Nicole schreibt...

Salzburg 2018

If it seems that I have been travelling even more than usual recently... then that may well be true. Although sometimes it's not really my fault. Last year I had given my sports-mad mother tickets to the Biathlon on Schalke for her birthday gift and when we got there, casually mentioned that I was out of sports tickets to give her now. To which she replied just as casually "Well, I also enjoy ski jumping". Now ski jumping is a particular thing for me, a sport I already watched eagerly on TV as a little girl and made Playmobil plastic figurines on ski "jump" off tables, followed (with advancing age) by crushes on Matti Nykänen, the Flying Fin superstar of the 80s and Germany's flying ginger Dieter Thoma. So to actually see ski jumping live appealed greatly to me and of course it would have to be the biggie of the season, the Vierschanzentournee (Four Hills Tournament). The initial idea had been the third competition in Innsbruck, but it took place awkwardly in the middle of the week, while the final one in Bischofshofen was on a very convenient Saturday. One look at a map made me realized that Bischofshofen wasn't far from Salzburg, a town I had meant to see for a long time - so the plan took shape. With flight connections being bad to non-existant, I decided to throw my lot in with Austrian Railways (ÖBB) who took over the failing night service from DB and turned it into a success. I even forked out for a proper two-berth sleeping compartment that really felt a bit like flying First Class: On arriving, two goodie bags with slippers, towel, water, snack and sparkling wine (!) awaited and breakfast was included as well. A dude came to change the seats into two fold-down beds with pillows and duvets that looked comfy... but weren't. I slept terribly badly on the way from Cologne to Wels and on top of that had to get up at 5.30am for breakfast before leaving the train at 6.15am to catch a local connection to Salzburg. We dumped luggage at the hotel by the station, then set off for a wander around the Altstadt (Old Town) by the river.

Here's the magnificent view from the Mirabell Gardens across the roofs of the Old Town and the cathedral towards Hohensalzburg Fortress on a crisp cool winter morning. Salzburg's greatest son and biggest tourist draw is of course Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart who was born in the city and grew up here until the escalating conflict with local ruler Fürsterzbischof Colloredo (both worldly ruler of the then independent state and local head of the Catholic church who owned the state) drove him away to Vienna. You can't walk ten steps without bumping into Mozart, in one case quite literally when I accidentally knocked over a man-sized Mozart advertising his balls (No, not those. Mozartkugeln are delicious little chocolate balls filled with pistachio marzipan and nougat).Here's his statue on Mozartplatz, one of the many shop windows flogging Mozart chocolates and the yellow-painted house in which Mozart was born. Which is now a museum and perpetually swamped with tourists. Since we quite accidentally happened to be there right at 9am when it opened we decided to seize the chance to visit during the calm before the storm and it was actually quite interesting.

The rooms on the third floor where the Mozarts lived held many genuine articles from the great man, including his first child-sized violin, his purse and a lock of hair. Sadly photography was not allowed here, only in other areas. It also did away with some myths such as the popular one that Mozart was dirt-poor and buried in a pauper's grave. Fact is that he earned well but couldn't handle money and spend way more than he could afford. And the burial ceremony was perfectly in tune with rites of the period (even if it's true that his remains couldn't be identified later because he was buried with others in one grave). From here we wandered on along pretty Getreidegasse to the mighty cathedral and the palace of the Fürsterzbischöfe (prince archbishops in English) next door, which wasn't open yet for sightseeing.

Instead of waiting we tackled the next biggie on the list and took the funicular up to Festung Hohensalzburg, the first medieval fortress of the young city and favorite perch of the price archbishops. Now I've never felt any draw towards the mountains as a holiday destination - for me it was always the beach or big cities. So seeing the majestic snow-covered Alpine peaks rise up beyond Salzburg in the morning sunshine was as alien to me as it was fascinating. Though I still don't get what possesses people to want to climb UP them or ski DOWN from them, I'm fine to just let them be. On the other side the fortress offers a prime view across the city on either side of the Salzach of course. Inside there's plenty of interesting stuff to see like the feast hall of the archbishops where they - in their function as state leaders - hosted large receptions and parties for visiting dignitaries. While they weren't quite on par with the infamous Borgias, they sure didn't care much for their fine catholic vows - the prime offender being Wolf Dietrich who built Mirabell Castle for his mistress and their ten children in 1606 (!).

