"And the rain rain rain came down down down!"
The deluge was in full force as we started out into Salzburg for our morning walking tour. Our tour guide was an expert at finding the warm alcoves and archways where she could tell us about her beautiful city. The history is impressive, from ancient empires to Salzburg's classical heights and its favored son, Wolgang Amadeus Mozart. Through the downpour, you could see the care taken by the native Salzburgers to preserve its special musical history.
We weighed the many options for our evening, two of which really stood out: The Sound of Music, performed by the Salzburg Marionnette Theater, and a dinner featuring works of Mozart performed by students from Salzburg's conservatory, the Mozarteum, with late 19th century recipes to match. Well, we asked, why not do both? We could make the timing work and they were both indoors!
We started at the marionnette show, not really sure what to expect. It was simply magnificent. The puppetry was so well done that we all lost ourselves in the story, completely forgetting it was marionnettes and not real people singing and dancing. It was difficult not to join in on the most familiar songs!
From there, we went to the Mozart dinner with many of our tour mates. Between courses, we were treated to nicely performed versions of many favorite Mozart arias and chamber pieces. The musicians would play, the singers would sing, and then there would be a pause in the entertainment while the servers came to bring us the food of Mozart's day. As Mozart might say: "It was awesome!"
The rain continued unabated through the next morning. I found it particularly hard to leave Salzburg and so spent every last second out in the city with my camera, soaking it all up—literally and figuratively. If you can fall in love with a city when it's raining four inches a day, you know it is a special city. Next stop: Hallstadt!
