In the City of Dreaming Spires: A Festival in Austria

Travel Week Day 1
Oxford, England to Salzburg, Austria

After an evening of packing and watching “The Sound of Music” to prepare, Jenn, Amy, and I headed to the Oxford bus terminal at 12:30 AM to catch the 1:00 AM bus to Standsted Airport in London. Stacey and Tyler traveled with us to catch their flight to Berlin, Germany, and Melanie and McKenna were also scheduled on our 6:30 AM flight to Salzburg, Austria. Budget airlines are new to me, and it was quite an experience to fly on Ryan Air! The airport was like a warehouse, and the terminals were chaotic. I even had to pay £10 ($21) extra to check my backpack! We managed to find three seats together on the plane. The seatbacks were plastic with no seatback pockets, and there was definitely no beverage service or blankets for use.

We groggily arrived in Austria at 9:15 AM after a two hour flight and took a bus to the train station to buy tickets for our later trips to Innsbruck and Buchs. We bought 24 hour bus passes that we later learned that we didn’t really need. Old Town Salzburg is almost completely pedestrian, and buses don’t even run in Old Town at all! It’s so interesting to see streets and squares packed with pedestrians and almost no cars in sight! I wonder how Americans would survive in a city without cars. It’s such a different culture here as far as transportation is concerned. I’m really enjoying walking everywhere, except when it’s time to return home at the end of the day.

After dropping our bags off at our hostel we walked into Old Town Salzburg. Today happens to be the day of a huge festival in honor of St. Rupert, patron saint of Salzburg who brought Christianity to the town. There are venders everywhere and carnival rides and street performers! We bought huge pretzels and sat on the steps of the Church of the Holy Trinity to eat. While there, we noticed people in traditional Austrian clothing! The dresses were so beautiful, and men and boys of all ages were wearing lederhosen with stockings. We visited the Dome Church before walking through the catacombs built into the side of the rock cliffs at St. Peter’s Church. We visited the University Church and then walked to Mozart’s birthplace. I loved touring the exhibit and seeing Mozart’s violin, viola, and clavichord as well as works written in Mozart’s own hand. In one of the rooms, a recording of “Ave Verum”, that I sang in both YCCO and Oratorio, was playing. I then walked around Old Town, had gelato, and walked across the pedestrian bridge that was in “The Sound of Music” and took pictures of Old Town Salzburg from across the river.

After a traditional dinner of Bosna sausage with mustard and sauerkraut and light beer with lemon from a festival vendor, we walked to the Church of St. Peter for “W.A. Mozart: Vesperae solennes de confessore”, evening vespers. The service was in German, but I was thrilled to hear the choir sing the “Maginficat”, “Laudate pueri”, “Confitebor”, “Beatus vir”, and “Dixit Dominus” that I sang with Oratorio Choir Fall 2006 in Wilden Hall! It was so amazing to hear these works in their original setting as part of a service with an organ and strings!

When the service was over we walked through the festival streets again until we came to a café where we had thick chocolate drinks that were like drinking hot pudding that hadn’t set yet. Mine was white chocolate with hazelnut pieces and so rich! Jenn had hot chocolate with rum. It was incredibly strong, and she definitely couldn’t finish it! We really wanted to eat apple strudel (“Cream colored ponies and crisp apple strudel”), so we went to the Mozart Café. It was a very nice restaurant up a curved flight of stone stairs, and we sat in a round, red booth to eat our apfelstrudel with vanilla ice cream. As we walked back to our hostel, we were startled by the sound of canons being shot off from the fortress above Salzburg. Fireworks to celebrate St. Rupert’s festival followed the canons, and we stopped in the street for a few minutes to watch. We feel so blessed to have come to the city on such an important and fun time for its people!