Salzburg

Salzburg was by far the most beautiful place I have ever been. Don’t get me wrong, I am not a world traveler by any means, but the mountains were gorgeous. It truly was my favorite part of the whole trip.  Be aware that everything is up hill. You thought you had to go down hill to get some where, but really it was just more up hill that looked like you were going down hill. I swear! Anyways the hotel we stayed in was on a hill and right outside the front door was this very cool water feature. It was a little water fountain that rain the length of the narrow street. The best part is that there were plastic balls (like you would see in a ball pit at a fast food restaurant) that were put in this fountain for kids to play with. The kids would run the balls to the top of the hill and then watch the balls flow down the fountain. The kids also played in the fountain with the balls. It wasn’t deep, maybe 2 inches in the very center.

Here is the fountain. It’s hard to see, but the balls are at the bottom.

One of the things that we got to do while we were in Salzburg was take a trip up into the Alps to the peak of Untersberg moutain about 5,000 ft up by cable car. I personally am not a fan of heights and the fact that there were 25 or 30 people packed into a cable car did not sit very well with me on both the trip up and down. Once we got up there it was so beautiful and very much worth the nerve racking trip.

Picture from up in the Alps.
Lunch in the Alps

We also got the change to have lunch at a little hut in the Alps called an Almhutte. It was a very light lunch of meat, cheese, and breads. Its hard to see in this photo, but there was still snow on much of the mountain peeks. The adventurous part of the group took about a half hour hike further up to a higher peak on the mountain and some of us took a shorter hike up the the peak with the cross in the background of the group picture.

There were many other interesting places that we got the change to visit such as Festung Hohensalzburg which is a fortress in Salzburg and the DomQuartier. The DomQuartier was made up of a cathedral, museum, and residence buildings.

Residenzplatz which is part of the DomQuartier

We also got the change to see Petersfriedhof which is a historic Christian graveyard & catacombs. Now when you hear the word catacombs you think underground, right? Not in Salzburg! The catacombs were in the side of the mountain and to see them you had to climb up some very narrow and sketchy stairs within the side of the mountain. It was a whole new meaning of catacombs for me, but it was a very interesting experience.