Salzburg Photos

These are some images of Salzburg that I took the first week or so I was here. We climbed one of the smaller mountains and got a very nice view of the city.

Of course it wouldn't all fit in one photo, so I took quite a few.

This is a lovely wall near the cloister.

 

I wanted to take this picture to remind myself that Salzburg is more than just the old part of the city.

This is an office building that I really like. It has this coppery-colored metal screen sheath on it to keep it cool in Summer and warm in winter. It positively glows when the sun hits it.

 

This is a sign in the kitchen at the University.

Pia and I ate at this little place, but we sat outside.  I had a nice soup.

Here is a view of the fortress from the University plaza.

 

This is the actual University.

 

This is a view  of the fortress from the rooftop of the University.

 

This guy comes and entertains the tourists at various busy places.

And this is a little decco building  that I pass by sometimes. It is not grandly elegant, but I appreciate the jugendstil touches.

 

The mountains go all around the city.

This was coffee with Pia and Gerhard.

 

On the way to Salzburg

I flew Aer Lingus from Ireland to Munich. It was a short flight and I was surprised to learn that you had to pay for most of your drinks (even mineral water). (I think coffee was free.)  It was an uneventful leg of my trip and soon enough I was getting on the train to get from Munich to Salzburg. The landscape was very familiar, but I can never resist taking pictures out of the train window.

We passed a lovely lake most likely Chiemsee.

Soon enough you could recognize the region by the famous onion domes on the churches and of course the ever-present mountains.

 

I'm always interested in the people on the train around me. They seem to try hard to be inconspicuous, even when their demeanor or dress screams for attention.  

 

When I got into Salzburg, my friends Pia and Jim met me at the train station and then we decided to go get something to eat.  We chose a little place called Shrimps which wasn't far from our new apartment, but they were severely understaffed  and it took FOREVER to get our food. Jim never did get his.  What I got was great (or maybe I was just so hungry by the time I got it that anything would have been like Manna from heaven, but it was visually pretty too.)

 

So afterwards we went to a little metal bar and Jim got to drink his dinner.

 

 

On the way home we experienced the most torrential rainstorm! It was funny and miserably cold at the same time.

Over the next couple of days we met with the teachers for the study abroad program and tried to square away program details. Here is our Art teacher at Cafe Fingerlos.

Here is a German teacher at the cafe near the train station.

I also had the tremendous pleasure of meeting with one of my old students, who is now married and living in the region (while working on her Masters thesis.)



We spent the afternoon together and had coffee.

 

I had an Esterhazy Schnitten, something I love very much, but it tasted off and little did I know, but I was coming down with one of the worst colds I have had in my adult life.

 

Luckily we took advantage of the day and walked around salzburg, visiting the Mirabell gardens and reviewing old times.

 

Here's the fortress that dominates the valley in the background of the Mirabell gardens.

 

 

It took us a while to find them, but eventually we also managed to get to the garden with the stone statues of dwarves. (There was construction that prevented us from following the usual path.)

 

It was an absilutely stunning day, to be followed alas by the depths of sickness, which really got me off on the worng foot in terms of preparing for the arrival of the students.

Blarney Castle and Cahir Castle

We had two more castles on our tour this last of my days in Ireland. Our next stop was Blarney castle. I have to admit I was a little ashamed of myself for choosing this tour, I mean, how corny is it to want to kiss the Blarney Stone? BUT, the castle and grounds were really worthwhile and I quite enjoyed this trip.

 

The current castle was built in 1646 by Cormac MacCarthy on the site where an earlier 13th century castle had stood.

It is a great big stone tower with an empty center.

The so-called Stone of Eloquence (Blarney stone) is actually a machicolation in the castle wall: a hole that allowed people to throw stones or oil down on people beneath who might be trying to gain entry.

There are several rooms that you can wander around (although no furnishings), but there are nice explanatory signs.

 

As you climb up to the Blarney Stone you get a very nice view of the grounds. The picture below is the poison garden.

 

Here is the interior of the castle as you climb higher up the stairs in the tower.

When you finally reach the top, there is a line (queue)  to kiss the stone. In the image below you can see the people lined up on the right side who are about to get their chance to kiss the stone.

 

There are two people on either side of the "kisser" who make sure you are safe (because you have to lie on your back and lean into a hole (that opens all the way to the ground.)

 

For short people like me that means basically hanging upside down and being grabbed by ones' legs to perform the feat. As you can see from the picture below, that would be quite  drop.  The Blarney stone is in the middle of that right side of the tower up at the top. There are two metal bars up there that mark the place.

Here is a view from below.

 

I blew it up a little so you can see it better.

The poison garden is a fun feature, full of all kinds of everyday plants that turn out to be toxic.

I was surprised by how many of them I have in my own garden.

 

There were other gardens too, a stone garden and a perennial garden.

 

It was the end of the season, but there were still some beautiful flowers.

There are other structures on the grounds too, that are interesting. This tower and a series of caves.

 

It was drk and damp in the caves.

 

There was also a nice river with a heron on the prowl.

Our last castle of the day was Cahir Castle.

 

This is a well-preserved thirteenth century castle built by Conor O'Brien.  Originally named Cathair (not for feline hirsuitness) because it meant stone fort.

 

This is quite a correct description, as you see.

 

We had a really excellent tour guide who told us all about the features of the castle, and she knew all the grisly details. (Like for instance about the Oubliette (or dungeon) where they would put people and basically "forget" about them until they starved. (Unless of course your family paid a ransom and then they would give you just enough food to keep you barely alive.))

Those slits were used for firing arrows out at possible intruders.

Here is a closer view.

 

The castle surrendered twice over its long history. The most interesting time was to Oliver Cromwell, who strangely spared it and its inhabitants.

There is a canon ball (still) imbeded in the wall on the left.

 

Here is a shot of the interior.

Look at the size of the horns in the shot above.

 

Here is a little model of the castle and its grounds.

 

There was very nice signage too.

 

Our time at Cahir castle was too short, but it was time to leave.

 

I think this is Oscar Wilde again.

So back we went to Dublin where I packed up and got ready to start on my way to Austria.