It feels like it’s been ages since my last post, but in reality it has only been a week. Whether this reflects my impatience at the 30th of August rolling around or the fact that I feel like I have so much to write, I’m not sure. Meh; column A, column B.
Upon arriving to Salzburg my first (and lasting) impression was that it was somehow stuck in the middle ages. Although much of the architecture was stereotypically European, the town still had a distinct medieval feeling. It may be due to the fact that our first ‘sightseeing’ adventure was to the castle Festung Hohensalzurg, or the beautiful green copper rooves on the numerous cupola-topped churches and older buildings or perhaps the cobble-stoned streets….but these are not things that I have not described before, so I am quite unable to put my finger on the exact element.
We stayed at a place called Muffin hostel, which was at first infuriating because the person checking us in was possibly the slowest person I had ever come across, and the group of four people checking in before us insisted paying separately. For freak’s sake people! The place was okay though (bar a funky smell in the kitchen/common room). It had a beautiful huge backyard with a creek, lots of grass and trees and a resident cat, which I belatedly discovered the day before we left. The keys were cute too – they give you keys attached to a stuffed animal – either a bat or a rat. We started off with a bat but got changed to a rat because we were in a private room.
The weather was mostly overcast the entire time we were there, except for that first night when it POURED rain – we couldn’t explore at all because it was that wonderful fat rain that saturated you within a matter of seconds. We got caught in it after dinner, and we were literally dripping wet. It was ace!
So, the Hohensalzburg. It certainly intensified that medieval feeling, walking slowly up to the top of the hill to have the great views over the city. There was a small room dedicated to marionettes, which was a bit cool/creepy. Here they had holes in the floor where you peered through the grates to see a dummy of a boy surrounded by a LOT of cash. People throw money down, either for good luck or to try to hit the boy in the head. I imagine it was used to keep prisoners in at some point. We also took a tour of a wing, including a torture chamber (used to house the torture instruments and the prisoners, not to actually torture – one that stood out was a heavy wheel that they essentially dropped onto you and broke all the bones in your body, and if that didn’t kill you they strung you up between the wheel and a pole and left you to die. Nice.). We wandered around the tour with the audioguides stuck to our ears and bumping shoulder to shoulder with other tourists. Wasn’t too bad though.
Walking through the city we came across the aforementioned copper-rooved churches, a horse fountain that I now forget the name of, but elicited Andrew to declare ‘Ima call you horsewash’ (He thinks it was used for this purpose. He is so eloquent), a stack of shops selling chocolates bearing Mozart’s name (despite the fact that he hated Salzburg and left as soon as he could) and a guy who played glasses (drinking) like I’d never seen before. He took it to a level that I didn’t know existed – it was beautiful and harmonic. There were numerous women walking around in theme for the Sound of Music and many, many signs, t-shirts and other numerous souvenirs bearing the caption ‘No kangaroos in Austria’. Apparently they get confused (mind you, I have seen a good number of buskers playing didgeridoos, so maybe they themselves are somewhat confused!).
We also walked up to the Mirabel Schloss gardens, where we found a lot of red flowers, loads of people (it was a Sunday) and a few statues – unicorns, winged horses and some lions that looked like they were in a constant state of ‘Waaaah’, possibly because all of them had broken tails. My favourite bit of the gardens was down in the kids playground though – there was a platform that was broken up into 9 tiles that dinged every time you stood on one of them. Kids were going nuts jumping up and down on them chaotically, churning out a cacophony of notes. Unfortunately a lot of tourists would intimidate the kids by barging in and attempting to play a tune, which was a shame because you could see how much the kids enjoyed it.
There are many small yet striking differences between Europe and Australia. Smoking for a start, is not just condoned but almost encouraged. Virtually no place is smoke free (this includes restaurants) and people seem to have an inability to understand others’ disdain for the disgusting smell and appear to be baffled when people cough in a cloud of smoke. Consequently most smokers are quite selfish and will light up whenever they feel, blow the smoke wherever they like and don’t share any thought for other people it will effect. Hell, smoking is even advertised for here. Makes you almost appreciate the smokers at home (well, bar some that belong in Europe). I said almost, Mum.
