In Salzburg, we celebrated Aiden’s 12th birthday. We were all thrilled to attend a European champions league game Salzburg versus Kyiv. We were able to catch the local bus to the massive stadium that apparently rivals Real Madrid. It was very interesting experience for everyone and the game amazing.
We all thought it was very worthwhile to visit the local Salzburg Salt Mine, it is no longer in use for production, but used but used to give tours of the mining, helping people understand the long-standing history dating back thousands of years. We enter the Mine on an interesting train, we then descended deeper into the mind by walking and taking wooden slides. The slides were quite exciting, we were dressed in pants and shirts provided by the mine to keep us warm and protect from debris. We also enjoyed the ride on a boat on the Salt Lake, in the depths of a cavern. We were almost in complete darkness; low lighted exhibits would light up intermittently to show us dioramas’ displaying the history of the salt mines over the ages. Although we initially felt a bit claustrophobic, the 90-minute tour was amazing. We travelled over kilometre into the mountain and down 200 m, the temperature dropped to 10°C and it was quite cold. We learned about the natural ventilation system, using opening for air outlets at different elevations. The movement of the air changes direction relative to the season, providing hot and cold air exchange to keep that have kept the air in the mine safe for over a thousand years.
We explored Salzburg old town, the Maribelle Palace and gardens, the beautiful public parks and the Salzburg Fortress. We enjoyed taking the Funicular to ascend the steep mountain. The fortress was amazing with awesome views over Salzburg and Austria. It would have been very difficult to build and the history of the beginning of building in 1500’s and different phases of building under different majesties to its completion in 1810 was well documented. The kids enjoyed seeing the cannons and weaponry. There was an interesting puppeteer museum, showing different Marionettes, related to the history of Salzburg including the Von Trapp family. It is easy to understand why the Sound of Music movie was produced in this beautiful place.
