Sunday 23rd March
Why Salzburg, I'll forgive you for asking. Well after last year's
Art Pursuits South Tyrol
trip I was enthused to see more of Germany and Austria. So when this trip was
announced, and was ideally placed (in March) to be my first trip of the year I
booked it. That it would involve a reunion with the Tyrol trip's tour guide and
tour manager was an added draw, both of them having become new chums.
Unfortunately the manager's services had since been dispensed with, due to the
smallness of the group. And six people is indeed my smallest tour group ever.
Two days before my trip Heathrow Airport had had to close for a whole day due to
an electric substation fire. The chaos continued for days - it was lucky I
was flying from Gatwick! No trouble on the trains or with getting my name ticked
off with the waiting Fine and Cultural Tours lady. Ulrike, the tour guide, lives
in Germany so was to meet us at Salzburg Airport.
Nothing much to report on the wait or the flight. There's the question about
why, no matter where my seat is, I'm always in the last boarding group and why
there were so many babies nearby. Actually I exaggerate about the babies, but
there where five of them close by on this flight. At least they didn't cry,
mostly, and not all at the same time. Back on more familiar ground, my in-flight
snack, costing £5.50, was a New Yorker Style pretzel roll with Emmental, smoked
cheddar, gherkins, red cabbage, sour cream mayonnaise and American style
mustard. A lot of typing, but lots of flavour too. I liked it.
Into Salzburg Airport 15 minutess early, with surrounding mountains and a
rainbow out my window. Met Ulrike, realised I knew four of my six fellow
trippers, as we piled onto our half-coach (NOT a minibus) and were soon checking
into the Hotel Bristol. Gilt white-painted wood panelling, marble floors, real
room keys...you get the picture. My room is called the Mush Room, and the walls
are full of prints of same. I can live with it.
After some welcoming prosecco at the hotel our first included dinner took us
through the Mirabell Gardens (famous for some Sound of Music filming) to the Braurestaurant Imlauer. I had a veggie
burger and chips, which was a surprise, and the dessert was apple strudel, which
was less surprising. A member of our group got talking about reading Mein Kampf,
and a nearby couple were giving us black looks, It turns out that Austrians are
another group in denial about their part in WW2. We also learned from Uly that
Germans love to visit Cornwall, due to the popularity of a German TV series
based on the novels of Rosamund Pilcher, a long-forgotten Brit author, which has
run to 29 seasons!
Monday 24th March
Breakfast report - good orange juice, good coffee, pineapple and pear amongst
the fruit salad choices, and interesting cakes! Our first day was spent in
Salzburg on foot. We walked through the old town and rode up the Mönchsberg on
the funicular railway to the Hohensalzburg fortress for the rather special
15th-century archiepiscopal staterooms. Prince-Archbishop Leonhard von
Keutschach contributed much the building, and his turnip emblem is everywhere
(see overdoor below).
Spectacular views too. We then visited
the delightfully piecemeal interior of San Francesco back down in the old town
and the oppressively heavy baroque interior of the Cathedral of Saints Rupert
and Virgil. In between we had coffee and a superior Mozartkugel in the cafe
where they make them.
For lunch I took a couple of ricotta and spinach pastries, along with a
custard-filled bun, back to the hotel, and totally failed to get my new Android
tablet to upload the photos from my camera.
In the afternoon we had a group visit to the library of the ancient Benedictine
Abbey of St Peter. The photo (right) shows a library room created from a monk's
cell, with some fiendish folding furniture. The shelves and history were discussed as much as the actual
books, and we got shown none of the handwritten manuscripts, just the printed
books. When I asked discreetly about this lack the librarian/guide got so guilty
I wish I hadn't. Upon leaving we went through the abbey's cemetery, in the rain.
I must return.
An independent dinner evening, so I found the local Burger King and had a
plant-based Whopper, like I'd had in Bologna last year, but not since. International cuisine
or what? Two boxes of interesting almond
biscuits bought from a Spar on the way back too.
Tuesday 25th March
Our esteemed tour guide also does tours for a local Salzburg company, and there
she met the son of the former owner of the deli that used to be housed on the
ground floor of Mozart's house here. It's now a supermarket but the family still
make their version of the Mozartkugel, which was being made back in his day, and
he kindly provided her with sample packs for our group. The are called Breasts
of Venus and come in a pack of two, one black and one white chocolate.
