A Day Trip to Salzburg, Austria

Our second outing from campus involved a day trip to Salzburg, Austria!  We only spent one day in this charming city but I look forward to going back when Adam's Mom and a family friend come to visit us in April!  We're thinking of staying overnight to explore the city even further.  As you can see in the picture below, it was hard to get Charlotte up that morning and get ourselves out the door since it was a gray, cold, rainy day.  However, we were excited to see a new place so we eagerly boarded the bus.

Another day another morning of watching the sun rise from a bus window!

  She gets some of her best sleeping done in a moving vehicle be it by air or ground!  ; )

We took a tour of Old Salzburg upon our arrival.  Salzburg literally means "salt castle" and is the fourth largest city in Austria!

The city has three universities so has a huge population of college students and also contains 27 churches!  Charlotte made friends with some of the college students of this city at the Toy Museum!

Charlotte Annie loves horses so she especially enjoyed seeing the horse drawn carriages all about the city!

Some other facts about this city I learned (thanks, Wikipedia), are that Allied bombing destroyed 7,600 houses and killed 550 inhabitants. Fifteen air strikes destroyed 46 percent of the city's buildings, especially those around the Salzburg railway station. The town's bridges and the dome of the cathedral were destroyed but much of its Baroque architecture remained intact. Wikipedia also shares that Salzburg is one of the few remaining examples of a town of its style. American troops entered the city on May 5, 1945 and it became the center of the American-occupied area in Austria at that time.

I hope we do the Sound of Music tour when we return in April!  The movie was filmed here!  We also learned Mozart was born in this city.  On January 27, 2006 which was the 250th anniversary of Mozart's birth, all 35 churches of Salzburg rang their bells after 8:00 p.m. to celebrate...how cool does that sound?!

Wikipedia shares that in the 1960s, the movie The Sound of Music used some locations in and around Salzburg and the state of Salzburg. The movie was based on the true story of Maria von Trapp, who took up with an aristocratic family and fled the German Anschluss. The town draws many visitors who wish to visit the filming locations, alone or on tours.
Salzburg is the setting for the Austrian crime series Stockinger.
In the 2010 film Knight & Day, Salzburg serves as the backdrop for a large portion of the film.

See the mountain below...the Toy Museum (and parking garages) were literally built into the mountain!  Here is more information regarding Salzburg's geography according to Wikipedia:

Salzburg is on the banks of the River Salzach, at the northern boundary of the Alps. The mountains to Salzburg's south contrast with the rolling plains to the north. The closest alpine peak, the 1,972‑metre-high Untersberg, is less than 16 kilometres (10 miles) from the city centre. The Altstadt, or "old town", is dominated by its baroque towers and churches and the massive Hohensalzburg Fortress. This area is flanked by two smaller hills, the Mönchsberg and Kapuzinerberg, which offer green relief within the city. Salzburg is approximately 150 km (93 mi) east of Munich, 281 km (175 mi) northwest of Ljubljana, Slovenia, and 300 km (186 mi) west of Vienna.

This was Charlotte's favorite part of the day trip - - - the toy museum!!

I don't think seeing castles perched atop the cities around here will ever get old for me!

Charlotte quickly made friends.  ; )  The college aged girls you see in this photo were not from our university but they spent at least 30 minutes playing with Charlotte who loved every second of the attention!

I could see our nephews doing this in their house!

This was one of my favorite parts of the museum!  There were small houses that had props and read alouds of popular children's stories, such as, Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, and Sleeping Beauty!  I'm not sure who was more excited...Charlotte or Mommy!

Look at her face!  

She loved the kitchen play area!

This was one of my favorite stories as a child - - The Princess and the Pea...but look at the title on the sign?!

I can't wait to go back and experience Salzburg again when the weather is a little bit warmer and perhaps the sun is shining!