Salzburg

Goodbye Germany.  Hello Austria!  We left Munich yesterday morning.  We drove to the church there in Munich but for some reason it was all locked up:(   Maybe it was their Stake Conference??   Anyhow, we didn't get to attend church and that was a big bummer for us.   So what to do?  We just started our drive to Salzburg.  We arrived about 2:00 and got checked into our hotel.  It is a nice place just on the outskirts of Old Town.  We didn't do much because of it being the sabbath day and all so we just wandered around the Old Town.  We found many Catholic Cathedrals and enjoyed walking through them and listeneing to the church bells ring.  Really Awesome!!  After dinner we read a couple of Conference Talks and then played a couple of games.  To end the night we plugged in "The Sound of Music (yep, we really did:) and immediately I started recognizing places in the old town that we had just seen in real life.  Totally Cool!

 

After a good night's rest we started the day off with a Segway Tour.  That was a first for Rick and I.  I got a little nervous when I found out they DON'T  HAVE ANY BRAKES!  They are totally run on your center of gravity.  After a couple of parctice tries we got the hang of it and were ready to hit the streets.  Our guide took us back through the Old Town and told us all kinds of interesting info.

 

Here we are in front of St. Peter's Church

 

 

After returning the Segways (Rick wants to buy one now:) we started another walking tour of the Old Town.  As  we mosied about we stopped and shopped in the little shops along the way and bought souvenirs.

 

In this picture Rick is standing in front of the smallest house in Salzburg.

It is now a tiny shop.

 

 

A veiw of the shopping district withe a bell tower in the background.

 

 

We stopped at a stand to get a hot dog for lunch.

 

 

In the market there was a fruit stand with the most delicious looking fruit.  I spied this vegetable right next to the cauliflower and had to get a picture of it.  It is really interesting looking.  If anyone knows what this might be I'd be interested in finding out. 

It has the stalk of broccoli so maybe it's a distant cousin.

 

 

Rick eating a gigantic donut that we found in the marketplace.  They had gigantic pretzels too.

 

 

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's birthplace.  There is a lot of Mozart memorabilia in this town.  Busts, music, shirts, and even chocolate in his name.  Later in the afternoon we were able to go to the Archbishop's Residenz (A fantastic building where the archbishops of the Catholic Church used to live) and listen to a Mozart Concert.  It was really wonderful.  There was a man playing the harpsichord and a woman singing soprano. The last song she sang was one I recognized from Pride and Prejudice.  It was a delightful concert!

 

 

We also stopped an Salzburg's oldest bakery.  They still use the same recipe that the monks from hundreds of years ago used.  It is rye bread that is baked in a wood fired oven

 

 

We rode the funicular (a tram) up to the Salzburg Fortress (castle).  It gave us a stunning view of this wonderful city.  It the background you can see the Salzach River.  We had to walk across it to get to Old Town from our hotel.

 

 

After the castle we went into St. Peter's church and listened to a perfomance by a boys choir.  There were actually older men singing as well.  It was neat to hear the accoustics as they were singing.

 

 

Last but not least we enjoyed dinner in the oldest restaurant in Europe called St. Peter's Stiftskeller.  It's been a restaurant since the year 803.  That's 1,210 years ago!!  It took a long time to get our food but it was nice.  I had something called "Saddle of sucking pig" with roasted potatoes served cordon bleu style.  Sounds a little strange but it wasn't too shabby:)  Tomorrow we are off to Switzerland.  It'll be a bit of a drive but we will stop and see the sights as we go.  Goodbye!! Wonderful...... Charming,.......Lovely Salzburg!!