You can’t always feel at your best. Things happen that can change your mood. Sometimes there can be no apparent reason. You just don’t feel quite your normal self. A little lack-lustre. No energy. Or simply under the weather.
Eleven stops and the number 23 drops us into the heart of Salzburg’s Aldstadt district. The grey heavy cloud cover hangs threateningly overhead. Biding its time. Silently waiting, assassin-like, ready to strike its victims at any given moment.
It’s not the type of day Salzburg would really want to welcome visitors. It feels dull headed. Not looking its best i.e. picture postcard perfect. It hates to be seen in a bad light. “Send them away! I’m not in the mood. I’m feeling under the weather”.
We are too, but in a different way. In any event, all and sundry ignore its pleas. Nationalities from across the globe flock here. Eager to visit the birthplace of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The museum, dedicated to the genius child and man, has been accepting visitors since 1880. Our first port of call.
Set within a labyrinth covering three floors, it details the great man’s family, birth, life and unexplained death, at the all too early age of thirty-five.
Mozart developed a passion for composing opera and the final room displays models of many sets used in those productions. Hugely inventive and intricate in their own right.
We move on into the impressive cathedral. Intricately ornate beyond belief, but not overtly garish.
We discover that it’s a working church taking its role seriously – good to see.
Before lunch we idle the streets centrally. Intentions to not spend. Just as well. Many streets interconnected by up-market alley arcades. Some touting only the best that money can buy.
In contrast, this busy shop is selling a product more to our taste . . .
A Nordsee lunch is walked off at Salzburg’s mighty Fortress, a fat sentinel that guarded the city for centuries. Now houses a fascinating city history.
The Puppetry rooms show how important and popular stringed puppetry was to the plebs of the day. Never more so than when poking fun at the elite.
Stepping out at the bottom of the almost perpendicular funicular, the heavens heave a sigh of release. Decide it’s time ‘to go’. The forecast lied. Mrs S is brolly-less. OMGA. We head for the nearest cafe for shelter. Sit it out with a cappuccino and cake, before twenty-threeing back to camp.