September 1st

Monday. We got kind of a late start, but we met up with Steven to do the downtown Salzburg thing. It was cold and rainy and windy. So we head into town via the bus, which is great and only takes about 10 minutes. (although walking only takes 20 minutes and saves you about 3.40 EU round-trip).

Anyway, we get into town and we walk up to this really awesome fortress called Festung Hohensalzburg. It's been standing since about 1000 a.d, although it wasn't complete until about 1400 a.d. or so. If you don't know a lot about the history of Salzburg you should know that it was run by the archbishops of the catholic church and remained a soveriegn entity until about the mid 1700's when they surrendered to Napolean without a fight. Prior to this surrender, the fortress was never conquered by force.

Anyway, the fortress has a room with all the portraits of the archbishops who contributed to the building of the fortress, generations of people who helped create and bulid the thing. It's set high up on a hill, (and the walk is steep) but you get a fanstastic view of the entire city and beyond.

Salzburg is famous for its salt, and because they had such an abundant supply they were able to salt their meat and live for months in times of siege.

The story of the red bull

In case you don't know, Salzburg is the home of one of my favorite beverages, Red Bull. You might not be impressed with it as a drink, but that's okay because in a minute you will be impressed with the reason they call it red bull.

So back in the day before the fortress was even completed, the Turks decided to invade Salzburg; instead of confronting them at the fortress where they knew they would lose, they decided to lay siege to the city and starve the Austrians out. Well, the Austrians only had one bull left to slaughter and eat and they knew it was only a matter of time before they had to give in. So they painted the bull different colors (yellow, brown, black, red) and had it run around the fortress grounds each day, to confuse the Turks and make them think they had several bulls left. Apparently this worked because the Turks finally gave up thinking that if they still had that many bulls left inside the fortress there was no way they could wait for them to starve.

And because of this there are bulls all over the city in random places painted in various (and sometimes patchy) colors. Like outside cafes and stuff.

In addition to this fascinating story, there is a full on museum about this fortress and they have an entire room set up to display weapons and armor. It's most impressive because when you walk in, there are about twenty soldiers coming at you with spears, swords, and maces, and they are all at least partially dressed in war armor. It's amazing.

So that was the first day in Salzburg.

We also did Mozart's house that day; it was neat to see the original sheet music and musical instruments, but the huge amount of tourists with flashing cameras really put me off and I retreated as quickly as I could.