Apart from the terrific views and the fine rooms, the fortress also houses some interesting exhibitions. One room (left below) held a selection of torture instruments, shame masks and indeed a proper medieval chastity belt. Some other rooms were dedicated to the Austrian Rainer regiment that turned up wherever there was trouble in the Hapsburg empire, more recently in World War I where they fought in the nonsensical godawful battles high up in the Alps. Here's a complete phone relay station of one of their camps that survived the war.

I admittedly felt like I had been through a war myself at that stage and after a quick lunch at Café Mozart (where else) we finally returned to the hotel to claim our rooms and spend a few hours catching up on sleep and relaxing by the lovely little hotel pool in the spa. We only emerged once more for a return trip into the Old Town to have dinner in a wonderful traditionally Austrian place that served Wiener Schnitzel, Salzburger Nockerln and many many other goodies. Austria may not be my favorite holiday destination but I love them for their food alone.

Next morning we consciously took it easy and spent a few hours by the hotel pool again, knowing we had a long day ahead at the ski jumping. Bischofshofen lies to the south of Salzburg, further up in the mountains and as the train trundled south, sunny skies soon gave way to clouds, mist and heaps of snow. The city itself (if you can call it that) is not much to write home about, though along the way we passed two pretty little squares with live music, drinks and food stalls where people warmed up for the main gig ahead. The Paul-Aussenleitner-Schanze is at the other end of the city but easily within walking distance and I admit my heart leapt a little to finally see this live with my own eyes. Between having a fairly good position and a good zoom on my camera, I was able to snap a few decent pictures of the current generation of jumpers:

Above are Stephan Leyhe and the permanently scruffy Markus Eisenbichler, two of the young stars of the German team. Below left is cheek-pinchingly cute Andreas Wellinger, Germany's last hope after favorite to win Richard Freitag faceplanted in Innsbruck and had to give up. Welli at least didn't disappoint and came second behind the impossibly good Kamil Stoch from Poland (right) who won not only Bischofshofen but all four competitions of the tour. Here's a winner's happy smile if ever I saw one.

Here's also one of the fans cheering their favorites on as well as the best picture I was able to get of the victory ceremony which was at an awkward angle for me and with some Polish nutjob blocking my view half the time with a huge flag. I was frozen to the bone after standing in the cold for something like six hours in total but it was all an incredible experience to FINALLY see ski jumping live and I don't regret going for one second.

There is of course one more thing every self-respecting musical lover has to do in Salzburg and that's joining the Sound of Music tour to the locations where the famous movie with Julie Andrews was shot in 1964. While it's a cultural icon in most countries overseas, it is very little known in Germany and Austria and so the tours are only offered in English. In fact the tour guide was pretty surprised when she heard we were Germans. My mother meanwhile was even more baffled to see the coach filling up to the last seat with people coming from as far away as China, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. Though personally I can't think of anything nicer than a coach full of people from all over the world joining in happily to a sing-along to Do-Re-Mi or trying their yodelling with the Lonely Goatherd. The tour started in the city at the Mirabell Gardens (where Do-Re-Mi had been filmed with them all dancing around the central fountain) then moved out into the suburbs to Castle Leopoldskron whose backside by the lake shore stood in for the gardens of the Von Trapp-villa.

Not far from there is the smaller Castle Emslieb which acted as the front with the yellow wall Julie Andrews dances along in "I have confidence" before ending in front of the huge gate. It's directly next to much bigger Hellbrunn Castle in whose gardens the original gazebo from "Sixteen going on Seventeen" ended up (during filming it was actually in Leopoldskron whose private owners had no use for it though).

From Hellbrunn we circled back to Salzburg proper to get a look at Nonnberg Abbey (which did basically play itself in some scenes) before hitting the road to drive out into the lovely Salzkammergut Lake District. First photo stop was the impossible picturesque St. Gilgen am Wolfgangsee (where Julie Andrews sang something about the hills being alive in the opening credits) before ending in the village of Mondsee by the lake of the same name. Its beautiful St. Michael's church was used to film the wedding and even today the church shop inside sells more Sound of Music fridge magnets than crucifixes. From there it was back to Salzburg and overall it were four hours really well spent - not just seeing the locations as "film locations" but also to get out of the city and see the places as such. Originally we had planned to take the night train home but my mother lost her cool over another night on the train and being stuck in Salzburg with "nothing else to do" until the late evening, so she decided to fork out for new train tickets on a daytime train that departed at 3pm and reached Cologne around 11pm (after two changes in Munich and Stuttgart). Overall it was certainly an unusual trip to the mountains for me but I've come home with incredible memories of the ski jumping, the Sound of Music tour and lovely Salzburg itself, which is definitely worth a visit.