Yes, snow. We left (mostly) sunny Ticino for part of our spring break to go to Salzburg, Austria where it SNOWED our first morning there! Our friends all took trips to Egypt and hot, sandy places, but not us! We went off to find more snow! On a 9-hour train ride!!!
The weather forecast did say rain/snow for Tuesday, but we really weren't expecting this when we looked out the window in the morning:
But Salzburg in the snow is beautiful, so we walked around to some of the sights in the city. Most of the major sights have to do either with Mozart since Salzburg is his birthplace and where he spent a lot of his early life, or The Sound of Music since several movie-locations were filmed here. Here are the steps where they sing "Do-Re-Mi".
The Mirabell Garden was beautiful in the snow that morning!
We went next to Mozart's Geburtshaus (birth-house).
By this time, the snow had stopped. We took the funiculare to the Hohensalzburg Fortress, which towers over the city (when it's clear and not snowing!). Here is a view of the city from it.
Inside the fortress:
This is a shot of one of the state rooms, or living quarters for the local prince, within the fortress. It was so different from other castles or palaces we've been to because of the dark, wooden detailing. In Madrid and Nurnberg, there were many rooms decorated with bright, colorful porcelain and mirrors - this looked so much more rustic. It is supposed to be one of the best-preserved medieval fortresses in Europe.
We took the funiculare back down and visited St. Peter's cemetery, the model for where the Von Trapps hid from the Nazis in SOM, and saw this beautiful view of the fortress from there - and look at the sky!!! This is the same day is was snowing!!!!
So with what was turning out to be a beautiful day, we back-tracked to see all of the sights we had seen in the morning with the snow now melted away. Here's a shot back in Mirabell Garden, of one of the statues that also makes an appearance in SOM.
Look! No more snow! And you can see the fortress from the Garden, too! The snow had also been covering all of the beautiful pansies in the Garden.
To get in some more SOM sights, we went to the Nonnberg Abbey, where Maria really was a novice and the movie shot some more scenes.
On our way back from dinner that evening, we stopped to take this shot from a bridge between the old and new towns.
Austrian food, by the way, was very good. Very similar to what we had in the German cities we visited, but some different flavors. We had lots of meats, sausages, potatoes, sauerkraut, and the BEST dessert - Salzburger Nockerl, which was described as a souffle but we thought was more like creamy meringue. They made it fresh, so it was still warm, and it had warm berries in sauce underneath it. We took a picture, but since the outside of it is toasted brown almost like a marshmallow and it's so huge (it would have been enough for 4, not 2 people!), everyone who's seen the picture thinks it's a turkey - so I'll leave it up to your imagination rather than spoiling the image by making you think of that!
On our last day in the city, we went to Mozart's Wohinhaus, where his family moved when he was 17. It's now a museum with some of his original musical instruments. The audioguide played different compositions in each room, sometimes on the original instruments, so it was very neat.
On our way back to the hotel to get the dogs and get ready to head back to Lugano, we walked one last time through the Mirabell Garden. Auf Wiedersehen, Austria!
But Salzburg in the snow is beautiful, so we walked around to some of the sights in the city. Most of the major sights have to do either with Mozart since Salzburg is his birthplace and where he spent a lot of his early life, or The Sound of Music since several movie-locations were filmed here. Here are the steps where they sing "Do-Re-Mi".
The Mirabell Garden was beautiful in the snow that morning!
We went next to Mozart's Geburtshaus (birth-house).
By this time, the snow had stopped. We took the funiculare to the Hohensalzburg Fortress, which towers over the city (when it's clear and not snowing!). Here is a view of the city from it.
Inside the fortress:
This is a shot of one of the state rooms, or living quarters for the local prince, within the fortress. It was so different from other castles or palaces we've been to because of the dark, wooden detailing. In Madrid and Nurnberg, there were many rooms decorated with bright, colorful porcelain and mirrors - this looked so much more rustic. It is supposed to be one of the best-preserved medieval fortresses in Europe.
We took the funiculare back down and visited St. Peter's cemetery, the model for where the Von Trapps hid from the Nazis in SOM, and saw this beautiful view of the fortress from there - and look at the sky!!! This is the same day is was snowing!!!!
So with what was turning out to be a beautiful day, we back-tracked to see all of the sights we had seen in the morning with the snow now melted away. Here's a shot back in Mirabell Garden, of one of the statues that also makes an appearance in SOM.
Look! No more snow! And you can see the fortress from the Garden, too! The snow had also been covering all of the beautiful pansies in the Garden.
To get in some more SOM sights, we went to the Nonnberg Abbey, where Maria really was a novice and the movie shot some more scenes.
On our way back from dinner that evening, we stopped to take this shot from a bridge between the old and new towns.
Austrian food, by the way, was very good. Very similar to what we had in the German cities we visited, but some different flavors. We had lots of meats, sausages, potatoes, sauerkraut, and the BEST dessert - Salzburger Nockerl, which was described as a souffle but we thought was more like creamy meringue. They made it fresh, so it was still warm, and it had warm berries in sauce underneath it. We took a picture, but since the outside of it is toasted brown almost like a marshmallow and it's so huge (it would have been enough for 4, not 2 people!), everyone who's seen the picture thinks it's a turkey - so I'll leave it up to your imagination rather than spoiling the image by making you think of that!
On our last day in the city, we went to Mozart's Wohinhaus, where his family moved when he was 17. It's now a museum with some of his original musical instruments. The audioguide played different compositions in each room, sometimes on the original instruments, so it was very neat.
On our way back to the hotel to get the dogs and get ready to head back to Lugano, we walked one last time through the Mirabell Garden. Auf Wiedersehen, Austria!
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