A Day in Salzburg

 As I said in the last post, we had to change our plans in Salzburg because Joss was supposed to stay off of his foot for a few days. We knew that walking around the city for the walking tour was out, so Will and I stayed home with him after breakfast. Will obligingly pushed him around the go cart track a few times before they tried out the legos and puzzles and games in the playroom in the basement.

 Once Rob got the wheelchair, we headed off to walk around Salzburg. This was the favorite baroque church from the walking tour. When refurbishing it, no one could believe it was originally all white, and so they baroqued it all up. Called the Kollegienkirche.

 This is the Salzburger Dom, or cathedral.

 This is one of the horsewashing stations. Apparently there are two, and I'd never found the right one. Up on top is a crafty little puzzle. It says "Prince Leopold Built Me", but it also says 1732 in roman numberals, which is the year it was built.

One of the things I learned this trip around is that Salzburg had a crafty way of using its water. They would pump it out and clean the streets every Thursday. (I'm really wishing they would do that here in Vienna--the rain just isn't cutting it.) Some people attribute this practice to the fact that Salzburg never had a huge outbreak of the plague. All of their neighboring cities have plague monuments, but they do not.

 We rolled around St. Peter's cemetery, which is the one from Sound of Music. Except that it's not, which I wouldn't know except that someone left a Rick Steves book here. Only Rick Steves would have a whole section devoted to debunking the Sound of Music. So the abbey and the cemetery were actually reproductions done on Hollywood lots. This helped out, because at the end when the Von Trapps are locked into the arched sections by the nuns and hiding behind headstones, it never made sense because you can't hide behind them. They're just walls. 

Ambulatory family members also went up into the catacombs and saw the little chapel here. I went and saw the graves of Mozart's sister and Haydn's brother, who are both buried here.

 This claims to be the oldest restaurant in Europe. Says 873 which sounds pretty old to me.

 We let Joss light a candle at yet another church. It was a rather Tiny Tim moment.

 The front door, which I loved.

 Then we took the elevator up to the modern art museum on the Monchsberg and saw this view. Pretty amazing on a hot hot day.

And we had the path over to the Festung almost all to ourselves.

 This was the crazy part where we all got cranky with Rob, and knew that he was all better.

 And this was where we sat in the shade and got cold drinks and used the free wi-fi and it was embarrassing how much happier we were after that!

 These guys did not want to head into the fortress museum, so we left them out here with their fizzy apple juices and Rob, Maddie and I went to check out the splendor. Rob did roll Joss down to the marionette museum to see that.

 But however you slice it, Joss got an eyeful of Salzburg, even off his feet.

 And his older brothers were great at pushing the wheelchair.

 Ah, the cannons. We have taken this picture several times since 2002. The children haven't tired of it yet.

 We did have to piggyback Joss down the stairs to get him to the top of the funicular, but we were all tuckered out by then.

And all squished in. Notice the chinese tourist's hat and how tall she is compared to this race of giants we're raising. No wonder we have to go shopping every two days here!