SALZBURG AND HALLSTATT

By Anthony Dylan Anak Frankie Jurem

Our next leg of the journey of Austria would bring us to Salzburg. We said goodbye to beautiful Graz and took an OBB train to Salzburg. The train from Graz Hbf reached Salzburg Hbf in about 4 hours. The station was quite busy, but it was just a short walk away to our hotel. The H+ Hotel was located just outside the station. The convenience of having a small shopping centre complete with a supermarket made it even better.

Salzburg has approximately 157,000 people and is the fourth largest city in Austria. It is well known for the filming location of ‘The Sound of Music,’ This musical drama went on to win five Academy Awards in 1996.

We decided to take a walk towards the famous Mirabell Garden and Palace area before we walked across the pedestrian bridge into Salzburg’s UNESCO Heritage listed old city. We managed to see Mozart’s birthplace as we strolled into a well preserved yet bustling part of city. After a bit of walking, we went into Café Mozart for some snacks. We got the Apple Strudel (Apfel Strudel) and Cheese Strudel (Topfen Strudel). I also ordered a serving of ‘Steirischer Backhendlsalat’ (Salad with fried chicken sticks & pumpkin-seed oil).

We headed back earlier this day as we had an early bus and train to catch to Hallstatt the next day. Our bus was for 8:55am and the waiting area was just in front of our hotel. We got the tickets on the same day from the ticket machine which also had English translation. The ticket included the bus and train transfer. The bus came on time like any of the public transportation in Austria. The weather was rather cold that day and we huddled up the bus for a just over an hour before we reached the train station of Bad Ischl. This took us about another thirty minutes or so to the Hallstatt Train station. However, the wait at the Bad Ischl train station was nearly 45 minutes long.

Upon reaching the Hallstatt Train Station, we proceeded towards the lake and got our tickets at the ferry boat to cross the lake into Hallstatt. The steady, leisurely paced journey over calm waters and a blue sky made it more memorable. Hallstatt is a small town in the Gmunden District of the Austrian state of Upper Austria. Situated between the southwestern shore of Hallstatt Lake or ‘Hallstätter See.’ The quaint town is home to 16^th century alpine houses and located in the ‘Salzkammergut region,’ on the national road linking Salzburg and Graz.

Hallstatt is known for its production of salt and declared as one of the World Heritage Sites in Austria by UNESCO in 1997. Hallstatt, with its population of roughly 800, has seen its tranquil atmosphere disrupted by excessive tourism. You could see signs reminding visitors to respect the residents’ peace and quiet life as well as to keep voices down.

The views in the town were fantastic. You can take photos that look just like picture postcards. We also saw some of the town areas really looking like scenes from the animation movie, ‘Beauty and the Beast.’ We spent the entire day walking the hills and discovered the Parish Catholic Church of Assumption, St Michael’s Chapel and the Evangelical Church of Hallstatt.

The charnel house or ‘Bone House’ in St. Michael’s Chapel is one of the most interesting tourist sites in Hallstatt. There is collection of over 600 artistically painted skulls. Because burial space was scarce, it was occasionally necessary to reuse older graves for new interments. When this happened, the skull or bones from the previous occupant were moved to a charnel house or ossuary during a second funeral. Decorative paintings and inscriptions on the skulls were used to keep the memory of the deceased family member alive.

The salt mine would be another attraction to go to. We wandered around the market square after we had completed the whole promenade from the Hallstatt view point all the way to ‘Insel. We left Hallstatt on the last ferry boat ride for the day and took the train back thereafter to the Bad Ischl train station before the bus ride back towards our hotel.

On our last day in Salzburg, we took the ‘Free Walking Tour Salzburg’ and met our group by the ‘Salzach’ river near the Marko-Feingold-Steg foot bridge. We were brought into Altstadt Salzburg (old Salzburg town) for a historical rundown. We went through the old city hall (Altes Rathaus), Mozart’s Birthplace, the ‘Getreidegasse’ (shopping street with historical tall townhouses on each side), ‘Hohensalzburg Fortress’, the Salzburg Cathedral, Kapitelplaz, which has a prominent ‘Sphaera’ or a spherical golden ball with a man perched atop, Residenzplatz which is home to a beautiful fountain and Mozartplaz. The tour ended here, and we went wandering on our own.

We managed to just make it on time to visit ‘Stiftsbäckerei St. Peter.’ A queue had already snaked down the stairs when we reached. The Saint Peter monastery bakery in Salzburg has been baking for over 700 years, specializing in brown bread made with natural sourdough in a log-fired oven. We tried the warm brioche buns, which were excellent. We then made our way slowly towards the river where we ended up at the ‘Alpz Café’ for an afternoon of hand-crafted award-winning gelato treat.

Our final activity for the day was attending one of the Student Concerts at the ‘Mozarteum University,’ an experience recommended by our free walking tour guide. The concert offered a unique opportunity to witness the talent and dedication of Mozarteum’s music students firsthand. We stayed for part of the session, which lasted about two hours, and were impressed by the high caliber of the performances.

Even though the concert had not yet ended when we left, it was clear that the students were truly world-class musicians. The university attracts aspiring musicians from across the globe, with approximately 60% of nearly 2,000 students being Austrian and the rest coming from various international backgrounds.

Students at Mozarteum must practice intensively, and to make their rehearsals feel more genuine and livelier, they play before a real audience. These public rehearsals were free to attend and open to everyone, offering a chance to enjoy performances that rival professional paid concerts.

We reached our hotel contented and took the night to rest properly for our next trip the next day to Innsbruck. This would be the last city of Austria before we head into Zurich, Switzerland.