Enjoying Bavarian Holidays: Salzburg

Bavaria is a very religious part of Germany. So religious, they have an extra 18 days a year of vacation where the entire region closes. I'm not joking. Everyone gets the day off, and people sit around try to remember exactly what the day means. In June we celebrated "Corpus Christi Day" (still haven't figured out what it means) and Erik got the day off. We took a short ride to Salzburg, just to see if the hills really were alive...

Cool palace fountain.

It was scorching hot and being by the river felt nice

They were alive.

For the first time in weeks, it was 25 C. We were so surprised considering it had snowed three weeks before. We were definitely unprepared but it felt nice.

Salzburg is a very regal city. It's very old looking and all of the buildings are palatial.

 While walking through, we stumbled upon a graveyard. The gravestones were really cool and unlike any I've ever seen-they were made of metal. We looked to find the oldest one there. It was from the 1700's!!

Salzburg is situated next to a cliff face, the same cliff face where the castle is. Built into the cliffs is an old chapel. We walked up these dodgy stairs that had been carved into the rock, and came upon a very old church that was about 20 ft-20ft, had a few pews, and a place to put holy water.

Thank goodness for this place.. it was so cool inside!! It was a nice break from the heat!

After Erik and I walked around and looked at the city, and then we decided to take a funicular up to the top of the cliffs to the castle.

The view from the top of the castle was magnificent. You could see the entire city and the hills in the background. It was gorgeous.

After this, we were tired and wanted to go home, but we shared our tickets with some friends and had to wait for them. Erik and I went down to the river and took a nap on a hill. What a gorgeous setting.

Salzburg is a nice place to visit. I didn't do the Sound of Music tour, but maybe someday I'll go back and see where it all began.