DomQuartier, Austria

June 9, 2022

We started our day with a butter croissant and a salami sandwich for breakfast. Today's weather forecast was not very good. It started raining when we walked across the Love Lock bridge. We passed by a 19-century weather station on the street on the way to Salzburg Museum. The three sides of the station have been providing the temperature, barometric pressure, and humidity since 1888. It looked like a piece of art that belonged to a palace or a museum. With more rain in the forecast, we changed our plan to stay inside and visit the museums instead. We bought the 72 hours Salzburg Card for 40 Euros per person, covering all public transportation and free admission to all city museums. The river cruise we took and the two Mozart museums we visited yesterday were all covered by the Salzburg Card. We would try to visit as many museums as possible to maximize its benefits. Today, we first visited Salzburg Museum at Neue Residenz, situated on the opposite side of Residenzplatz in the Old Town. Through multi-media and colorfully designed exhibitions, the museum provides comprehensive insights into the uniqueness of Salzburg with a diverse array of objects from the collection to explain how Salzburg became what it is today. We saw a few paintings of Salzburg that might inspire us to paint the same theme in the future. The music instrument collections were interesting too.

We toured the DomQuartier, a building complex consisting of a Cathedral, Residenz precinct, and St. Peter's Abbey. Over 400 years ago, the Salzburg prince-archbishops' absolutist rule installed spiritual and secular power over the people. As we walked through the exhibitions, we learned a few things about the prince-archbishops' life. To see the prince-archbishop, people had to wait and start from the large stateroom to the smallest private room. Only a few select guests were ever allowed access to the private area of the princely apartments adjacent to the study. The residence of the prince-archbishops was luxurious and extensive. We were especially interested in various ceramic heaters. We took a few pictures of them. Then we walked into the backside of the Salzburg Cathedral and had a full view from the organ gallery. The Cathedral Museum houses the Cathedral treasure as well as paintings and sculptures, dating from Gothic to Baroque, from the Cathedral and churches belonging to the archdiocese. The tour ended at St. Peter's Museum, which displays art treasures from the extensive collections of St. Peter's Abbey. We had looked for St. Peter Cemetery, a site inspiration for the “Sound of Music”, for a while. We finally located it behind St. Peter Abbey.

From the DomQuartier, we went to Nonnberg Abbey. The "Sound of Music" shooting location where the story began in the movie, and the nuns sang every morning. The Abbey was up the hill between the Old Town and Fortress, and it was a steep climb up the hill to reach the Abbey. The church was small. When we walked in, people were sitting there with no lights. After a few minutes, we figured out that putting 50 cents euro in a box would turn on the altar lights for five minutes. It was a good way to raise money for the church. The altar was terrific. There also were some lovely Roman frescos in the back of the church, which also required 50 cents euro to get the lights on.

While walking down the hill, a local guy suggested we stop by the Stiegl taste site. We ordered two different kinds of beer, and both were good. After a nice break, we continued to walk to see another film site of the "Sound of Music," the famous "horse Pond." Unfortunately, it was under construction, and we did not have good pictures.

We went to the restaurant the hotel host recommended, but it was fully booked for the day. We just grabbed a panini and a sausage from the street vendor and returned to the Hotel. 

第二十天:天公不作美，今天萨尔茨堡的天气是我们来欧洲近三周最差的一天。一整天都在下雨，本打算去郊外看宫殿改成了继续在城里看博物馆，先去了萨尔茨堡博物馆和DomQuatier(主要看主教宮殿), 这个城市以前受天主教控制，可以看出那些主教们是非常腐败奢侈，但因为他们奢侈，给我们留下了豪华宫殿和无价精品。下午按音乐之声的观光路线把没去过的景点补上。当然不忘喝上一杯咖啡及在啤酒庄里品尝当地的啤酒。晚上就在路边的小摊上买了一根香肠充饥。