Monday, August 21, 2006

Auntie Lockett: Trip to Salzburg

Last weekend we decided to take a weekend trip to Salzburg, Austria, with Brian's little sister Lockett. We believed the drive would take us approximately three hours. It took us four and a half hours (note to self: limit road trips to three hours with a 5-month-old).

So a little about Salzburg ... it is the oldest and most important cultural and spiritual centre in present-day Austria. Although it had already been elevated to the rank of archdiocese in 798 and from the late Middle Ages onwards had formed a spiritual principality in the Holy Roman Empire, Salzburg is one of Austria’s youngest Länder. The development of the region and its ultimate separation from Bavaria, its mother country, was agreed in the fourteenth century but it was not until 1816 that Salzburg was incorporated into Austria. Of Austria’s present-day Länder or provinces, Salzburg is the only one to have been ruled as an independent state by a prince-archbishop and it is the only one of the many spiritual principalities of the Holy Roman Empire still to exist as an independent province.*

I was excited to see Salzburg because it is the birthplace of Mozart and the place where much of the Sound of Music was filmed.















The church where the great escape in the Sound of Music was filmed:



































The courtyard where they sang "Doe, Re, Me:"




















Mozart's birthplace:







































Houses built into a rock wall:















Fountain with the fortress on top:



































































*Information on Salzburg from http://www.salzburg.gv.at/en/en-index

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