Today, we woke up to find ourselves in Linz, Austria (our last port in the country of Austria). Our excursion choice today was a tour of Salzburg. We started with an early breakfast as we had to board the buses by 8:00 a.m. as it was a 2 hour bus ride to get to Salzburg and after we toured Salzburg, we had a 2 hour bus ride to Passau, Germany where we would be meeting the ship later in the day. We had an excellent tour guide once again who gave us the history of the area on the way to Salzburg and those 2 hours flew by. We had a guided 2 hour walking tour in the town of Salzburg, then we had an included lunch at a place call St. Peter’s. In this town there is also a Benedictine Monastery where the nuns reside. In this area almost 90% of the people are Roman Catholic and there were many many churches, cathedrals, monuments and a cemetery for the Bishops and Monks and tombs of the Mozart family. Salzburg is where Mozart was born and wrote some of his masterpieces. Of course, Salzburg is also where the Von Trapp Family from the Sound of Music lived and also where they filmed parts of the movie. There is just so much that you see and learn that it is so hard to remember it all. I am not going to write such a long blog entry today but will put in some pictures of what we saw with some added comments. It was a very enjoyable day and was a little more relaxing than yesterday as we spent at least 4 hours riding a bus!
Moon lake with the Alps in the background (Notice how blue the sky is – it was like this all day! It started out chilly, around –1 Celsius but warmed up to around 12 and with the sun shining it really warmed up quite nicely).
Brian with Moon Lake and the Alps in the background
This was the actual Gazebo where they filmed the Sound of Music in the scene where they sang “You are 16, going on 17”. They actually had all of us sing the song!! Brian and a few other men didn’t participate in the singing!!
This is Salzburg from across the river. We crossed a bridge to enter this area which brought us to the shopping district.
The shopping district. What is so fascinating is how old these buildings are. At the top of the buildings, they give you dates they were built and the dates that some were restored. It may say 1315, then 1977 (as the restoration date)
This is where the Mozart family lived and where Mozart was born.
The statute of Mozart
This is one of the Churches with a monument of “Mary” in front.
This is the church behind the monument of Mary and look at the crown held by the angels in the center. Now look at the next picture and if you stand back where they have an archway, it depicts Mary with the crown being placed on her head.
I found this very fascinating! These were built years ago and the craftsmanship is unbelievable!
This is where they took us to lunch. We ate in rooms where Emperors, Bishops, and Monks ate many centuries ago!
This is the Cemetery for Bishops and Monks.
Just above the Cemetery if you look up is part of the Monastery built right into rock.
and last but not least…..this is for our son-in-law – James – the man that invented Red Bull is from Salzburg!!
We arrived “home” to the ship around 6:00 p.m. and now the ship is sailing to Regensburg, Germany. We can sleep in a little bit tomorrow as we all head out for a 2 hour guided walking tour of Regensburg around 10:30 in the morning. We then have free time the rest of the day.
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