Salzburg Day 1
It felt good to get on the train in Regensburg heading for Salzburg and start our own itinerary for the second week of the trip
We didnt know what the place we selected to stay in for three nights called “Gaestehaus in Priesterseminar”–Guesthouse in the priest seminary–would be like, but it sounded intriguing.
When the taxi from the train station pulled up in front of the cathedral facing a plaza in the center of the old city, we thought the driver was lost.
But the number on the majestic portal was correct.
After checking in at the reception desk we approached our room on the second floor through a courtyard graced with fountain and formal garden.
The elevator was modern and the room itself light and spacious, but with an austere flavor–no tv, minibar, decorations of any sort–looking out through heavy double paned windows on a restaurant plaza below. Adjoining it on the corridor was a closed doorway with a sign indicating that the rest of building was reserved for the seminarians.
Eventually I came across more information :
Archbishop Johann Ernst Graf von Thun und Hohenstein, who was nicknamed “The Donor”, is responsible for the construction of the Trinity Church and the seminary. A three-part complex was built in 1693 according to the plans of the later imperial court architect Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach. The Trinity Church was the celebrated architect’s first sacred building. Since 1699, the seminary has been the training centre for prospective priests of the Archdiocese of Salzburg.
I was curious about unusual conglomerate stone which formed the pillars of the arcade surrounding the courtyard and the steps leading off it down to a crypt.
It turned out to be a typical feature attributable to Salzburg’s geological environment:
… at the northern rim of the Northern
Calcareous Alps, within a basin overprin-
ted by glacial activity during the latest ice ages. As
a result, parts of the city hills are composed of
Mönchsberg Conglomerate which has been inten-
sely exploited as building material for monaste-
ries, churches, palaces and fortifications for many
centuries… The material was quarried since the Roman times
till the middle of the 20 th century.
Our first exploratory walk went past the Mozarteum Music and Art University through gardens in front of the Mirabell palace, the venue of a concert taking place the last night of our stay.
Originally built 1606 for one of the archbishop-princes who traditionally ruled the city and his mistress who bore him 15 children, it was rebuilt first in a florid decorative style in 1721-1727 and then restored after a fire in the spare neo-classical style in 1818.
From there we strolled another couple of blocks down to the river Salzach, whose name like the City’s reflects their ancient commercial roles at the hub of the industry mining salt from deposits in the nearby Alps.
We crossed a historic City bridge renamed the Marko-Feingold-Steg in 2020 to honor the Holocaust survivor and leader of the contemporary Jewish community hung with posters highlighting Salzburg artists whose work was suppressed under the Nazis.
The river has carved the landscape around which the city developed. Steep cliffs along the left left bank or Moenchsberg (Monk’s mountain) are topped by fortresses, museums and palaces, the most prominent of which is the 11th century Hohensalzburg Castle.
On the right bank, the Kapuchinersberg (Capuchin Monk’s mountain) rises right out of the shops on Linzerstrasse.
On the way back to the seminary we came across a little fountain spraying onto the pavement. Jan was excited to see what looked like the kind of splash pad she’s been long advocating for in San Luis Obispo, where children can play and cool off.
Rounding the corner we discovered this was something more:
We sat down in the cafe alongside, watched the kids play and ate pizza for dinner.