# 7 Salzburg and Eagle’s Nest

Salzburg and Eagle’s Nest

You’ve probably picked up on the fact that this trip includes many walking tours and Salzburg is no exception!  One of the places on the tour was Mirabell Palace and Gardens.  As is many buildings in all of Europe there is a huge amount of history.  For Example, Mirabell Palace was constructed, as history tells it, because of a forbidden, yet true, love story between Prince-Archbishop Wolf Dietrich Von Raitenau  and his mistress Salome Alt.  She was the daughter of a wealthy Protestant merchant and granddaughter of Ludwig Alt, a mayor of Salzburg. Their relationship was neither casual nor secretive. She accompanied him in public, served as adviser and hostess, and was the mother of their 15 children, 10 of whom survived. Raitenau convinced the emperor to elevate her rank, then he commissioned, Vincenzo Scamozzi, an Italian architect  to build a palace with gardens for her and their children. The residence was named Altenau Palace, which would later be known as Mirabell Palace.  Mirabell is listed as a cultural heritage monument; a part of the Historic Centre of the City of Salzburg and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  We did not get a tour inside Mirabell however the gardens were lovely.

 

 

 

 

 According to our guide, Salzburg Cathedral is a seventeenth-century Baroque cathedral of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Salzburg.  The Church was founded in 774 and built on the remnants of a Roman Town.   In the seventeenth century, the cathedral was completely rebuilt in the Baroque style, its present appearance.  Salzburg Cathedral still contains the baptismal font in which composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was baptized.   The oldest bells in the cathedral are the Marienglocke and theVirgilglocke, both cast in 1628. On 24 September 1961, the cathedral added five new bells. The Salvator bell of the cathedral is the second largest bell in Austria, after the Pummerin bell in Vienna Cathedral. The clappers are held against the sound bow whilst the bells are raised, then released sequentially to give a clean start to the ringing. At the end they are successively caught again by the mechanism to silence the bells 

 

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in Salzburg on January 27^th, 1756 and he died on December 5^th, 1791.    He was baptized as Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart; Wow!  What a name, I had no idea since we typically called him Mozart!  And what happened to ‘Amadeus’? Anyway, he was definitely a prolific and influential composer of the classical era.  From his earliest childhood he was competent on keyboard and violin and he composed from the age of five and he also performed for the European royalty.  At 17 he was hired as a musician for the Salzburg court.  He wasn’t happy there and left in search of something better.  While visiting Vienna in 1781, he was dismissed from his Salzburg position.  He chose to stay in Vienna where he achieved fame but little financial security. During his lifetime he composed more than 600 works.  During his final years in Vienna he composed many of his best-known symphonies, concertos, operas, and portions of the Requiem, which was largely unfinished at the time of his early death at the age of 35. The circumstances of his death have never been determined and are still a scholarly study.

 

 

 

The Eagle's Nest was next on our list of places to visit.  It is a Third Reich-era building erected atop the rocky outcrop that rises above Salzburg.  It was used exclusively by members of the Nazi SS Officers for government and social meetings. It was visited on 14 documented instances by Adolf Hitler, who disliked the location due to his fear of heights, the risk of bad weather, and the thin mountain air.   Today it is open seasonally as a restaurant, beer garden, and tourist site. 

Salzburg was also known for the musical Von Trapp Family and was one of the settings for the movie ‘The Sound of Music’.  The settings were scattered around Salzburg but here are some shots of the Gazebo used in the movie which now sets in a lovely garden filled with the most beautiful Dalia’s!

 

More coming soon 😊

 

Jan 🌷🌷🐾🐾