Salzburg - post 1: First Impressions

Hohensalzburg Castle

If you looked at my previous blog post and identified the building atop the hill as Hohensalzburg Castle in Salzburg, then you were absolutely spot on!

Over the coming days I'll be posting images from the beautiful Austrian city of Salzburg. Why am splitting up my Salzburg images? Because there are so many things to see in the city I have way too many photographs to make a single blog post.

So where to start? Well +Silvia Antlady and I took the sensible decision to park outside the city centre and make use of a park & ride service. This being the case my first view of the city proper was from inside the bus. We were dropped beside the Salzach River and this was the first thing to catch my eye.

Salzach River with Hohensalzburg Castle in the background

We headed for the old city crossing the river on the Mozartsteg (Mozart's Bridge), one of the many footbridges over the Salzach, and were faced with this fine old stone building:

I am not able to tell you what this building was in times past, but today it houses the Salzburg Tourist Office and some shops. Looking back over my shoulder gave me a view of the old monastery Kapuzinerkloster:

Kapuzinerkloster outer wall

Making our way toward Mozartplatz and the Salzburg Museum I spotted this rather wonderful sundial and couldn't resist grabbing an image:

Sundial

As you'll note from my pictures the day was overcast so it's a bit difficult to judge the time from the sundial, but it was around 8:30am.

This is the Salzburg Museum in Residenzplatz.

Salzburg Museum

Isn't this a lovely building?

Salzburg Christmas Museum

And this is the frontage of the Christmas Museum... who on earth has a museum dedicated to Christmas? Salzburg, that's who.

How about the fountain in Residenzplatz?

If have a few minutes, click the images for a larger view and see how many different animals you can find.

I'm not sure about the 'Water Horses' but I do love the detail around the fountain and it is in a great location.

And of course Salzburg wouldn't be the same without the man himself would it?

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart 1756 - 1791

Salzburg, a truly beautiful city... stay tuned, as they say, more to come.