Date of Visit: 15 - 16 October 2011
Welcome to the picturesque city of Salzburg! Salzburg and it's amazing scenary is thrown into international spotlight by the movie, the Sound of Music. It is also the birthplace of the great composer, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
The photos that I've taken can't do the city justice, but it's the best I can do. I'm sure you can Google search them if you are really interested :)
Salzburg used to be famous for it's salt. Even the name suggests this: Salz means salt, and burg means castle, which kind of mean "salt city". With this information, we decided to head out of town to find the nearest salt mine, in the mountain town of Hallein.
The salt mine in Hallein has reached the end of it's production life and has been converted into a tourist attraction. We went into the mine with a compulsory tour. But before we can enter the mines, we have to "Suit Up!" Yes, everyone is given a white shirt and pants to wear over our current clothes as the mines are still quite dirty. All of us look like patients at some mental health facility.
We have to take a narrow track rail into the mine. It's really like those that you watch in cartoons or TV, just that we do not sit in a cart but on a long bench when being hauled into the mountain.
Once inside the mine, our guide just brought us through some of the sections and briefly explained stuff to us. Most of the time, we followed a video series about the history of Salzburg. You can look up the name Wolf Dietrich von Raitenau, he is quite a wacky character but he played a large role in the building of Salzburg.
The mine goes very deep underground and it has very extensive tunnels. We can even go into Germany in the tunnels. However, the interesting thing in the mine is the slides. There will be these long slides where miners can travel deep into the mines quickly. It is like any other slides we see at children playgrounds, just that is it very tall and long. It is quite an unique experience to "slide" down a mine, don't you think?
After the salt mine, we headed to a nearby toboggan ride beside the mine. It just happen that we were lucky enough to go there on the 2nd last day of operations for the toboggan ride. It cost about EUR8 for students, but it definitely worth it!
First, we must take a chair-lift up a mountain to reach the start point of the toboggan ride. It took about 15 minutes to go up the mountain(yes, it's rather high). Along the way, we get to enjoy the beautiful natural scenery that Salzburg has to offer.
We reached the peak of the mountain at just about closing time. There are no other people on the ride then, which means all of us can just take our time to go down the mountain, stopping along the way to take photos(even though we aren't suppose to do that). (for those of you who are not quite sure what a toboggan is, like I was initially, basically you get strapped into this small little kart that goes along a single rail track. gravity will pull you down from the mountain, and you only have a brake on the kart to slow down.)
The ride is amazing, and we can really speed up the kart while going down the mountain. You can even feel the g-forces if you dare to not brake around a sharp corner. I even feel that this is the most fun thing I've done throughout the entire exchange!
The following day, we went out of the city once more to climb Mount Untersberg. Ok, we cheated a little by taking a cable car up to one of the mountain peaks first before trying to climb to another peak. It's my first time going up a mountain that will snow. Along the cable car ride up, we are able to see pockets of snow lying around on the mountain.
Once at the top, we trekked towards the nearby peak, which is a little bit higher than the one the cable car brought us to. Along the way, we managed to find some snow and sort of had a mini-snowball fight. Compressed snow can be quite hard, which means that being hit by snowballs can be rather painful!
The top of the mountain offers us a panoramic view of the city and the surrounding areas. It is very very beautiful. I really like it up on top the mountain. And naturally, it offers us great opportunities to be cam-*hores.
After the breath-taking views of the mountain, we decided to return back to ground level to explore some of the more touristy places. Firstly, we went to the Hellbrune Palace, which is famous for it's trick fountain. The palace is built by a wacky king as his summer residence. But inside the gardens, he installed lots of water fountains aimed at unsuspecting guests. Sneaky fella, if you ask me. So we went along the tour with a guide. Along the way, the guide will deliberately turn on some of the fountains to spray at us :( It's the only thing that is different from the hundreds of palaces all over Europe.
Next, we went to to fortress on top of the mountain. Honestly, there're not much things up there. It's just special because it's built on top of a mountain. There're some minor museums and exhibition in the castle only.
So you might be wondering, since this is the birthplace of Mozart, shouldn't there be plenty of Mozart museums and galleries etc. You are right, there are many such attractions, but it's just that we're not really interested in museums anymore. So I think this photo of us in front of his statue should suffice. Haha.
Anyway, Salzburg is a very beautiful place. It's a pity that we could not visit all the places during this visit. The Salzburg Ice Caves are also very famous, but we did not get to go there. Furthermore, due to financial constrains, some of us are unable to sign up for the Sound of Music tour to visit some of the places shown in the movie. Nonetheless, Salzburg is definitely a city to visit if you are in Austria.
