| Bob Brown |
Dec 18th, 2001 01:46 PM |
Let me try this one again; hope it does not show up twice. <BR>I think two or three days is sufficient to see Salzburg and its various sights and sites, including the fortress of Hohensalzburg, Schloss Hellbrunn, Mirabell Gardens, and various old town attractions like the Residenz, some of the churches, and edifices and artifacts associated with Mozart. Of course, how fast you move is a factor.<BR><BR>I hate to be a killjoy, but the Sound of Music Salzburg that you saw in the movie does not really exist, nor are most of the mansions and buildings in the movie accessible. Some of the buildings are private and all you can do is ride past them. The famed gazebo where Lisa and the neophyte Nazi had their tryst is sort of little, and I thought it less than romantic looking. It is stashed somewhere on the grounds of Schloss Hellbrunn where it is out of the way, and only visited by people on tours. The Austrians have no interest in it other than its role in extracting tourist dollars from Americans.<BR>The church where Maria and Captain von Trapp were married is in Mondsee. But the tour we were on stopped just long enough to give us a choice between lunch and a peek inside the church.<BR>The famed Festspielhaus, where the annual Salzburg music festival is held, and from which the von Trapp family escaped, is available on a separate tour operated by the Festsspielhaus itself; it is not on the bus tour I took. Neither is the inside of the convent where the von Trapps are said to have hidden while running from the Nazis before they escaped to a Switzerland whose borders had been conveniently moved over a 100 miles east. (If you go into the mountains westward from Salzburg, you are in Germany; Switzerland is a considerable jaunt due West.) <BR><BR>The tour I took, Gray Line, was in my opinion an egregious ripoff. It consisted of a running commercial about Mrs. Brown's strudel in Mondsee, which we did not have time to eat, a running beer commercial about some ratskeller in town, a stop for lord knows what reason in St. Gilgen. I have expounded on this theme before, so no need to repeat ithere. <BR><BR>The most interesting single thing I have done in Salzburg is to visit the Marionettentheater. It was a fun experience, and well worth the cost.<BR>Next, a tour of the Festspielhaus is worth it for a behind-the-scenes look at an empty opera house and at the amphitheater cut out of the rock.<BR>If you go there, and you have seen the movie, you will recognize it instantly.<BR><BR>Schloss Schönbrunn, the pleasure palace of the Prince Archbishp Markus Sittikus is interesting. The tour definitely gave me insights into the enormous power the Prince Archbishops had in those days. They were, afterall, head of church and state.<BR>The gardens at Hellbrunn feature the trick fountains that squirt people with water and elevate the bishops hat on a liquid plume. The mechanical engineering required to pull off the squirting is of interest to the mechanically minded, but not much fun to those who have no interest in being squirted. Old Markus is described as having had a great time drenching his pompous and/or elegantly clad guests. I guess it was his idea of fun, and perhaps it was his less than subtle way of letting folks know who was in charge around there. I doubt if many of the squirtees were in a position to retaliate!! <BR><BR>I also had fun just wandering the streets, when it isn't raining. Usually in the summer, students from the music school can be seen and heard playing on the streets. We chanced upon a trio featuring a kid on the accordian, one on a bass balalaika, and one on a mandolin. They were were running througn Rossini overtures like they were programmed into their genes.<BR><BR>That was my third visit to Salzburg, and I think now there are other things to see and do in Austria.
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