Tuesday, May 30, 2017

Day 2 - Salzburg

you used to be so full of life, not just an empty shell
you're out there all alone I wonder why
-
the pieces keep on falling out and I pick them up myself
but I'd let you steal the buttons from my eyes
Scarecrow - Alex & Sierra

Day 2 was spent taking a day tour to Salzburg. It was a small group and small group makes me uneasy because I feel like I have to socialize which very often feel laborious to me. There was an American man travelling alone, an American lady with her sister, a Canadian, and a Colombian couple who lives in America. The American lady used to be an opera singer. She was very nice and friendly to me. They're all pretty nice, it's just me who's just too withdrawn I guess. My excuse was I was tired, which I kinda was. It was an early start, 7 AM. Anyways, we took some stops along the way before reaching Salzburg, the city.

If I'm not mistaken the first stop was Attersee or Lake Atter. I learned that the German word for lake is see. From the guide I learned that the painter Gustav Klimt often spent time here. In fact there's a statue of his in the village we stopped in, Unterach. The lake was a lake like any other lake I guess. Last year on the trip to Scotland, I'd had a good amount of times seeing lakes, so as I often say, it's hard for me to get amused anymore. It's rather quiet by the lake though perhaps because it was a cloudy day, as evident in this picture. Quiet lake is a good lake for me by the way.

The next stop was St. Gilgen (Sankt Gilgen). This is where Mozart's mother was born and some of his family members also had lived there. The guide told us that there's a good and expensive international school there and apparently one of Roman Abramovich's son went there. We're given time to wander around. I went to the church with a little cemetery next to it and as usual just took pictures of things I found interesting. In this trip, I didn't take a lot of good pictures. I think I said the same thing last year, didn't I? So it's just me and my skill. Anyways, I like crawling plants which covered up the walls of a building or houses and I'm always curious seeing drawing in the walls of the houses or buildings. So I often took pictures of these.

We made another stop again to see the lake Wolfgangsee and the surrounding villages. Now that I googled map it, I saw that the lakes Attersee, Wolfgangsee, and Mondsee are quite nearby. We passed Mondsee, but didn't make a stop. So I have no photo of it, but I'm pretty sure it's a lake like any other lake. Below is a picture of Wolfgangsee.

Then we arrived in Salzburg, the city. If you're a fan of the movie, The Sound of Music, visiting this city might be a big deal. For me, it was so so. The guide took us through Mirabell garden to get to the old town and pointed several things to us before letting us off to wander on our own.

You know in retrospect, perhaps I should have planned better on what to do in this town. I didn't really know what to do. So I ended up taking the funicular to get to the castle, Hohensalzburg. The funicular ride was short, but it got me reminiscing that the last time I took one of this was when I went to Montserrat back in 2011. Now the castle itself was again so so for me, because last year I had visited Edinburgh Castle, so again I wasn't that amused. Perhaps the most interesting part was that they had this small exhibition of puppets. They were interesting. Other than that, they had things like I think many castles would have too, they had canons and also exhibition on arms and such. I kinda forget much about it now.

By the way, this trip is the first trip where I didn't write in a journal about the events of the day after each day. Based on previous experience, sometime they took so much time and I should just rest, so that's what I'd been focusing after each day. After each day, I just relaxed enjoying the TV and the big bed (except for the small bed in Switzerland). Anyways, there is a good sweeping view of Salzburg from the castle and as you can see, the weather got much better for us that day as compared to the morning.

After the castle, I went to Salzburg Cathedral. Took some pictures around the area. There is a Mozart's Birthplace museum in Salzburg, but I decided not to go there. Last year when I went to Shakespeare's Birthplace museum, I didn't find it too fascinating so similarly I thought since I don't have much knowledge or any particular affection towards Mozart, I would find the museum to be quite dull too. So I walked around and ended up spending more time in Mirabell garden admiring its charm. For pictures from that day, you can go here.

:) eKa @ 9:35:00 PM •