Germany: Day 6: Salzburg

Okay, so technically most of day 6 was actually spent in Austria.  

Salzburg.

Salzburg is lovely.  There is no other word for it.

And it is in a most lovely location.

Some of the statues, not so much.  Seriously, some of these statues are crazy and tortured.

Then, after klettersteiging two days before and hiking to two castles the day before, we decided to hike up to the fortress in Salzburg.  Calvin was voting strenuously for the funicular, but Rachel and I had read Rick Steve's who claimed that the views on the hike up are spectacular.  He fails to mention that you can get the same and better views from the top and that the hike will take your breath away...literally.

We saw this on the way up.  I think it is a place for people to stop and pray that they will make it to the top.

This was our target:

It was cool.

We took an audio tour of the fortress which was very informative.  The fortress was, like most large structures in Europe, built in stages.  The building was mostly ornamental as it was rarely used as a fortress.  Apparently it was imposing enough that its very appearance deterred invaders.  Convenient that.  So when Napoleon came through, it seems that the people in Salzburg had forgotten due to misuse how to use the fortress and surrendered it without a fight.

Rachel, our resident artillery specialist, sat on some cannonballs for us.

Here is some sort of sundial beautifully painted on the wall.

Inside of the fortress there is a marionette museum.  These, surprisingly, were the least disturbing puppets there:

Rachel and the fountain.  I just liked this picture.

Here is Rachel checking out where the cannon was aimed.  I think she dealt with slightly more advanced equipment in Iraq, but she did manage to ascertain that these cannons were aimed at the civilians and tourists that the fortress was intended to protect and as such would do the most damage.  Then she started throwing around some military terms and my concentration drifted.

Anyway, we had a wonderful time in Salzburg.  We drove home that night and got in really late.  Day 7 in Germany was spent sleeping, packing and meandering around Amberg.  My SD card was full at that point so I have no pictures.

I am so grateful that I had the opportunity to spend some time with Rachel in Germany and that various people were willing to watch my children so I could leave.  I am so excited that she will be home soon, but sad that she will have to leave all the fun travel she has been doing.  Europe is pretty dang cool.