Welcome to the picturesque city of Salzburg! Salzburg and it's amazing scenary is thrown into international spotlight by the movie, the Sound of Music. It is also the birthplace of the great composer, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
The photos that I've taken can't do the city justice, but it's the best I can do. I'm sure you can Google search them if you are really interested :)
Salzburg used to be famous for it's salt. Even the name suggests this: Salz means salt, and burg means castle, which kind of mean "salt city". With this information, we decided to head out of town to find the nearest salt mine, in the mountain town of Hallein.
The salt mine in Hallein has reached the end of it's production life and has been converted into a tourist attraction. We went into the mine with a compulsory tour. But before we can enter the mines, we have to "Suit Up!" Yes, everyone is given a white shirt and pants to wear over our current clothes as the mines are still quite dirty. All of us look like patients at some mental health facility.
We have to take a narrow track rail into the mine. It's really like those that you watch in cartoons or TV, just that we do not sit in a cart but on a long bench when being hauled into the mountain.
Once inside the mine, our guide just brought us through some of the sections and briefly explained stuff to us. Most of the time, we followed a video series about the history of Salzburg. You can look up the name Wolf Dietrich von Raitenau, he is quite a wacky character but he played a large role in the building of Salzburg.
The mine goes very deep underground and it has very extensive tunnels. We can even go into Germany in the tunnels. However, the interesting thing in the mine is the slides. There will be these long slides where miners can travel deep into the mines quickly. It is like any other slides we see at children playgrounds, just that is it very tall and long. It is quite an unique experience to "slide" down a mine, don't you think?
After the salt mine, we headed to a nearby toboggan ride beside the mine. It just happen that we were lucky enough to go there on the 2nd last day of operations for the toboggan ride. It cost about EUR8 for students, but it definitely worth it!
First, we must take a chair-lift up a mountain to reach the start point of the toboggan ride. It took about 15 minutes to go up the mountain(yes, it's rather high). Along the way, we get to enjoy the beautiful natural scenery that Salzburg has to offer.
We reached the peak of the mountain at just about closing time. There are no other people on the ride then, which means all of us can just take our time to go down the mountain, stopping along the way to take photos(even though we aren't suppose to do that). (for those of you who are not quite sure what a toboggan is, like I was initially, basically you get strapped into this small little kart that goes along a single rail track. gravity will pull you down from the mountain, and you only have a brake on the kart to slow down.)
The ride is amazing, and we can really speed up the kart while going down the mountain. You can even feel the g-forces if you dare to not brake around a sharp corner. I even feel that this is the most fun thing I've done throughout the entire exchange!
The following day, we went out of the city once more to climb Mount Untersberg. Ok, we cheated a little by taking a cable car up to one of the mountain peaks first before trying to climb to another peak. It's my first time going up a mountain that will snow. Along the cable car ride up, we are able to see pockets of snow lying around on the mountain.
Once at the top, we trekked towards the nearby peak, which is a little bit higher than the one the cable car brought us to. Along the way, we managed to find some snow and sort of had a mini-snowball fight. Compressed snow can be quite hard, which means that being hit by snowballs can be rather painful!
The top of the mountain offers us a panoramic view of the city and the surrounding areas. It is very very beautiful. I really like it up on top the mountain. And naturally, it offers us great opportunities to be cam-*hores.
After the breath-taking views of the mountain, we decided to return back to ground level to explore some of the more touristy places. Firstly, we went to the Hellbrune Palace, which is famous for it's trick fountain. The palace is built by a wacky king as his summer residence. But inside the gardens, he installed lots of water fountains aimed at unsuspecting guests. Sneaky fella, if you ask me. So we went along the tour with a guide. Along the way, the guide will deliberately turn on some of the fountains to spray at us :( It's the only thing that is different from the hundreds of palaces all over Europe.
Next, we went to to fortress on top of the mountain. Honestly, there're not much things up there. It's just special because it's built on top of a mountain. There're some minor museums and exhibition in the castle only.
So you might be wondering, since this is the birthplace of Mozart, shouldn't there be plenty of Mozart museums and galleries etc. You are right, there are many such attractions, but it's just that we're not really interested in museums anymore. So I think this photo of us in front of his statue should suffice. Haha.
Anyway, Salzburg is a very beautiful place. It's a pity that we could not visit all the places during this visit. The Salzburg Ice Caves are also very famous, but we did not get to go there. Furthermore, due to financial constrains, some of us are unable to sign up for the Sound of Music tour to visit some of the places shown in the movie. Nonetheless, Salzburg is definitely a city to visit if you are in Austria.
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