Salzburg is packed!

Here's a photo I was unable to find last night, of me with my Mom and Sister, looking at frogs in the pond at the Linz Botanical Gardens, 57 years ago. We left Linz in the morning and drove the Linzerstraße to Salzburg. This was the equivalent of a state highway, so it went through every town and village along the way. It was a very scenic and pleasant morning drive, and in a couple of hours we were in a very busy and crowded Salzburg. We parked underground for about an hour (which cost us six Euros!) and walked to the Schloß Mirabell , which was built in 1612 by the Archbishop of Salzburg for his mistress, with whom he had fifteen children. The palace has beautiful formal gardens including statues of unicorns, a pegasus fountain (used in The Sound of Music), and a famous collection of dwarf statues which we visited in 1967. I'm happy to say it's still standing!

We have a tour reservation for the Hohensalzburg, the big castle on the hilltop, tomorrow morning, so I'll say more about that later. It was hot and super crowded by the river because, unbeknownst to us, this May happens to be the sixtieth anniversary of the release of The Sound of Music. The Danube is much narrower here, but was moving very swiftly!

To escape, we jumped back in the car and headed for the Ice Caves of Werfen. We drove by this really nice castle on a hill, which we were then able to view from above as we climbed to the ice caves. We decided not to go into the caves, but the drive was fabulous! Turned out we were a few miles from the German border and the “Eagle’s Nest” at Berchtesgarten, but we didn't make the leap into Germany. Walked only about 4 miles today, but I imagine we'll make up for that tomorrow!

Hohenwerfen is a castle built between 1075 and 1078, by the same Archbishop of Salzburg who built the Hohensalzburg at about the same time. His name was Gebhard and he was not related to the one who had fifteen kids nearly 500 years later.