Salzburg, Austria

Hohensalzburg Fortress in center city, Salzburg.  

Wow.  Where to begin?  I'll be honest; the city was a bit daunting & overwhelming to me in the beginning - so much history, so much to do, and SO BUSY!  Our first challenge was simply parking "The Beast" (otherwise known as our Ford Explorer), in the parking garage.  At one point I just took a deep breath, closed my eyes and PRAYED that we weren't going to scrape the hood of the truck! Needless to say, we took a taxi to the city center on our 2nd day visiting downtown!

Our time in Salzburg included:

*  Hohensalzburg Fortress
*  Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's birthplace/museum
*  Salzburg Cathedral
*  Durrnberg Salt Mines
*  Salzburg's Old Town
*  St. Peter's Abbey

Salzburg Cathedral - The cathedral still contains the baptismal font in which Mozart was baptized!

Absolutely breathtaking!

Confessional

 

The boys lit a candle in honor of our friends and family - it was so wonderful to say a little prayer in the cathedral - it was packed with people but so quiet & peaceful.

Some of us didn't appreciate the architecture as much as the others....

Mozart's birthplace ... fascinating! He was born in the third floor apartment of this building.

The kitchen in Mozart's home.  

Next we took a horse and buggy tour through the city center.  Our guide, Erik, from Hungary.

Salzburg is truly a beautiful city.  Time to share some of what we saw on our buggy ride in town.

Salzburg is full of amazing street performers.  We are still trying to figure out how this gentleman stayed suspended mid-air & what kept the metallic paint from melting off his face!  It was HOT!

This cafe is over 500 years old!

Lots of Ferraris in Salzburg.  This guy looks like he'd be ok on the autobahn.

 On day 2 we ventured out to the Durrnberg Salt Mines.  How cool is this .... we traveled through the same tunnels that the Celts used to mine salts over 2,500 years ago!  Salz-burg translated literally means salt-castle!  

Salt-mining is serious and requires serious gear!

Ready to go down, down, down!

We straddled these green benches and rode the 'train' down into the mines.

The 1.5 hour tour was part riding, part sliding (yes - sliding) & part boating.

Crossing the border from Austria into Germany, several meters underground.

70 meter slide!

Dad and Hank's turn to slide!

Photobomber .... give you one guess :)

Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in him.  Psalm 34:8