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Home Page > Travelogues > Austria > Salzburg > Hohensalzburg Castle
Other Chapters in the
Salzburg
section:
The towering Hohensalzburg Castle is among the most
magnificent of Austro-Hungarian castles.
Brilliantly white and standing very high over the
The first photograph shows the Castle from downtown. I do
not precisely recall from which square this shot was taken, but it was taken
very early on a wintery Sunday morning as I was on my way to Mass in the
Salzburg Cathedral. The tracks of the funicular
I climbed up to the Castle by the first route, which provided a number of different views of the city. But, one intriguing sight came upon me at roughly the halfway point. It is shown in the second photograph -- a pair of artworks, one of Jesus Christ and one of a warrior or leader. At the time of this photo, there were no inscriptions, but I have to assume the painting at right regarded one of the earlier lords of the castle. I did not take many photographs of the castle itself from the grounds, so
I'll have to
I ventured down the 'other' path toward St. Peter's, taking more shots of the city as I went. Along the way, I encountered the catacombs directly above the cemetery and built into the wall of the cliff upon which the Castle resides. The catacombs is preserved as a museum costing only a Euro or thereabouts as I recalled. The fourth photograph was the only picture I took inside the catacombs, unfortunately -- it shows the entranceway, a steep climb up the inside of the cliff. To get your bearings, the outer wall of the cliff is the left wall in this photograph. The catacombs were pretty much emptied out, but some tombs remained in a couple of the chambers, and the maze of chambers was interesting to walk through. St. Peter's Cemetery, shown snow-covered in the fifth
photograph, awaited at the bottom of the hill. Ordinarily, I would not
consider photographing cemeteries, but this one was actually treated as a
tourist attraction (in fact, it is listed as such by the
Salzburg
Tourism Webpage). This cemetery is important because of the many
important people buried there, but I found it fascinating because of the
elaborate m Of course, there was a lot more to St. Peter's Abbey than the stuff about dead people. St. Peter's Abbey church looked plain and simple old stone from the outside compared to other churches in the city, but the interior was fabulous -- bright white with extraordinary artwork all around. It still had its Christmas decorations up, with Christmas lights strung up in tree-shaped formations along each side. Engulfing the church was the Bishop's Residence, a relatively plain but massive square structure about the size of a city block. The Residence was gorgeous with its yellow trim and red sandstone facade, and the huge bright blue emblem over the visitor's entrance. I found it interesting how the spire of the Church towered over the Residence, making the architectural differences appear to clash. Admittedly, this is a very abbreviated tour of the Castle and its immediate environs. Again, I hope to return there, preferably in the summer when there would be a lot of people about. While Salzburg does have a lot of activity in the wintertime, I venture that most of the activity was related to the ski slopes and not in visiting this beautiful attraction.
Other Chapters in the
Salzburg
section:
Trip Taken 5 January 2002 -- Page Last Updated 01 September 2006 -- (C) 2002 Tom Galvin |
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city,
it provides a spectacular view of Salzburg's Altstadt and the Salzach River
valley. More than just a monument to Austrian history and major-league
tourist attraction, it has a
concert hall and hosts specialty markets during the year, making it one of the
must-do's for visitors. But, there's a lot more to the hill than the
castle on top of it, as I found out. If you are physically able to make
the climb up the inclined walkway, there are several things to see and do in the
side of the cliff that you would miss if you took the funicular railway from the
downtown. So this chapter of Salzburg covers the castle, the catacombs
above St. Peter's, and St. Peter's cemetery that resides against the cliff.
railway
can be seen at the right -- look for the hold within the right side of the
gray-colored main wall and follow the parallel lines downward. There were
two ways to walk up to the castle -- one which is visible in the photograph (the
incline from the top down to the right, then to the left just across the tops of
the buildings below) and one which is hidden (off the photograph to the right
which leads down to St. Peter's).
describe
it. Once inside the castle grounds, I continued to climb up to the main
inner courtyard. Once there, I found the walls brilliant white and the
courtyard very large -- plenty large to host huge events. In fact, the
huts from the Hohensalzburg portion of Salzburg's big and famous Christmas
Market were still in place and not yet disassembled. There was a chapel
built into one wall and main restaurant and concert hall not far away.
Based on the brochure I read there, the concert hall was used during the city's
annual Salzburg Festival (sometimes referred to as the "Mozart Festival") in the
summertime and for Christmas and New Year's concerts as well. Alas, I did
not have time to take in an interior tour of the castle (a must-do should I
return), but had plenty enough time to take some scenic photos of the region.
One of my all time favorite winter shots is shown in the third photograph,
facing south toward the Alps. The little tiny dots on the lower left are
actually people sledding, which gives you an idea of how high up this is.
I also took plenty of shots back to the north toward Salzburg, some of which are
available in the 
onuments.
Many of the crosses visible in this photograph were works of art, some having an
enameled painting of the individual or some scene included on the cross.
The columned backdrop included massive monuments built into the rock, presumably
for the wealthy families and/or noble deceased.
