Okay, we’re getting down to the end of the Salzburg portion of our trip before we go back to Prague.  You know how I always have those little odds and ends of photos that don’t fit anywhere else but are fun, or odd, so I just put them together into one post . . .  well here they are.  Enjoy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last but not least, here are 3 “doors” I thought were really interesting.

We stepped in out of the rain for an interesting visit to St. Sebastian’s Church and Cemetery which turned out to be very close to our hotel. The mostly Baroque church was rebuilt in the early 1800’s after a fire destroyed its interior.  It’s difficult to photograph as it’s tightly sandwiched between adjacent buildings. But behind the church are a fascinating cemetery and mausoleum.  The arcades lining the small cemetery include ornately designed tombs of some of Salzburg’s most notable residents. Prince Archbishop Wolf Dietrich von Raitenau, arguably Salzburg’s most important ruler, occupies the mausoleum and the cemetery is also the final resting place of several members of the Mozart family (but not Mozart himself who is buried in Vienna).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A large part of Salzburg’s identity is music-related.  For starters, Mozart seems to be everywhere.  His face beams from store windows and the Mozart line of chocolates is delicious and seemingly in every shop.  You can tour the house where he was born and another residence where he lived while working in Salzburg.  And you could attend multiple concerts every day featuring the music of Mozart and his contemporaries.  There are Mozart Concert Halls and Mozart Balls.  There are even huge annual music festivals here throughout the year.

And then there’s The Sound of Music.  There’s a lovely theater where you can see a live production (in German) of The Sound of Music.  Many tours are based on The Sound of Music showcasing either sites from the original story or the filming locations for the 1965 movie.

We attended 2 music concerts while we were in Salzburg which gave us evenings of wonderful music as well as access to unique Salzburg locations.  The first concert was held in Salzburg’s hilltop medieval fortress.  The tour included dinner in the fortress restaurant before the concert and then a string quintet that performed in a nearby music hall.  I’ve included a couple of related photos but although the evening performance gave us great views from the fortress, night-time photos don’t do it justice.

The second concert was in the gorgeous baroque style Marble Hall in the Mirabell Palace.  Built in 1606, the Palace now houses the offices of Salzburg’s mayor and city government.  The Marble Hall is used for weddings, awards ceremonies, and the regular music concerts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Salzburg likes to decorate for Christmas, making the festivities even more special.  Store fronts and windows are all decked out, albeit sometimes understated, but each beautiful in their own way.  Below are some of the decorations we noticed during our walks around town.

 

 

 

 

 

We saw lots of Nativity Scenes in shops and I found fascinating the variety of styles we saw. I’ve included just a few here.

 

 

 

 

Our hotel suggested I take my dead computer to the electronics store at Europark, “one of Europe’s most beautiful shopping centers.”  With 130 stores and restaurants and 10.5 million visitors annually, this place is amazing.  And closed on Sundays!  Below are a few photos I took while I was there.

This reindeer is suspended in mid-air. His metal wire frame is covered in tiny white lights and there are different sizes and colors of balls inside of him. A little strange but gorgeous.

 

 

Below are just a few last interesting windows, etc., we saw that appeared to be decorated for the holidays..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Salzburg is a lovely little city wrapped around the banks of the Salzach River with a population of only 150,000 people (and 44 churches!).  That means that the city is very walkable, especially the Old Town area which is the most scenic and historically interesting part.  In the 16th Century, Salzburg’s forefathers wanted to transform Salzburg into a mini-Rome, which helps explain why the City’s architecture has such an Italian feel – and lots of Italian restaurants.  And of course two of the major highlights of Salzburg are the fact that Mozart was from this area, and the Von Trapp family also lived here so The Sound of Music still plays a big part in tourism here.

