The train ride was smooth, I got take out speck mit ei sandwiches to eat on the train, I watched the green forest of Vienna turn into rolling farmland, then approaching Linz, all of a sudden the one or two mountain peaks started become more frequent. We are quite south in Europe, so the seasons are more gentle, the canola seed in the fields is already bright yellow. The other thing of note, since I have hit some pretty spectacular spring weather, is that the cloudless blue skies are zig zagged quite often by many passing aircraft trails. I suppose it makes sense since we're in the middle of Europe, but it reminds me of Las Vegas skies... The amount of white streaks seems improbable and fascinating at the same time, so many giant tin cans up there... All those chubby asses hurtling in the sky with a ton of useless baggage and complaining about the inflight food. It is pretty amazing really, while it likely destroys the planet and spreads disease, it's a marker of our age that for as low as 27 dollars they can get your bum several miles up there and you walk off in a different country as easy as passing gas. Well, if you engage in that sort of thing.
That said, I also decided to eat the bag of dates I bought at an airport somewhere as I watched the moving landscape, and they were pretty darn terrible to be honest. As bad as airplane food... I cannot wait to get into Salzburg, which will be around 1pm now, and stuff my face with some better food... The hotel is 0,5 km from the rail station so it won't take long to dump the backpacks... And frankly I am far more rested not having flown and taken a bunch of pills, so I have to get straight at it.
You can start singing "Edelweiss" in about 2 hours from now, it is the town of The Sound of Music movie. The locals didn't see it until recently, they have no real knowledge of it, and there were a few major flaws in the movie that the Austrians would not stand for of course... There is no sneaking out of Salzburg over the mountains to that freedom from the Nazis they gave everything up for, it would put them right in the hands of the Nazis since Germany is over there. It seems hard to believe such a glaring mistake could be made in a movie now, but, the Von Trapps would likely want to stay now anyway so it doesn't matter...
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This is Salzburg from the river, salz is German for salt, and large salt mines were here and the evil Archbishops controlled the trade... It made them very powerful and wealthy as it was the only way to preserve food at the time - and that is where this lovely town comes from, corruption, evil and greed... :)
This is the Mirabell Palace garden.
This is where the garden enters town.
Here are a few of those favourite things, 'do re mi' was sung in this garden in the movie.
And this Pegasus was there too.
I should imagine that Salzburg was very nice when they made that movie it is a little tourist trappy and there are way too many tourists here - and it's not close to peak season!
So up the castle I go; actually these are from the way down I am pulling your leg. I took a funicular train up, but the down slopes are pretty steep...
On the backside of the castle are houses on lovely treed lanes...
This is a giant musical box, they changed the big rolls to play different tunes, an early iPod if you will. If you look close you can see the old Apple logo on it.
This where the Archbishops were evil - there are torture rooms here and defences to control their salt monopoly. Anyone opposing their money scheme had to be crushed, put on beds of nails, etc. etc. All very hum drum, they also chased down witches... And I could supply names, I could...
This mask, I am sure I have seen in a horror movie, but it is an actual torture device. By making the person faceless, it's easy to kill them - hence the debate about Star Wars storm troupers in the original film, you see hundreds die, but don't care because they have no real face. This mask is creepy though! It looks like Justin Bieber.
The views from the top speak for themselves.
The chapel below dates from 1503.
Back on the ground, the pretty little tourist town also lays claim to being the birthplace of Mozart.
This is the street where he was born, and it's famous for the old shop signs now too... The shops are sadly tourist trail, Escada, Louis Vuitton, etc.
Oh I nearly forgot, this would be my house in the old regime, it's the executioner's house. It was isolated because it was bad luck in the time to live near him. I would like that a lot.
Oh I think I am repeating myself it's Getreidegasse again, Mozart's street.
The Porsche below I took a pic of as I have never seen this model.
This is a sun dial, of which there are a few here.
And in Mozart Platz, well guess who!
Modern art also juxtaposes with the old, this piece is called 'Kontemplation' - Buddha like, but more African I would say.
This man is lost for words.
Okay, so the big thing in Chocolate here, and this is a subject dear to my heart, is, I kid you not, Mozart's Balls. A huge industry, shops sell them everywhere. Oddly I have zero interest in this chocolate and it's because it has the poison known as MARZIPAN in it.
This angelic soul below agrees with me "Marzipan tastes like utter sh*t" she is saying... "I don't want to touch Mozart's things either...bless you my lovely sweet child."
I am repeating myself in pictures, which is weird as I have 100 more from today to pick from. Actually I think I over did it with heat and lack of water, it was 30, bright sun, climbing hill tops, no water for 3 hours... Tired out now.
And lastly this bus looks like it should have been in the movie but I think it is for a wedding party. Oh I forgot to add, I am at the Crowne Plaza, and with my frequent 'status' I got plonked in an 'Amadeus Suite' - bathroom is lovely, the blinds on the outside of the windows are electric, and the hallway has motion sensing lights etc. Free breakfast would have been more practical, but what the heck... It's nice. I had a couple of drinks with dinner tonight, which wasn't so great, a health food restaurant, the drinks are not like in Barcelona where over half the tall glass is gin and then they put ice and lemon in so there's no room for the tonic water. After two of them I thought someone had run off with my legs, I was getting pretty numb, but not in Salzburg. They are not as liberal with the medicinal spirits here - probably under orders of the Archbishops, it would be hurting the boss's profits...
Well, you must agree Salzburg is a nice looking town. I just wish there were less tourists... Perhaps I could open the torture rooms for the Archbishops again... Oops Freudian slip...
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- BlogPressed from my iPad. Click on pictures for larger version and gallery. Copyright 2012 TinyFrontalLobeWerke AG., Zurich.
Location:Salzburg, Austria.
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