Living in Finland: A weekend in Salzburg. The hills are alive with the sound of music!

Salzburg, Austria.
The place where the movie "The Sound of Music" was filmed, where Mozart was born. Oh and where our little one was conceived :-)

A week after we were in Germany for Oktoberfest, I now found myself in Austria. Yeah, yeah, yeah Mom, I know I am 6 months behind on this blog but it is done now.

Greg was invited to some conference in Austria, the Salzburg Global Seminar. Since it was over the weekend Greg thought it would be nice if I joined him (ahh what a sweet husband).

Unfortunately, the seminar was OVER THE WEEKEND, which meant that Greg had very little time to join me in sight-seeing and I had to do most of the adventure by myself.

The Global Seminar owns some fancy schmancy palace which we were invited to stay at, called the Schloss Leopoldskron.

This palace was really beautiful and had a rich history of its own. Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg, Count Leopold Anton Eleutherius von Firmian (did you get all that?...what a name) commissioned the palace in 1736.
After the death of the Archbishop, in 1744, his heart was buried in the chapel of the palace (ewww). The palace had several owners during the 19th century until it was bought in 1918 by the famous theatre director Max Reinhardt. Over the next 20 years he really pimped the palace out and it was pretty grand indeed.
There was a Chinese room,

the Marble Hall where we had dinners and a library that Greg found himself most of the time.

There was also the grand Mirror room where we sometimes ate and a replica of this room is in the Sound of Music too.

Later we had a tour of the palace and the tour guide told us that movie producers of The Sound of Music were really inspired by this grand place. They asked if they could film the movie at Leopoldskron but were declined. Even though they weren't allowed to film they were allowed access. Some of the scenes from the movie are inspired by the palace and it's grounds. For example,the scene where the kids fall from the boat into the water, well this gate and lake was part of the Leopoldskron (as shown below with Ms. Julie).

Also, the Mirror Room shown above is part of a scene as well.

The best part of staying at the Schloss Leopoldskron was our room. It was really grand and so was the view!

In the background of the pictures, you can see Mount Untersberg, the highest mountain in Salzburg's immediate surroundings. Later on I would go up that mountain.

After lunch at the Leopoldskron, I decided to head out to see some of the city. Once I made it through the grounds at the Leopoldskron I could see the Hohensalzburg Castle (Salzburg Fortress).

I thought it was very beautiful and it is one of the largest medieval castles in Europe.
It didn't look that far away, so I started off on my adventure to see the castle.

It was a little bit of a trip but once there I really enjoyed the great view of the city.
Salzburg really is a beautiful city with the baroque architecture and surrounding Alpine scenery.

Poor Greg didn't get to see any of this and without my fashion photographer around it was hard to get me into any of the photos... so here I am trying to do it myself. :-)

Another thing that I wanted to do was visit where Mozart lived, so I started my trek down and into the city.

I love listening to Mozart's music and I am a fan of the movie Amadeus. I lived with my grandmother, Memo, for 7 years right after high school and she was always playing classical music in her home, so I became very familiar with it.

When I hear Mozart not only am I moved by the beauty of his music, but it always makes me think of Memo and her warm comfy house with the smell of food all throughout the house (usually some type of cobbler or pie).

I am not so sure what made me love the movie Amadeus so much... of course Mozart's music is throughout the whole movie, but maybe it has more to do with the reaction I would see from my Memo and my aunt Charlotte when I played it. When I would watch it my very relgious grandmother, Memo, and my very relgious aunt Charlotte they would screech in horror because this musical genious was shown pretty much as a randy pervert with a foul mouth. They both declared that someone that composed such beautiful music couldn't be that aweful, but when you look at pictures of him you do see that little twinkle in his eye that let's you know he probably was a bit of a cad.

I found my way to Mozartplatz, Salzburg’s most famous square and home to the Mozart statue errected back in 1842.

Mozart isn't easy to miss, you see, Mozart is to Austria what Elvis is to Vegas.

You can visit Mozart's birthplace, his home, the grave of his father and widow, and the house of a person who once knew someone who knew someone whose great-great grandfather once played second bassoon in a Mozart opera.

You can even buy Mozart Balls, no it isn't what you are thinking! It is chocolate candy in small spheres made of chocolate wrapped in swisho paper and with a pic of Wolfie on them at every corner.