After spending a week in the rain in Salzburg, I think we’ve figured out that perhaps winter isn’t when Salzburg puts on its best face, especially if there’s no beautiful snow.  But seeing how good Salzburg looks in the wintertime gives us a glimpse of how it surely must sparkle in the summertime.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A small Christmas Market was located about 3 blocks from our Salzburg hotel, but the big market was across the river in Old Town, an easy 15-20 minute walk from our hotel.  Even hiking in the rain, we managed to visit them a couple of times during the week we were there.  The Old Town Christmas Market  had almost 100 stalls running through the historic area and they were fabulous.  Comparing the Prague and Salzburg markets, I’d say the Salzburg markets were definitely better, although in general they were also a bit more expensive.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today we took the train to Salzburg.  We’ll be in Salzburg for a week and then we’ll go back to Prague for a few days.  We left from the huge Prague Train Station and switched trains in Linz.  The entire travel time was 5 1/2 hours.  The trains are beautiful in Europe,  well maintained,  very crowded and very fast.   As we left our hotel for the train station, it began to snow.  You know, those great big floaty snowflakes that Chuck’s been pining for.  And it snowed most of the way to the Austrian border.  Places in Austria had snow already but the day was mostly sunny by the time we got that far.  But it was beautiful in the Czech Republic while it lasted.

It’s hard to get photos from an fast-moving train. First of all the windows are always dirty. And today we added large ice chunks to the windows that were not very attractive when photographed. And then there’s all those trees that weren’t there when you took the photo but shazam! they’re in the photo when you’re done! Here are a few of my best efforts. I especially like the fact that they all look like they’re in black and white and the last ones that show the bleakness of winter.

 

 

 

 

We took a dinner cruise on the Vltava River in a glass-domed boat simply because we had taken one in Budapest when we were there a couple of years ago and the lighted buildings reflected on the river were gorgeous. Prague’s waterfront is not quite as impressive at night and it turned out to be even more difficult to photograph. First of all, it rained during most of the trip and rain on a glass domed roof does not make for great photos. And it’s dark out, and the boat is moving. So between both of us, we managed to get a whopping 3 photos! And we didn’t even think to get a photo of the boat. Then at one point during the cruise, the boat hit a rock wall on one side and we realized we were also only a couple of feet from the opposite wall. And then we sat there for quite some time. We thought we were stranded! Then the walls next to the boat started to get shorter and we discovered that without our realizing it, we had gotten into river locks and once the water reached a certain height, we moved on again. We didn’t know there were locks in this area. Now we need to check out that area in the daylight and see what’s up with that.

Here are the only 3 photos we got that were worth sharing.

 

 

The Church of St. Nicholas is the most famous Baroque church in Prague, and a superb example of High Baroque architeture. It’s the most prominent and distinctive landmark in the Lesser Town Square. Taking approximately 100 years to build, it was completed in the mid 1600’s. It’s now one of the most valuable Baroque buildings north of the Alps and has the tallest interior in Prague. Upon entering, one is almost overwhelmed by the interior size of this church.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We’re staying right next to the Charles Bridge and it’s a very scenic, fun neighborhood full of beautiful buildings and lots of restaurants and really nice craft and gift shops.  Actually we’re on an island with the river on one side and a canal on the other but then it’s attached to the mainland by a little piece of land at either end of the island.  Here’s some of what we’ve seen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We discovered an area down by the river where the swans hang out. Actually it’s only one of many places where they hang out. And you know how much I like swans.

 

 

I saved the best photo for last. Only as a service to Pam, I’ve made it a point to look for some of the sculptures by David Cerny, the Czech Republic’s most original contemporary artist. We’re still looking for his babies crawling up the TV tower and we’ll have to continue that search when we come back next week. And there are lots of other we would like to see but unfortunately they’re not all in one location. However we were able to find his sculpture called “Piss” ouside of the Franz Kafka Museum which turned out to be near our hotel. Just as a point of information, the men’s middle sections rotate to the left and then back to the right, etc.  And they are standing in a shallow pool the shape of the Czech Republic. And I’ve read somewhere that you can send a text and one of the men will spell out your message in the water, although we didn’t see that happen and never did figure out exactly how that might work.