Today we took a half-day coach excursion to the Salzkammergut, Austria’s lake
district to the town of Saint Wolfgang, to take in the spectacular views of
the mountains across the lake
(see right)
and to admire and appreciate the carved and
painted high altarpiece by Michael Pacher. The latter is to be found in the
church of St Wolfgang, but on the day of our visit the wings were closed over
the central carved panel, for some religious season reason, but we were thereby
able to appreciate the outside painted panels depicting Christ's Ministry.
We then had an included and extended lunch at Restaurant Koller&Koller, after
coaching it back in Salzburg. My vegetarian main course option was a
starter-size bowl of spinach and ricotta ravioli in a tomato sauce. It was fine.
Dessert was a sweet-cheese filled strudel with vanilla ice cream. It was OK too.
The afternoon was devoted to two early churches by Fischer von Erlach, who's
famous in Austria. Firstly the Collegiate Church which is oddly, for a baroque
church, all white inside, and large, and therefore a pretty calm and spiritual
experience. The Church of the Holy Trinity is smaller and more decorated, and
eliptical, but
still not overpowering, unlike the baroque cathedral here. I'm learning more
about the variety of German baroque but I'm still not calling myself a fan.
Wednesday 26th March
The music played at breakfast here is the usually unobjectionable light jazz,
which I object to on principle. This morning we had to endure famous film music
arranged for lifts, including the theme to Emmanuelle. I was the only one
of our party who confessed to having identified it.
Our last day is a second day in Salzburg on foot. Our museum didn't open until
10.00, so I took the opportunity of a longer linger in the St. Peter's Cemetery
(Petersfriedhof) which we'd walked through on Monday in the rain. It's a good
one, with exceptional vistas and catacombs in the cliffs, even if the sculpture and paintings are a bit
primitive. I only found out later that my favourite baroque composer, of The
Rosary Sonatas, is buried here.
The Dom Quartier Museum, the museum of the cathedral precinct, opened in 2014
and includes opulent archiepiscopal state rooms and an art gallery. A raised
balustrade walkway takes you into the Cathedral, through the organ gallery, and
into the large rooms over the side aisles that house special exhibitions and the
ecclesiastical bit, which continue into the museum of the Archabbey of St Peter
as you circle back around to the beginning, via more state rooms and Cabinets of
Curiosities, more than a little exhausted.
For lunch a went back to the hotel, having picked up a couple of interesting
pots of jam, from a shop I'd passed earlier, along with a pretzel cheese
sandwich and a doughnut pretzel.
After lunch we visited the Cemetery of Saint Sebastian with a local guide
letting us into the burial chapel of Archbishop Wolf Dietrich von Raitenau
(1559-1617), which is large and circular and all covered inside with small
glazed coloured tiles in a chequered pattern. Luckily the guide was late so I
had time to explore the tombs in the surrounding arcade.
Our final visit took us back to the Cathedral for a special group tour of
the Domgrabungsmuseum, the Roman and medieval archaeology under the current
building. Lots of old
stone, of course, but also mosaic floors and heating ducts, and our guide had a
couple of bags of Roman pot sherds for us to admire and fondle.
Our final included dinner together was at the Wirtshaus Elefant. My main course
was dumplings made of bread with spinach, brown butter and much garlic. The
dessert was very fluffy, like a soufflé not a cat, and called a Salzburger
Nockerl.
Thursday 27th March
Our flight was an early one, so no time for trip content today, but a long breakfast,
before catching our coach at 10.15. Uly saw us through check-in, as her journey
home just involved a train. All went smoothly, with far fewer babies. Hilarity
was provided by us cramming into the bus from the terminal, standing and
waiting, and then the distance to the plane was only a bit longer the bus.
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The view from the Mirabell Gardens up to
the Hohensalzburg Fortress (above)
and the view of Salzburg from the
Hohensalzburg Fortress (below)
The drawer fronts, like the one to the
left, pull out like a wooden box and transform into a chair,
like the one on the right. The book rest desk flips up from the table
between.
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