Salzburg/Munich school trip - DAY 1

7:30 the buses left for Salzburg – approximately a two and half hour bus ride. We watched a movie on the way over so that helped the time pass :) We had mass at 11:00 at Franziskanerkirche which translated is Franciscan Church.

After mass we ate lunch. Sarah and I kind of lost our people so we sat a four person table where our Philosophy of the Human Person, and Ethics teacher sat, Prof. Harold, and our residence director Katie Hess who’s on her third or fourth year working as an RD in Austria. The lunch here was so good and we ordered white wine which tasted so yummy! And the lunch was delicious too :) We then had a tour of old Salzburg with the bishop’s brother (the bishop who celebrated mass with us at Franziskanerkirche earlier that morning), Dr. Seifert. Apparently he had been Prof. Harold’s professor! Salzburg is the home of the Sound of Music, and I’m a little rusty on exactly all the locations of the scenes in the movie but this picture is of the courtyard and steps where they sing one of their many songs :)

Some students also visited the gazebo where Liesel sings “I am 16 going on 17,” but apparently it was a bit of a disappointment because an old lady broke her hip falling off the benches, so they closed it.
Here’s a street in Salzburg – it was such a cute town!

And here’s Sarah, Andrea and I on the bridge during our walking tour, you can see the fortress Hohensalzburg in the background where we visited later that day

After the walking tour we checked into our hostel around 3:30, got some coffee and walked up the hill to Festung (fortress) Hohensalzburg which is the largest preserved medieval fortress in Central Europe. At the top of the hill was a fantastic view of Salzburg! We also visited Nonnberg Abbey a little ways down the hill from the fortress. Here’s the view from the fortress

We then walked around looking at the shops and stopped by Dom Cathedral in Domplatz – a plaza located centrally in Salzburg. There has been a cathedral in this spot since the 8th century and it honors the patron saint of Salzburg, St. Rupert. Mozart’s parents Leopold and Anna-Maria were married here in 1747 and Mozart was baptized at this font in the cathedral

He also served as organist and some of his compositions were written for the cathedral. We attended mass here on Sunday morning and I read the following, “It is the only house of worship in the world with five independent fixed organs, which are sometimes played together during special church-music concerts”

After visiting Dom Cathedral, we ran into Father Brad and some students headed to Augustiner-Bräu – one of the largest beer sellers in Europe. The tradition is to wash the beer glass in the water fountain before the glass is filled.

First wash the glass…

Then fill it with beer!

Here we are at Augustiner-Bräu, eating dinner :)

And that was the end of our day in Salzburg… Sunday we’re off to Munich!