Munich, Germany Part 1

Munich, Germany is only a 2 hr train ride from Salzburg, Austria and was the next stop for us. We started our sightseeing by visiting Marienplatz. This square was named after the Marian column erected in it's center in 1638 to celebrate the end of Swedish occupation during the Thirty Years' War. It became a hub for the quickly growing city and includes the Old Town Hall and the New Town Hall. The New Town Hall dominates the square and was started in 1867, with the last expansion completed in 1909. The last expansion contains the fourth largest glockenspiel in Europe. It performs three times a day and we caught the noon performance. It lasted almost 10 minutes and was a reenactment of the 1568 wedding of Duke William V and Renata of Lorraine, including a jousting match followed by a rendition of a dance. There is a different performance at night that includes a night watchman blowing his horn and the guardian angel of Munich bestowing a blessing on the city. There is quite a crowd that collects to watch the performances.

Old Town Hall

New Town Hall

Another complex that grew over time was Nymphenburg Palace (pronounced Newmfinborg). It is huge. It was the summer residence of the court and was begun in 1664 when Max Emanuel gave it to his wife Henriette Adelaide to celebrate the birth of the heir to the throne. It was added to by successive rulers. The grounds are very extensive and include 4 smaller park pavilions.

It is very elaborate inside with painted ceilings and fancy moldings.










The park pavilions include Pagodenburg which displays the Chinese fashion that was popular in the early 18th century.




Badenburg contains a swimming pool and had some beautiful Chinese wallpaper.

Magdalenenklause was built as a retreat from court amusements. It was meant as a place for reflection and was purposely built to look like a ruin which was also in fashion in the early 1700's.




The last one built was Amalienburg and was dedicated as a hunting lodge to Elector Karl Albrecht's wife.




The grounds are very extensive and these park pavilions are located on both sides of a central canal which you can take a gondola ride on. At the end of the central canal is a large fountain called the Grand Cascade. There is also a carriage and porcelain museum. It took us the better part of a day just to tour it all.

Salzburg, Austria

Mozart's birthplace

Salzburg, birthplace of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and filming location of The Sound of Music. This was our next stop. Our first two days were much cooler than we had seen and wetter. We had light rain our first day. It was drier our second but still overcast. Our last two days were mostly sunny and warmer, which was nice, but the weather was changing again by the time we left. Needed our jackets for this part of our trip.


We spent most of our time in the Old City Center. I found this area very interesting. The historical sites and churches were here. There were narrow streets with open courtyards, tall buildings with openings in them (like allies) leading from one street to another, shops everywhere. You could just imagine what it might have been like in the 17th and 18th centuries. The whole area is looked down on by the Hohensalzburg Fortress up on the hill.














One of the big churches in Old City is Salzburg Cathedral. The current building was consecrated in 1628 after the first church, built in 774, was demolished by fire.




There was a Volksfest over the weekend so the square in front of the church looked like this (left) the first day we were there and like this (right) the second. Glad we were there before all the festival tents went up, even if it was rainy.




Collegiate Church is also right by that square. It is being renovated so isn't actually an active church at this time but was gorgeous inside, as all the churches were.

We toured Festung Hohensalzburg, which is the fortress on the hill overlooking Salzburg. You get there on a tram that goes up the steep hill. The fortress began in 120 AD and was extended many times over the centuries to protect the area from outsiders. The fortress was never overtaken by enemies. It had lots of stairs to get to the top of the towers and had some great views of Salzburg below.

walking the original battlements

stairs up to the top

tram up to the fortress

We also walked up another set of endless stairs to get to Kapuziner Kloster at the top of another hill. Views were great and the weather was clearing a bit when we did this climb.

finally at the top

Mirabell Schloss gardens were used for some of the outside scenes for The Sound of Music.

We went to the Salzburg
Marionette Theater but they didn't have any matinees. We decided against repeating the 2.6 mile round trip walk to go to an evening performance. There was a Marionette Museum in the Hohensalzburg Fortress, though. They had some great displays of marionettes.

We enjoyed several pastry pretzels while we were here, also. Delicious!

This is a weather station that tells the barometric pressure, the time, and the temperature. It is a few hundred years old.










This is a dirndl clothing store. Rather unique. The picture to the right is one of the squares in City Center. Not sure what it is to represent but it is definitely different. We saw some great things and had a great time.