Winging it in Salzburg
DomQuartier Museum and Hohensalzburg Fortress
What a thrill! After all these years in Austria, I was finally going to visit Salzburg. First stop for me had to be Getreidegasse. I couldn’t wait to see the famous wrought iron signs hanging out over the shop and restaurant doors. And yes, it’s true – even McDonald’s has one. But what I hadn’t expected was to see a SPAR supermarket in the ground floor of the house where Mozart was born. And now that I’ve seen it, I just can’t get the image out of my mind of Mozart’s mammy popping down to buy a pack of nappies for the baby genius upstairs.
I’ve seen many a car wash in my time, but never a horse wash! But that’s exactly what this is – a pond for washing your horse in. I wonder… did the horses get a blow dry on their way out?
I could have happily spent many more hours pottering around the old town centre, but the Oldies soon sniffed out the DomQuartier Museum and before I could squawk ‘Culture Vultures!’ we were inside. This is a large complex of museums in the cathedral quarter, comprising part of the cathedral of course, the cathedral museum, art galleries, St. Peter’s Museum and the Residenz State Rooms, where Mozart played his first concert. Not a bad venue for a first gig!
The museum is a super concentration of so much phenomenal art, history, culture and architecture, it’s mind-blowing! After a while, I didn’t know where to look anymore. It was quite refreshing when we stepped out onto the roof terrace and simply gazed at the various town squares and the mountains in the distance.
Of course, no trip to Salzburg would be complete without a visit of the Hohensalzburg Fortress. I was relieved to see that there’s a funicular up to the castle. I had serious doubts about the Oldies being able to manage that hill on foot. They certainly needed to conserve their energy for the fortress itself. In fact, His Lordship got suitably suited up for the occasion.
I was mesmerised by the stunning views from the battlements, but I was soon dragged inside by the Wingless Wonders. To be fair, there is so much to see in this huge complex which dates back to the 11th century. The arsenal, the castle keep, the puppet museum, the fortress museum, it just goes on and on.
I was completely beak-smacked by the stunning Golden Hall and the Prince-Archbishop’s private chambers. I cannot imagine how long it must have taken to build these incredibly ornate rooms. I wasn’t surprised to hear that the restoration of one small section of the Golden Chamber has been going on for six years already. And it looks they’re far from finished!
What a posh privy … considering it’s about 500 years old!
As we continued our tour of the fortress, I learned some interesting tidbits about the history of Salzburg. One story goes that, in the bad old days a large band of unhappy peasants besieged the city, trapping the bishop and all his buddies inside. These soon started to run out of food and were eventually down to a single bull. Instead of eating it, they kept painting it different colours and parading it in front of their attackers to make them believe they had more bulls than they really had. Apparently the peasants swallowed the story and gave up their protest. Sounds like a bit of a cock and bull story to me! But perhaps that’s where the idea of Red Bull came from?
In another section of the fortress, I encountered yet another bull: the so-called Salzburg Bull, a wheel-driven organ with 130 pipes. In spite of its advanced age – it’s about 500 years old – it still plays a variety of tunes. Very loudly. That’s a bull I steered well clear of!
Whatever about all its bulls, red or otherwise, Salzburg is undoubtedly a treasure trove in every sense. But for me, it was those incredible views of this incredible city – from the terraces of the Residenz, from the look-out point on the Kapuzinerberg and from the dizzy heights of Hohensalzburg Fortress – that really set my feathers a-flutter.
Yes, indeed. Salzburg gave me wings!
