Southern Charms: The Hills Are Alive…. And Killing My Legs and Feet!

So tired! And I get to do it all over again tomorrow :)

When we first got to Salzburg, Dean Roth had sent someone to tour us around a bit while she was held up in a meeting. We got to see the Prince’s summer house garden, which homed a statue wearing a sock and a cute little shopping street where all the signs are old-fashioned:

The oldest shop on this little street was opened in 1636, and this was also the street that Mozart was born on and where he entertained nobles as a child. I didn’t fork over the 7euro to go through the residence, though:

Perhaps the most exciting thing in Salzburg for me was the birthplace not of Mozart but of Mozartkugel, my FAVORITE candy/chocolate. Rest assured I spent a fair amount of time here sampling the real stuff/annoying the lady to no end:

Then we had our lecture at the University of Salzburg law school. I didn’t realize until well after our lecture and subsequent tour just how cool of a place it was to have a lecture in. The Archbishops were the princes of Salzburg and this building complex was their palace, in effect. Imagine a square with only three sides. The top and the bottom sides are the law school while the left side is the public museum you have to pay money to go through. We got a cool secret tour:

Note the brick wall in this picture. It’s important later:

After the tour, I joined the boys for lunch from the street vendors. This is what I ate (bleh):

Feeling the urge to explore, I went off on my own, and after harassing the Mozartkugel lady, I next ended up here, the oldest bookstore in Austria. Although I couldn’t find an English version of any Jelinek books (I’ve been hunting since I got here!), I did find the Austrian Harry Potters!

Since churches really seem to be my thing, I next ventured over to the Dome of Salzburg:

Sorry if you don’t like the videos. My camera just struggles with pictures inside dark churches.

My next stop was to climb the gigantor of a mountain, on top of which sat the Salzburg castle/fortress thing. But first, I watched a chess match. When I came down from the mountain several hours later, the guy moving the black pieces in this picture was still playing, so my bet is that he never gets beat.

This is me at the foot of the mountain ready to climb.

This is me halfway up the mountain ready to give up.

And this is the totally worth it view from the top of Salzburg and the Alps!

The Castle/Fortress was okay. The views were worth it, but had it not been for that, I would have been sad I hiked all that way for just the castle.

This is me at the top and then the Prince’s Chapel, private “thrown room,” and main chambers. Keep in mind, the princes were all Archbishops appointed by the Pope.

Starting the climb down. At least it wasn’t raining. Then, I would have forked over the 11euro to ride the train up.

Remember that brick wall I told you to remember from inside the law school? Well, the other side of that wall is this church:

I might be making this up because my German is not so good (meaning I don’t speak any German), but I think this was the church where Silent Night was written??

What’s that doing there?? I swear I only went in because it started to rain a little….

While doing a little shopping, I saw this bar and decided that was the place I needed to eat dinner. Sketchy is one of my favorite adjectives and I love dive bars. However, this bar was far from sketch. It was actually the hotel bar for like a super expensive hotel and no one was in there.

So I went here instead and enjoyed my first meal in Austria! Yes, I enjoyed my meal! I hung out with some local Salzburgians, had a delicious ham and cheese wrap, and got to sit down and relax before the bus ride home.

When I got home, this was the state of my bed. I think the maid might have gone hunting for valuables? Or just was too lazy to actually make my bed for the first time in two weeks. Either way….