Salzburg, or The Day I Got 22,000 Steps

- June 24, 2018

As best I can tell, today I walked 22,000 steps or about 10 miles. My feet are about to fall off, I'm exhausted, and I took so many notes today that I apologize in advance, though I'll try to be brief, and forgive you if you just look at the pretty pictures.

In the morning we slept in (YAY) and went to Mass, where we performed four pieces as the visiting choir. If you check on Facebook, I've been tagged in a couple pictures and a short video (depending on when this post goes live). We performed at the Salzburg Dom, or Cathedral, which is the church of the city's two patron saints, St. Rupert and St. Virgil. It was first built in 774, burned down 10 times, changed architects, and eventually was finished in 1928. It had to be restored after WWII as well. It was built in an Italian style so it's unusual to see a church of its ilk outside Italy; it was also built before gold leaf was in style, so it's all elaborate black and white decoration with frescoes depicting the life of Jesus. It has seven organs and a really neat baptismal font where Mozart was baptized in 1756.

I decided a bullet list was the best way to describe all the amazing things I learned on our walking tour of Salzburg, because it's all just so interesting!!

The fountain in the square outside the cathedral acts as a weather vane for the locals, which I thought was interesting! If the fountain water falls on the statue's back, it's bad weather; if the water falls on the statue's front, it's good weather.
The same man who built the university and finished the Salzburg Dom also built city fortifications, which kept out the 30 Years' War.
Salzburg is the birthplace of Mozart and Doppler (NERD ALERT), and it's where the Silent Night text author was born (and this Christmas Eve will be the 200th anniversary of its performance, by the way).
It's where Einstein presented his Theory of Relativity to an audience for the first time.
It's where the real life Sound of Music took place and the movie version was partly filmed. A fun story we heard is that the real baroness wanted to play herself instead of Julie Andrews, so the director gave her a part that involved walking the opposite direction of Andrews. He made her redo the scene so many times she decided acting actually wasn't for her, and Andrews could go ahead and play the part!
It has 107 churches, 103 of which are Catholic, and hardly any crime.
After Napoleon invaded and it switched hands a few times, it finally got absorbed into Austria in 1816 and fell into a kind of enchanted sleep that wasn't affected by industrialization. It is geographically bound by mountains and rivers, so it can't expand much.
A lot of the buildings have dates on them depicting when they were built and when they were last renovated.
Getreidegasse, one of the longest and busiest streets in the Old Town, is a fairytale shopping street with the only physical Red Bull store and a lot of old cast iron shop signs that are protected by the city - it's really hard to change them at all.
On Getreidegasse is the house where Mozart was born! He was one of 7 children, but only 2 survived; his own heirs suffered a similar fate. There are no direct Mozart descendants, as his kids died childless.
Hohensalzburg Fortress is SO COOL. It was built in the 1000s in a time of war and has protected the archbishops of Salzburg (Salzburg was an archbishopric) ever since. They're still discovering neat things about the ancient fortress, and exhibits inside include torture instruments, a history of the Fortress's involvement in various wars, and old objects you'd find from daily life like dishes and furniture. The views were absolutely stunning, which is why I'm going to stop writing now and post my pictures. Enjoy!