Salzburg, Austria

While on our "Christmas" tour of Bavaria we decided on a little visit to Salzburg. The main highlight of this trip was to see the Hohensalzburg Castle . . . as well as the lovely Christmas market I was told about. We used our handy-dandy GPS to get us into the country but had no idea where to go after that. There were no clearly marked signs for Hohensalzburg Castle and we ended up driving in circles for about 30 min or so. We finally parked in the first place we could find at the base of the mountain and figured if we kept walking up we would eventually find it. . . and we did!! It was a little deserted as it was the day after Christmas and it was raining, but we were able to eat lunch as well as visit several rooms inside the fortress which were more like a museum of various items that would have been found during that time period.

 

(view of the Alps from inside the castle)

 

 

(Salzurg city)

 

 

(another view of the Alps)

Hohensalzburg is one of the largest castles in all of Europe and construction originally began in 1077. It was built atop the Festungsberg mountain (of which we managed to walk both up AND down) and has some interesting history. In the 19th century, it was used as barracks, storage depot and dungeon before being abandoned as a military outpost in 1861. It also served as a prison during World War I.

 

We then walked down into the city center for the fabulous Christmas market. It was huge!! My husband bought me a smallish ceramic mushroom for our house and we were able to visit the Salzburg Cathedral. We then walked all the way back to our car on the other side of the city. . . we must have walked about 4-5 miles that day. . .no joke!! I just asked Clayton! (he keeps me from exaggerating too much)