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| It's Mozart! |
You guessed it, I’m in Salzburg! Sitting in my hostel room, stretching my neck and wishing I’d brought a smaller backpack instead of a purse for a day-bag, I am content to be in Mozart’s home place. I’m trying to weigh how much I should gush about Salzburg. So far, I’ve only spent three solid hours of walking around the city and the neighboring hills. But three hours is enough to tell me that I love it here.
When I first arrived, I got lost on the way to the hostel and wandered around a part of town that looked depressingly like the worst of American cities: generic buildings, fast-food joints, and lots of erotica shops. Resetting my course, I headed toward the city center, and immediately was swallowed up in historical Europe again: age-darkened paintings on the side of the buildings, cathedral spires crowing out the cityscape, and a Medieval castle perched on the bluff above the town. Tourists flocked the streets, and merchants sold their wares while buskers played their tunes. I even saw a statue of Mozart... that turned out to be a person! When I dropped some cents into his tip jar, he handed me a Salzburg postcard.
I made a beeline for the castle, pausing to gawk at impressive fountains and cathedrals that rose to dizzying heights. I wound my way up stone-cobbled paths, sweating profusely in the heat. Finally, I reached the top of the massive hill (in Missouri we’d definitely call it a mountain), but I didn’t actually go into the castle (it cost money). I continued along the ridge of the hill, and I’m glad I did.
It was just a simple paved path with nice trees all alongside. I found my way up a little side path toward some old ruins, and I felt like I had stepped into a scene from Prince Caspian. The stillness of the old walls, the grass growing up in the courtyard, gave me a sense of stillness. A crow, shiny black with white eyelids, blinked at me.
I wandered around the path loop, and that’s when I really saw them for the first time: the Alps. They rose above the plain, so big that I couldn’t comprehend the scale, rocky and jagged, but soft-looking through the haze of atmosphere. I sat on a bench and soaked it all in.
I did some more hiking, then wandered back to my hostel, and here I am, wondering if it’s too early to go to bed. Tomorrow is another adventure in Salzburg, and I can’t wait.
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| I am disappointed by how short my photos fall of the Alps' glory. |
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What can a feller say, but WOW! This is the world I often dreamed of seeing when I was a young lad. It will not happen now. But I'm glad that you are getting the chance, good and bad, to experience the ebb and flow of life in Austria, Germany, and Holland.
ReplyDeleteI have heard that "the hills are alive with the sound of" ralphing. Hope you just had an allergic reaction to some preservative in the sausages.