You can even find chocolate that was in the film Amadeus. There is a scene where Constanze Mozart goes to Salieri to ask for his help in getting Mozart to make more money.
In this scene, Salieri -- who has no intention of helping Mozart at all -- gets on Constanze's good side by offering her an apparently decadent confection of Roman chestnuts in brandied sugar.
The more erotic name for this item is "Capezzoli di Venere", or "Nipples of Venus", because ...well, they look like breasts.

This picture of the yellow building is where Mozart was born. I didn't get a good shot of his family's residence but I also went there as well.
Getreidegasse no. 9, is where the Leopold Mozart family lived from 1747 to 1773. Today, the home of the Mozart family is a museum where famous exhibits are displayed.
Among other attractions, visitors to the museum can see the violin played when he was a child, his concert violin, his clavichord, a pianoforte, portraits, and letters of the Mozart family.
In 1773, the Mozarts moved into this residence on the then Hannibalplatz (now Makartplatz 8) as the apartment on the third floor of Getreidegasse 9 (Mozart's birthplace) had become too small as the family grew.
Unfortunately the museum doesn't let you take any photos of what is inside, so I cannot share what I saw with you.

After this I headed back to meet up with Greg to have dinner.

That night champagne and horderves were served in the Marbel Room

Greg came over and was very excited to tell me about his day and how he sat in on a meeting led by the keynote speaker, Paul Volcker and pointed to this really really tall man.
"Who??" I sheepishly asked, because I knew it was probably someone I was supposed to know.

Turns out it was Paul Volcker, who was the Chairman of the Federal Reserve (before Alan Greenspan). doh! Oh well he did retire
in 1987 when I was in 7th grade, so I feel ok about that. I was too busy watching "Can't Buy Me Love" with the young Dr. McDreamy and dancing to George Michael and Whitney Houston to care about who the Chairman of the Feb was. I guess I better pay attention now that the really really tall man, Paul Volcker, is the Chairman of the Economic Recovery Advisory Board under President Barack Obama. Go Obama! Sorry Mom, but I do want him to have success.

The next day, Greg had some free time and was able to join me for a quick tour of the city. yea!

The first area we came to was Residenzplatz.
This was a really pretty area.

Near by this square was the Residenz Palace, palace of the Prince Bishops. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart played here in these rooms.

Across the way was the Residenzplatz Glockenspiel which is perched on top of the Residenz Neubau (New Residence), Prince-Archbishop Wolf-Dietrich's government palace.

The 35 bells play classical tunes of???....you guest it, Mozart!!

Another famous site near the Residenzplatz is the Pferdeschwemme (Horse Well).

The centre of the well is decorated by a statue named Der Rossebändiger or the horse whisperer, well not an actual translation... but it is something like “The horse tamer”.

Next we decided to go to the Old Town area and on the way came across the Altermarkt, or Old Market.
Nothing was old looking in this Old Market. Everything about this area was so nicely done.
The flowers were laid out beautifully

The bread and fruit looked very tasty

In Finland you have 100 different ways to serve salmon, in Austria you have 100 different types of sausage to choose from

And you wouldn't be in a German speaking country if there weren't 100 different types of pretzels to choose from either :-)

Finally we made it to the Altermarkt (Old Market).
This too was a beautiful area, with what I learned was Baroque architecture as the main influence.

Here I am standing on Getreidegasse, which is one of the oldest streets in Salzburg. Most of the buildings feature wrought-iron guild signs hanging above the shops.

Below are some shots of the Baroque architecture to inspire you.

The last important building we saw before we had to turn around and go back was the Salzburger Dom (Salzburg Cathedral).

This is a 17th century baroque cathedral of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Salzburg. It is the site of Mozart's baptism.

The next day I only had about 3 hours to kill before we had to head home. Greg was in a conference that morning and so I had to once again leave him behind. I decided to check out those mountains we could see from our bedroom, the Untersberg Mountain.

It is the biggest mountain near Salzburg and is partly stretching into Germany where it serves as a natural border between the two countries.

I did a little bit of walking before I caught a bus that took us to the foot of the mountain where you can catch a cable car ride. The cable car takes passengers from the base at 456m to an altitude of 1776 m (5826 feet)

It was very peaceful and so beautiful on top of Untersberg. Unfortunately I didn't have a lot of time left but quickly got some shots in before I had to leave.
View from Untersberg