I had a hard time getting over how beautiful it was in Hallstatt. We had to go for a morning walk to see it all again before we went to Salzburg.
On the drive to Salzburg, Dad said "schnikeys" and "son of a monkey" more times than I could count. :)
Our GPS stopped working once we reached Salzburg, and was still not working when we tried to leave againt at 4:30-ish. It got Dad so frustrated that Dad now kind of dislikes Salzburg in general.
But I really loved it once the stressful car ride was over. My language skills became useful again as I found us all the train to get up to the Salzburg Fortress. Then again when Dad thought the train ride was freaksih expensive and not worth it, but I figured out that our tickets included the train AND two awesome tours around the fortress!
We went on Tour A as soon as we got to the top of the hill. And I'm so glad we did because it told us why we should think the fortress is awesome, and we got an incredible view of the city. The tour first took us to a room with models of the fortress in various stages of completion, and portraits hanging above each one of the archbishops who were in charge of its construction at the time. We learned that the fortress really is that--a fortress. It has never been conquered in battle (though Napoleon did "capture" it once in a bloodless negotiation).
Then we got to go to the "torture chamber,' which was actually just an impressive dungeon that now happens to hold instruments of torture.
Then we got to go to the top tower of the fortress, which had like a 330 degree view of the surrounding area. It was just like the opening scene of "The Sound of Music"--beautiful. That was when we all decided that we actually really liked Salzburg. It is gorgeous--green and hilly. Oh and the sun was out! It was so rainy in Hallstatt that morning, we figured it would rain all day but it didn't. It was sunny and warm and perfect.
After our time in the tower was up, we walked along the battlements (I know what battlements are now!) to an old barrel organ that the archbishops used to play to awaken the city. So that was cool.
That ended Tour A, and then we went to some stuff in Tour B. First a little marionette museum with ver impressive, very creepy puppets. Apparently that "Lonely Goatherd" scene in "Sound of Music" actually reflects a major part of Austrian culture--they don't mess around when it comes to puppets. The costumes and scenery and props and the marionettes themselves were all so detailed and well-made. I'd actually really love to see one of their shows.
We then went through a "Fortress Museum" where we got to see some very cool artifacts found in the Fortress. There were more medieval torture instruments (that I won't describe), old musical instruments, original gold coins, beautiful woodworked beds/chests/boxes/etc, ceramics, weapons, armor, and other really cool medieval stuff that I would have loved to draw.
We were there for a good long while, and then we took the train back down to the city proper, where we found a big festival going on (Oktoberfest? We're not sure). It involved carnival rides, souvenir shops, people dressed in liederhosen and dirndel, tubas and accordions, giant pretzels, and lots of beer. We explored some stands and Dad and I got bratwursts (actually just cheap hot dogs, we were sad to discover), but we just felt like seeing our wonderful Hallstatt in the sunlight.
First we took some time to see this amazing cathedral that became our new Number One cathedral in ways. It didn't have cool stained glass, but every wall was bright white with beautiful grey stonework. There were Biblical paintings on the ceilings in happy colors, and a huge door in the center to let the light in. It had a huge organ in the back, and then four littler ones in the inside corners. We loved it.
We drove back to Hallstatt (after our European Siri continued to get us lost). It was even prettier in daylight with no mist or rainclouds to hide it. Many of the shops were closed already, but we still got to do a lot of shopping. Then we had a delicious rosemary-lemon chicken dinner back at the house.
All in all, it was a very relaxing, wonderful day, and I loved being in Austria.
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