the details. Notice how small the people are in the background on the left side.)




Pretty posh raincoats for horses as they waited for tourists to come out and ride.




A visit to this city would not have been complete without a Mozart mime!




Universitatsplatz is the site of an open-air market every morning, Monday to Saturday. There are fountains here for washing fruits and vegetables - good idea! It was a little quiet on this rainy day but Mel bought some pretzels that we had later for lunch. My favourite was the chocolate covered one - it was awesome!!



A beautiful flower stall- I wish there was one of these locally in our area.




This truck sold fresh seafood - from the Mediterranean Sea!



Sharing 1 umbrella between the 6 of us!! We looked at buying some more but the only ones we could find were long and cost E20 (about $30 Canadian). We decided it really wasn't raining that hard!!




And another trip favourite! I love the bicycles lined up along the fence.

The night before this, after we finished supper, Tyler had gone to an internet cafe' and emailed one of his friends from school. Classes had started at the beginning of this week but based on last year, he had thought it might be a slow start. Bonita's message went something like this: "You need to come home now! There have been 2 days of classes, 1 lab and we have exams next week on Monday, Tuesday and Friday." Yikes!! There was no question that our vacation trip needed to end and we had to get Tyler back to university - the whole reason they had ever come to Poland! We departed from Salzburg in the rain and headed down the highway to spend one last night in Vienna before going home to Katowice.