Salzburg

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I woke up early this morning to get prepared for the Sound of Music Tour. Tour bus picked other girls and me up at around 9am, and it’s so surprising to find that most of the tour members were Americans. The first stop of the tour was Leopoldskron Palace, of which the front exterior was used as the Trapp family home, and the children were boating on the lake and fell into the water. The Venetian room was copied from this palace and used as the ballroom. Next the tour bus drove us to Hellbrunn Palace, which was built in the early 17th century by Prince Archbishop Markus Sittikus. The romantic glass pavilion in the movie was reconstructed in this yellow hunting palace, and it’s really nice to recall one of my favourite scenes from the Sound of Music here. After that the tour bus drove past an abbey with a red onion-like top, the Nonnberg Abbey. Maria was a novice of this oldest convent in the German-speaking part of Europe, and she also got married with the Baron in this abbey in 1927. Scenes from the movie include the opening with the nuns going to mass and Maria arriving too late. The tour guide played the soundtrack of the Sound of the Music as the bus was climbing up the lake and mountain region, until it reached picturesque Salzkammergut Lake District where St. Gilgen, Lake Wolfgang and Lake Fuschl are located. I was stunned by the gorgeous view of this place, where beginning of the movie was filmed. Ten minutes later, I got on the bus again with other tour mates, and the bus drove us to Mondsee. Located at about one-hour drive away from Salzburg, the small town featured the wedding scene in which Maria, led by Liesl, walked down the aisle to meet the baron in front of the stairs of the main altar in the Sound of the Music. I visited the wedding church once the tour guide finished his introduction, then got a piece of coffee cake and walked around the lovely town. I got on the bus again an hour later and the bus drove us back to the bus terminus at the city of Salzburg.

After getting off from the coach, I walked to Salzburg Cathedral. With its magnificent façade and mighty dome it represents the most impressive early Baroque edifice north of the Alps. Destroyed by fire and rebuilt, enlarged and expanded, it witnessed the power and independence of Salzburg's archbishops. Precious objects found in this cathedral included the baptismal font in which Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was baptised, the majestic main organ, as well as the magnificent Cathedral portals. In his capacity as the court organist and concert master, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart composed numerous undying works of sacred music for Salzburg.

Next I went to Salzburg Residence. It was closed early this afternoon but unexpectedly I found a harpsichord recital was going to be held in a small room on the ground floor at 3pm. The recital started with a ten-minute demonstration of Renaissance instrument including gemshorn, rauschpfeife, hurdy-gurdy and bagpipes. Then pianist of concert, Elena Braslavsky, was introduced. Partita in C of Georg Muffat, some works of Francois Couperin and some pieces of Mozart were played. Renaissance music is seldom my cup of tea, but still it’s interesting to listen to live harpsichord music, especially when the sound of harpsichord could be altered. 45 minutes later, the concert ended and the pianist left with the harpsichord opened, so I and another audience came to the front and tried play the harpsichord and explored the mechanism to change the sound produced.

After the recital I walked to the Mozart’s birthplace. As I was wandering around on the streets, I found there were actually quite a number of concerts on weekends. Wow, what a musical city! Same as Mozarthaus, photos and videos were not allowed in Mozart’s birthplace. The genius Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born here in 1756. The museum was first installed in 1880 and was remodeled and enlarged over the decades. I was conducted through the original Mozart rooms containing historic instruments, documents, memorabilia and most of the portraits painted during his lifetime, including the unfinished oil painting "Mozart at the Piano" painted by Mozart's brother-in-law. The famous exhibits included Mozart's child violin, his concert violin, his clavichord, the harpsichord, portraits and letters from the Mozart family. Its second floor was devoted to the topic “Mozart at the Theater”, in which reception history of Mozart’s operas was illustrated. Salzburg furniture and objects of everyday use during Mozart's time were also displayed in this apartment.

I left the building and hanged around for a while, and got my lovely “Eurobaby” from a souvenir shop near Sternbräu. Then I crossed the Mozart Bridge to head back to my hostel.

When I got back to my room, my roommate, Lisa, told me she heard that there was something going on in Augustiner Biergarten, so we went together at around 6:15pm. We climbed up a hill and arrived at the beer hall at about 7pm. It was smaller than I expected and looked no difference from a restaurant, except that unlimited beer is offered here. Probably because we both came to this beer hall after Hofbräuhaus in Munich, we found Augustiner in Salzburg less fun (The tour guide in the morning told us that Augustiner was the best beer hall in the world, but he has never been to Hofbräuhaus). Thanks to this beer hall for telling me that “sauerkraut” is an awful dish to me though. I swear it would be my first and last time to eat “sauerkraut”.

After dinner we went to the roof of Hotel Stein to see the night view of Salzburg. This time the Sound of Music tour guide was right—this hotel was indeed the perfect place to enjoy night view of the city (and an excellent venue for couples to chat). We stayed for a while and took some pictures before visiting our last stop, Shemrock, an Irish pub with live band music performance in the city. We arrived at the pub two hours earlier before the show started, so we ordered some drinks and waited for the band. Songs were not bad to me, but their performance looked amateur and not convincing enough to buy their album as souvenir. Ciders were so nice to keep us for another two hours though, and we only had enough until midnight.

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