Salzburg in the Rain

Well, our decision to take the "Sound of Music" tour yesterday is looking like a good one, given that the weather seems worse today.  Today, we will see the sights in Salzburg not related to the Sound of Music for the most part.  Our hotel is located on the main walking/pedestrian shopping street, and the first thing we notice when we leave is the fancy, old fashioned signs that all of the shops and restaurants have on this street, even the McDonalds!

We walk to the main square where we admire the Old Residenz building and the Neue Residenz.  Salzburg for most of its history was part of no country, but a city-state.  Its ruler was actually the Roman Catholic archbishop, known as a prince-archbishop.  These two residences were two of the palaces where the prince-archbishops lived.  Here is my photo of the Neue Residenz -- note the glockenspiel on top; it plays a concert at 8am, 11am, and 6pm.  We heard the 11am concert, very short.

We walked into the next square to admire the Salzburg Cathedral.  We could go in, but some type of service  was underway for a youth conference that is taking place this weekend.  I did take a picture of the interior that had special red lighting for the conference, kind of a nice effect.

Our next objective was "Sound of Music" related: finding the abbey where the nuns live.  It is up on a hill and requires a lot of step climbing to get there. The red onion dome is quite distinctive, otherwise there is not much to see with one exception: the gate where the children pleaded to see Fraulein Maria after she had fled the house.  Here is Rob reenacting that scene:

We then walked into the St. Peter's Cemetery that the guidebook recommended; it is quite unusual.  This was not used in the film (as noted before that was a set in Hollywood), but was the inspirition for the set, as you can see in the picture:

We continue walking through the town, admiring a few more churches.  Since it is Saturday, there is a lively food market at the University Platz that we stroll through.  For lunch we eat at a place called Carpe Diem.  It is kind of expensive, but the old town is a zoo -- it is Saturday, so there are lots of people and tour groups tramping around, in spite of the weather.  We each have a green salad and an entree of sea bass.  The food is inventive and delicious, and we are treated to two amuse bouches:  a mini ice cream cone with mashed potatoes and beef tartar and a grilled prawn with goat cheese in some type of sauce.  The service is also very good, as is the Gruner Veltliner wine.  When we left, they actually gave us a box of five chocolate truffles to take with us -- nice!

After lunch, our next objective is to go up to the Salzburg fortress,  We take an elevator up to the top of the Monchberg mountain that is by the modern art museum (which we skip), then walk across the top of the mountain towards the fortress.  This morning's drizzle has turned into full on steady rain.  Even with the elevator ride, there is still a VERY steep climb.  There is really not much to comment on about the interior of the fortress, except the views, which would be nice on a nice day, but at least we can still see a little:

We ride the funicular down to the city center and head straight to our hotel to get out of the rain.  It is about 3pm.  I am sure we have missed a few things here in Salzburg, but I think we hit the highlights.  It was the best we could do in this weather.

Dinner tonight is back in our hotel restaurant, which is very good.  Neither of us has the energy to march through the rain to find anyplace else, and why should we?  We both order the flank steak with asparagus (that's "spargel" in German).  It is so nice to be traveling at this time of year, since nearly every restaurant has some type of special asparagus (including white asparagus) dish on the menu, which is always delicious.  Now it is time to retire to our room for the Eurovision finale -- who will win?????