I Heart Salzburg

I'm not sure whether it was the beautiful drive or the Sound of Music--but either way, I already sort of had a crush on Salzburg before we even got there.  By the end of the day, it was true love.

I wish I could go back in time to the moment about 10 seconds before the above photos were taken.  It had been a hectic morning, I had no idea where to park, and we were all a little grumpy by the time we had gotten out of the car.  Nearby where we parked, there was a bridge over the river with a "golden statue" on it that Andrew ran right up to.

He hadn't heard someone say that it was really a person, and I'm glad he didn't.  Otherwise we would have missed the look of sheer terror on his face when the statue he had been poking suddenly came to life and reached out toward him.  He SPRINTED off the bridge.  I so wish I could have gotten it on camera.  He was a really good sport about it, and went back up to him to check him out a little closer.  And I gave the statue-man a good tip for having gotten our Salzburg day off to a very fun start.

I though I had a good idea of what to do after reading things on-line, but once I got there none of it made sense.  Which, as I've stated before, is a bad thing with four bored kids. So I went with the follow-a-random-tour-group-to-an-interesting-place strategy, and off we went.

We ended up at Mozart's birthplace, and decided to go have a look inside.  Pictures weren't permitted, so the outside will have to do.

After that, we wandered around to try to hit some Sound of Music spots.  We ended up here at a fountain that I remember seeing in the movie--but I can't remember which scene.
And we went through the cemetery that the Von Trapps hide in when they're trying to escape (only in the movie...it didn't actually happen like that).

We went to the bakery next to the cathedral, which is the oldest one in Salzburg.  The loaf of bread was easily the heaviest loaf of bread of I've ever hefted.  And Great Harvest it was not. It was sort of a rye/sourdough taste that I would have eaten back in the 16th century if I was a starving peasant.  But it didn't really go over well with starving kids.  It just served as extra weight in Ryan's backpack for the rest of the day.  Here is the bread, and Jen and Megan at the sign by the bakery:

We headed up to the fortress that overlooks Salzburg after that: 

I am in love with the huge mountains and green valleys of Salzburg.

 
Inside the fortress we were treated to a Marrionette Museum.  AKA Museum of creepiness.  The one in the photo was Andrew's favorite, since it cackled at you when you opened the cupboard.  There were windows in the floor that you could look through and had small openings.  When you looked down, you could see what looked like dead puppets laying on a dungeon floor surrounded by lots and lots of coins and cash.  I still am baffled by why people dropped money down to the dead puppets--perhaps so they wouldn't haunt them in their dreams? I forgot to take a picture, but here's a photo someone else took who found it equally as disturbing.  The puppet is about 8 feet below you, under the portal.  Very weird.

This travel blog photo's source is TravelPod page: Salzburg

Creepy puppet Sound of Music people.  Less creepy with my kids' faces, though. 

After the fortress, we went to the abbey where Maria Von Trapp was a nun.  And just like the Von Trapp kids when they went to figure out why Maria had left them, we only got as far as the gate.

And another great view on the way down that shows what a beautiful day it was.  

The day passed way faster than I would have liked, and we picked our last excursion to be Hellbrunn Fountains.  It was little bit of a trip out by bus, and the kids questioned whether it was worth it just for some fountains.  I think we'd all agree that in the end it was.

You have to go through on a tour, which I don't always love.  But after the first stop you can see why that's how you do it.  The whole garden/fountain area was designed by an Archbishop who liked a good joke.  Clearly the guy had too much time on his hands.  The guide asked for volunteers, and Katie's hand shot up.  Ryan and Mason also volunteered. And this is what happened:

 The archbishop liked to wait until people were drunk and eating at the table before he turned it on.  A real comedian, this one.

They were pretty good sports about having soaking wet bums for the a

I think it was pretty much a dream tour-guide job, since you spend the whole tour spraying people with hidden fountains.  It was a hit with all involved.  This tongue-sticking-out fountain was water-powered, and was equivalent to flipping people off.  I'm getting the feeling he wasn't a particularly devout archbishop.

Even the deer antlers sprayed water

The gardens were beautiful, in addition to being pretty funny.

 We got back to the car and headed home.  It was a four hour trip, so we stopped about halfway at a McDonalds to get some dinner.  We opted for the drive-through to save time.  After I gave her the first four orders, she seemed to tune out--like I was just kidding that there were more people than that in our car.  I kept saying, "and one more..."  It didn't help that her English was marginal and my German far worse.  In the end, we got about five of our eight orders and had to go back in and redo it.


We are quite a large group for Europe.  When Ryan went to check out of the campground on Friday morning, the person at the desk kept looking at her screen and not talking.  When she finally spoke, she said, "It says here you have FIVE children.  Is that a mistake?"  Granted, we technically only have four and our niece, but the reaction was pretty telling.  It would have been funny to respond to her question with something like, "sometimes we've felt like it's a mistake, but it's too late now."