Day 11: The Hills are Alive

 

Today, we went into Salzburg, Austria, a salt-mining town famous for its musical history. This is where Mozart was born and raised. It is also where both the real Von Trapp family lived and the classic musical film based on their story, The Sound of Music, was filmed.
When we got to Salzburg, we went on a long walking tour. Here, we saw the town square, where Maria splashes in the fountain during the movie, a big cathedral built by the archbishop, and a graveyard. We also went into the small catacombs where early settlers did religious stuff. We went into another church done in Baroque style, a lot more beautiful and appealing than the old Gothic style of the other churches we've seen so far. A wedding was going to happen while we were there, so there was pop music playing in there. There were also a lot of street performers playing instruments what with a music festival in town. There were bizarre sculptures made for the said festival, which were scattered all over town.
While we were in the area, we toured this big fortress sitting on the hill. It had some old things that took us back to the Middle Ages, but it was a little hard to navigate. At least we finally got to see a castle.
We also looked in that cathedral, which has a significant role in the religious history of the city. During the Protestant Reformation of the 1500s, this was a strong center of Roman Catholicism. There were so many churches and cathedrals, this being the biggest and fanciest of them, that Salzburg was nicknamed "The Rome of the North."

After a few hours, it started to rain. By then, we had seen everything we wanted to and went back to Berchtesgarden. The rest of the day was pretty lazy with not much happening, but we did start packing. We would be leaving for the Czech Republic early in the morning.

Comments

  1. KristynJanuary 9, 2025 at 5:50 PM

    I really liked seeing the baroque style church too. It was quite different from the majority of churches we saw. And those catacombs in the mountain were pretty cool to see too!

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