Pets have also many more rights here – they are allowed in restaurants and on public transport. Many people take their dog with them to dinner or on the train (be it a short metro trip or a 3 hour trip to a different country) and they are catered for where people would turn their nose up in Australia. It’s quite nice, actually. On a side note people think that a 3 hour train trip is really long! We were buying tickets from one place to the other, and it was going to be 70 euros for a two hour trip, and only 30 euros but it was an entire hour longer – a very slow train – did we mind? I could have laughed. That doesn’t even get me to bloody Swanners!! Still on transport, cycling is also easier – there are a plethora of bike tracks and drivers seem to be very conscious of cyclists (mind you, a: most tracks are off the road and perhaps as a consequence b: helmets aren’t compulsory so you bloody well hope they don’t hit you!) and it seems to be much more encouraged than in Australia. There is also a lovely habit to play board games in parks and cafes – namely backgammon, which would be so much nicer if they weren’t puffing away on bloody cigars!!
So….onto Graz. The thing that epitomises this city most would have to be the ubiquitous orange tiled rooves. Contrasting these to the beautiful crisp cobalt blue of the sky is really quite something, and the dark tint on my glasses made it just that extra bit spectacular. I was just looking up at these red rooves and vivid sky and was almost disappointed to find that the rooves were actually orange, not red. Ah, still gorgeous.
The buildings are commonly ornamented here, giving them a little extra over most European architecture, enough to annoy the shit out of Andrew as I stop to take photos every few blocks. He is more fascinated with the four wheeled bikes that he exclaims at every time they drive past “I can’t believe they are allowed to drive these in the city”. Good thing I don’t habituate easily, coz sheesh! At least he’s not predictable. *cough*
Amongst the sights we saw as we walked around the first evening were a winged cow standing in a fountain (just coz, okay?) and a steel statue bearing a ball (globe?) and a sword….title New Liberty beneath it. There was a strange happy-alien-slug-bladder structure that is a museum called Kunsthaus Graz. I’m sure it doesn’t actually translate to what it sounds like if you say it…but you never know these Austrians. They also have a strange steel meshy ‘island’ called Murinsel – actually an amphitheatre/café. *shrugs shoulders* They also have a church in which there are stained glass windows which depict Jesus being speared with none other than Hitler and Mussolini looking on. Crazy Austrians. One cool thing was a double spiral staircase in the Burg complex – not quite MC Escher, but pretty damn cool nonetheless. Fun to race your stupid partner taking the opposite way to them.
We also climbed up the Schlossberg – effectively a big hill (261 steps plus a few ramps) to get gorgeous panoramic views of the city and their gorgeous orange rooves. Up here there is also a clocktower with back to front hands…it was kinda confusing but charismatic nonetheless. We trundled around, lay down and enjoyed the green grass and the blue sky for a while.
We had an unfortunate dinner at a Japanese restaurant one night – usually something I would love. Firstly the girl couldn’t understand us (not her fault, I acknowledge), but it just got worse. She gave us gassy water when we asked for still water (we made a big effort to say nein, nicht and simulated gassy water. But I guess we can put that one down to her having only a marginally better grasp of German than us). The vegetarian sushi contained seafood, and all our sushi contained wasabi! Frick!! It was a case of picking out what we wanted, then following dinner with a souva. I know, I’m embarrassed. We had a better meal (and better service) at a pub the following night, our waitress having just returned from Oz for World Youth Day (bloody crazy Austrians).
And so, (phew), that’s it. We just returned from what was probably a highlight (ashamedly) – going to an English cinema, watching The Mummies (The Mummy 3). Not as good as the first two, but if you go in not expecting a lot you should enjoy it (provided you like B-grade action films, that is). Off to Vienna tomorrow, then into the Czech Republic.
Mwah.
Salzburg photos
Graz photos.
