Day 47: Salzburg

May 29, 2022

15 km of walking!

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Yesterday we were generally wowed by the architecture of Salzburg and the throngs of people. Today we reserved for a bit of a deeper dive. We started with only two objectives - sit in a cafe and eat torte, and find a concert of Mozart music. But we quickly improvised and added a whole lot more. As you can see from the track, we definitely swarmed all over the main sights of the city!

The Hof Wirt is a large hotel, and it's breakfast room was huge. When we came, around 7:30, it was relatively empty and easy to find a table not packed in with others. But within an hour it was full and did not seem at all covid safe. No one here is wearing a mask, something that is making us nervous at times. But we too have largely abandoned masking.

Out in the street, at 9 on this Sunday morning, the vibe was completely different from yesterday. Without the crowds, the buildings lack spirit. At least the commercial ones. The churches do better without any crowds.

Sad deserted street, it's fickle friends are still at breakfast.

Our first sort of unplanned move came when we passed the passageway leading up to the Capuchin monastery on the hill above the right bank of the river. We hung a left and headed on up. It was very steep, far too steep for bikes. Dodie took the stairs, which she found more doable than the path. Our first view was over the roofs of the right bank (the slightly newer side of the river). From that viewpoint they seem quite jumbly. We reached one small church, and then a Mozart statue. Mozart is the big star here, easily surpassing the flash in the pan Julie Andrews. Mozart was born and lived here, 1756-1781, before moving to Vienna where he died at age 35, but not before composing about 800 works!

Here are the bells from on high. It could be an idea to download the audio and make a "ring tone"!

Our interpretation of the inscription: A giant when young, recognized later, never equalled. German speakers - what do you make of it?

As we climbed a bit higher and also edged around the hill to look more to the south, we got some great views of the actual old city.

The great big white building was a mystery. We resolved to go see what it was.

Stairs other than what we came up on led down. On the way we passed a steeple and I pondered on how one would clean, let alone build it. "Scaffolding" said Dodie. Oh, yeah.

Once down at river level and before setting of to any further churches, palaces, or music venues, I launched us into research about Mozart Kugeln. These are chocolate balls filled with marzipan. The dominant ones, available throughout Europe, have red packaging with an image of Mozart. They are called Mirabel, obviously after the palace that we would be visiting were we not fooling with kugeln. But Mirabel was bought by Mondelez, and we think the quality is poor. The best, so far as we know, are the originals, made by Furst, whose main shop is across the river in the Markt square. We bought two at a conditerei, just to see, and they were superb.

Later, at Furst headquarters, we learned something of the history and production:

They also have expanded to other Salzburg luminaries, like Doppler.

Further research also revealed others in the kugel market, like this one, claiming to be the original:

Or how about this one?

We bought a three pack of Furst for Joni, resolving to try to keep it from melting, all the way home. Dodie drew the line at this point, but for just a little completeness, I threw in a three pack of Mirabel. We probably have the market bracketed - best to worst - but have never actually tried the other two contenders. We will have to come back!

Ah yes, where were we? Mirabell. Mirabell palace is on our right bank. We have not checked on who built it, or lives there, or anything, but we did learn of its gardens, so off we went. You can easily spot this excursion in the above track. In the gardens we found a band playing. Again, traditional dress and tunes. We videoed a short example of what it was like.

At the Mirabell Palace, these roses were especially fragrant.

Nearby was the house where Mozart lived, as opposed to where he was born, across the river. Downstairs from that birth house is a "Spar" supermarket - convenient!

We crossed the river, to initially hunt down that big white building we had seen from the hill. The street were now filling back up, adding some spirit again.

The building was a "collegiate" church, not sure what that means, but we have seen it before. Inside it was huge, white, and mostly empty. Some art students were perched along one wall, holding up their pencils an sighting along them, trying to get the angles right, I guess.

The main features inside the church were huge marble, painting, and statue emplacements on many of the walls. I would say these are meant to impress and intimidate. Not much to do with spirituality, I think.

