Salzburg, Austria - The Historic Center, the crowds and the Ferris Wheels.

Salzburg

We were happy to find an apartment for 3 days in Salzburg online through VRBO that was located right in the historic center of town, overlooking a pedestrian street.  How charming!  However, we quickly began to see that we had  too much of a good thing….  Way too much.  The street was  wall to wall with cheerful happy people.

Late at night the crowds made up in volume (loudness) what had diminished in volume (head count.) The revelers were generally home in bed by 2:00AM, but  around 4:00AM came three passes by the street sweepers.  At least the apartment had double windows, so Danice had to relinquish her passion for cool fresh air.

The afternoon we arrived we unpacked and set out to see the old parts of town.  Our street, Getreidgasse, contained the very place in which Mozart had been born, along with hundreds of brand name stores filled with very expensive clothing and souvenir shops with many yellow rubber duckies painted with wigs and tail coats just like Mozart wore.  More rubber duckies than any major city we've seen.

Once we succeeded in pushing our way through the throngs to MozartPlatz, where the map promised us cathedrals, palaces, town hall and other lovely old buildings, we saw instead dozens of aerial and kiddie rides, games of chance, cotton candy, beer and sausage vendors.

Danice grew a bit uppity that these people had managed to turn a beautiful historic Platz into a carnival ground for a week in September and to call it October Fest, like that explains everything.

Paul’s take on it was perhaps a bit more generous.  Happy people, out having a good time with their families, thrilling the kids with rides, balloons and sweets, drinking the famous brew of their native land, eating the sausages, dumplings and sour kraut that have been an Austrian tradition through the centuries, men in Lederhosen and women in beautiful, traditional dresses with colorful aprons - what could be wrong with that?

We pressed through the crowds and did manage to see the Cathedral.

The frescoes on the dome were very nice

And the catacombs had a very nice sculpture installation

Our landlady had recommended a restaurant that we checked on the internet, and it seemed very promising. Not only were they organic they even stopped cooking all seafood because of over fishing. With our finely honed map reading skills it only took us 45 minutes to find the place which was all of 200 meters from our apartment.  Drats! they chose this week to close for vacation and the menu did look great. So we went to a Bierhaus just down the street, somewhat removed from the crowds, ordered the traditional food (delicious), and chatted with a German couple whose table we shared.  They were in Salzburg for a one night stop-over, en route home from a vacation in Italy.  They spoke good English and had traveled through the US; the man worked for an American company, Otis elevators,  and among many topics asked us if we thought Romney would defeat Obama. That set off an interesting discussion on which, fortunately, we were all in agreement.   We are often surprised by the knowledge and interest Europeans display in American politics.

The next day we wandered around the town, which is backed up against a tall cliff carved long ago by glaciers and the Salzach River.

It seems whenever you turn around there is either a church

No dome, but I loved the geometric ceiling

or Platz with a café.

We toured a Royal Residenza, getting an eyeful of the splendor in which the Austrian kings lived. No pictures allowed.

And the last full day, a very cloudy one, we hiked up the big hill to the castle, trying to keep our uphill hiking skills in tune.

Through the gate

Sort of reminded me of de Chirico's Nostalgia of the Infinite.

Salzburg from Castle

Coming down the hill we visited the beautiful St Peters

 and the old church

and catacombs  just behind it.

Salzburg from Catacombs

Then over to the October Fest where w chowed down on some more traditional fare. This stuff is getting pretty good....

The next morning,before our 12:45PM taxi to the airport, we walked down along the river

to see modern buildings

and rejuvenated older ones

also adding another view of the old city.

From across the river

A pleasant walk on a beautiful sunny day away from the crowds.
Then to the taxi and off to our ultimate destination for this trip, Berlin!