Festung Hohensalzburg

Right in my backyard is this beautiful medieval castle. It was built in 1077 under the orders of Gebharb von Helfenstein, the same man who began building Schloss Hohenwerfen. About a week after we arrived in Salzburg, my roommate, our suite-mate, and I took the afternoon to climb up to the fortress.

The castle was only attached once, but it didn't fall. Through out other wars it was used as barracks and storage. And during WWI it held Italian prisoners of war.

Now it holds a few restaurants, as well as a lot of museum space. A display of instruments, weapons, and other items during the medieval ages are inside the fortress. As well as a bunch of WWI items.

I couldn't quite figure out what they all were about since everything was in German. But it was still super neat to look at. The mask above on the bottom left was a torture device that people were forced to wear for periods of time.

Though the best part of the castle was definitely the views of the city of Salzburg.

There was also a church, and some great ruins that they had just found recently.

And the previous main reception room of the fortress now holds classical music concerts.

As always, all the pictures can be found on facebook or this link:

http://on.fb.me/cb8Edb

*photo 2 was slighly edited

photo of me by Noelle

Schloss Hohenwerfen

This was a day trip that we took, about 40 km south of Salzburg. We traveled by bus and then proceeded to climb up to the fortress.

We got a tour of the fortress, learned a lot of history. Not only was this fortress the setting for the 1960s movie Where Eagles Dare (which I have never even heard of) but it was also in the background of the Do-Re-Mi song in The Sound of Music.

It was built starting in 1075, and over the many years it was greatly expanded. Originally meant just as a fortress, it was later used as personal residences and a hunting residence. The main personal residences were burnt down in the beginning of the 20th century, and have not been as lavishly rebuilt.

Currently the main use of the Fortress is as an adventure castle, with an amazing Birds of Flight show. We got to see it, and it was so amazing! And the bird trainer's outfits were pretty neat too.

On the right is a fun picture of our AIFS cultural director, Andreas, in his lederhosen.

All the birds were extremely well trained, which meant that they could get so close to us during the show. At one point I thought one of them might take out my camera, but it was just amazing.

As always, check facebook for all the pictures that I took at the fortress or follow this link:

http://on.fb.me/acpUXd

Oktoberfest

Regardless of what it's called, Oktoberfest doesn't really take place in October. The last three weeks of September as well as the first week of October makes up this crazy festival. We jumped on a train at 7am, because we had heard just how crowded it can get throughout the day. When we arrived at the festival at 9am it was already packed enough to rival the Iowa State Fair.


photo c/o: Kendal

The first "tent" we went into was the Hippodrom, since their tables were unreserved until noon. However, "tent" is definitely the wrong word to describe these buildings. These structures must be there year round. Most seat upwards of six to eight thousand people, and many, like the Hippodrom have two levels for seating. 

photo c/o: Heather

A band, located behind the floating pony in the photo above, plays traditional music all day starting at 11. So our band surprised us by all chugging an entire beer before beginning to start playing. Now, this one beer may sound doable to some people but these Oktoberfest beers are not normal beers. Each beer is one whole Liter. And it comes in a large glass stein, which is heavy enough without any alcohol in it.

photo c/o: Jess

Outside of the tents I was surprised to find that there were a lot of fair-like rides at the festival. I never got around to riding any of the rides, even though I had really meant to.

 A few of the people who came in our group did end up going on the swing ride. And since it was such a sunny day (unlike what the pictures show) they said it was lovely.
Throughout the day we wandered through 6+ tents, but ended up getting a table at only one more. This was because it was just as crowded as everyone said it would be. We searched and searched for a seat at a table, because you couldn't get a beer without a table, and finally we found one in the Augustiner tent.



Both photo's c/o: Kathryn

Once we did find this table we enjoyed being able to sit down, and two of the girls I was with ordered half a chicken for lunch. Now, at this point I must say that I went from zero to decently intoxicated in about a minute, so I am very thankful and apologetic to those who were with me and looked out for me.
As some of you may know "Prost" is the German version of "Cheers", and so at many times throughout the day the band would play a song which was "Ein Prosit". The song itself isn't that original, basically the same phrase over and over again with mugs raised.

Though the best part of it was that a lot of people got up onto the table benches and sang along. 

We decided to end the day around 5pm and got on the two hour train ride home. But, about an hour and a half into the trip the train stopped at a station and didn't start moving again. We were thankful that there was a family where the father spoke English in our train car and he explained what happened. Apparently we were supposed to get off the train and onto a bus that would take us to Salzburg. But, because it took so long for us to figure this out the bus had already left. This left us stranded in rural Bavaria in some small town called Traunstein. And now that I've wikipedia-ed it, turns out it's not oh so tiny a town as I though it was. But still not a city.

We waited over an hour for the next train from Munich to come, and luckily did end up safely back in Salzburg at the end of the day. So overall, Oktoberfest was crazy awesome. And I'm definitely glad I went, though I think it may be too much of an extravaganza to make a tradition out of it.

St. Rupert's Festival

In the spirit of backtracking Salzburg celebrated their patron saint, St. Rupert at the end of September. This celebration was awesome, because they erected carnival rides and a giant beer and sausages garden, as well as tons of street vendors in one of the large squares in the old town.

Everywhere, people were celebrating. And often times wearing the traditional dress, which is Lederhosen for the men and Dirndl's for the women.  Now, I just realized the horribleness of the fact that I don't seem to have any creeper pictures of traditionally dressed locals, so for now you'll have to take a look at some that google turned up.

 The festival had tons of sweets. Marshmallow filling seemed to be a common one, as well as gingerbread shaped hearts with different German sayings on them. I was only there a few hours before leaving for Budapest but it was such a neat celebration it made me wish I could be here next year so I could celebrate St. Rupert again, and go on some of the rides!