The "impress and intimidate" bit actually aligns with how religion and politics were organized here in the 1200's through 1800's. Salzburg was a mostly independent principality then, ruled by the archbishops, who had basically royal status and power. They are responsible for the huge Residenz palace, the Dom, and I guess the general splendour of the place. But it was a typical autocratic rule setup - government by the few in the name of the few. Normally we (in Canada) would find this despicable. But it must be admitted that the extreme concentration of wealth allowed music, art, and architecture to flourish.

We were about to be immersed over our heads in this world of music, art, and wealth, as we dropped 13 euros each for admission into the "Residenz", which comprises the "royal" state rooms, and three museum/art galleries. One is the Residenz art gallery, and the other two are the museums/art galleries of the Dom and of St. Peters (not sure where/what that is). The Residenz buildings have 800! rooms, and form a horseshoe (and more) connected to the Dom.

The art galleries in the complex have scads of paintings large (mostly) and small from painters of the 1600's through 1800's, who are clearly famous but whose names are new to us. And then there are hundreds - thousands - of church treasures. There are statues, crowns, sceptres, chalices, paintings, and one long gallery filled with cases containing curiosities, from stuffed alligators to microscopes, collected over the centuries.

We had to check our backpack, to guard against, clearly, and pilferage of any chalices or stuffed alligators. We walked and walked, growing ever more befuddled by the vast amount of material and history. Finally after many hours we developed a concern beyond befuddlement. Would we ever find our backpack again?

Here below in photos is a small sample of what we saw.

Grand rooms with painted ceilings. Much like French chateaux or Versailles.

View from a windows shows which square we are currently at as we walk the buildings.

This is the kind of milieu that Mozart operated in, producing music for the aristocracy.

The Prince Archbishop's bed - surprisingly small, even if people were smaller then.

The Residenz gives direct access to behind the organ of the Dom, and this photo op.

Following one of our original objectives, we had booked into a 45 minute Mozart recital of violin sonatas with clavier. This was held in a small room in the Residenz, and was a wonderful highlight. The acoustics of the room were great, and the two instruments filled the place. The skill of the musicians was tremendous, and I never imagined that a clavier could at times sing like that!

Although we were first to arrive, we managed to choose seats that were behind the musicians. This afforded a good view of the clavier player's finger work, but we only saw the back end of the violinist for the whole performance!

In principle we were not supposed to record the performance, but here is a taste of what it was like.

(Don't know yet how to flip the video - sorry!):

One last thing to talk about is tortes. In a previous blog, Grampies had Tracked the Tortes, with good success in Vienna. Salzburg was a little coy, until we uncovered the torte hot spots. The one we went for was cafe Tomaselli, which is on the market square.

Tomaselli has the right atmosphere, but we found a table outside, for safety.

Actually, it says 1703 on their wall, but we won't quibble.

We sat and watched the world go by at the cafe - an iconic activity. Mozart's birth house was just around the corner. So cool. Just across the way is Furst, who also have great tortes. An alert reader might spot some Furst tortes in the photos above. Tomaselli had a pesky glass cabinet that partly repelled photo attempts.

What gave Meaning to Life today? Music

Today's ride: 15 km (9 miles)
Total: 2,661 km (1,652 miles)

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Ben ParkeNot too long ago the Austrian government had so do the toughest covid requirements. Then they dropped them for a couple weeks, numbers spiked, and they brought them back. That lasted for a little while and then they dumped them again. Despite numbers being up here in Minnesota, the number of people masking has gone down more every week when I make a quick grocery run. I think the majority of society has decided they’d rather risk covid than wear a mask indoors. And that is why I’m not touring in Europe this summer, but I am enjoying reading about your visits to a number of my favorite places!
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2 years ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Ben ParkeIgnorance really is bliss. Without reading the news and following the stats compulsively we are free of COVID, (until struck down).

But yes, the populations we are walking among have clearly decided to hell with it.
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2 years ago

marilyn swettThanks for the video of the concert - it was wonderful to hear Mozart's music played in that beautiful place!
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2 years ago