Breakfast downstairs again – kids are getting better at not wasting food.   It was a rainy, cool day – 58 degrees- yay!  We get to wear our new raincoats again!  Today we planned to head into old town Salzburg to tour the Fortress.  We bought tickets to the funicular, which took us straight up the mountain to the foreboding Fortress.

As usual, we got the audio tour  – of the inner rooms, king’s residence, torture chamber, etc.   The fortress was begun in the early Roman times, then in the 1100’s the early structure was built and improved upon throughout the next few centuries.  The last fortification was in the 1500’s.  We walked to the highest tower & had a beautiful 360-degree view of Salzburg.  The kids were wide-eyed in the torture chamber, which, Mr. Audioguide told us, was NOT the torture chamber after all, just a holding room for prisoners.  For now, it just HELD the torture devices they used.   Still pretty neat.   Paul made us take the obligatory “arms-in-chains-like-a-prisoner” picture before we left.  We wandered the grounds and stumbled upon a Marionette Museum – many of which had been used in the Saltzburg Marionette Theatre.  Saw lots of original marionettes from the early century.  Beautifully crafted characters from operas, mostly.  Videos about how they made them, demonstrations, and even one you could play with and dance around.  Perfect to see since we are going to see Mozart’s “The Magic Flute” at the Marionette Theatre tomorrow night!

Before we left the fortress, we looked all around in the Fortress Museum – furniture from the 1400’s, beds, stoves typical of life in the middle ages.  They also had a nice (nice?) collection of torture instruments – seats covered in spikes, caged head masks, thumb-screws, chastity belts, etc.  You know……the norm.   You could see the kids’ imaginations running wild.   It finally stopped raining –so we decided to take the funicular back into town and eat lunch.   We discovered the same fish place as the one at which we ate in the Zurich train station, but much cheaper this time!  The streets are very crowded with tour groups, beggars and, ah-ha! , pesky street vendors.  Very different from the night before.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in Salzburg, in an apartment on the third floor of a building in the center of old town.  We toured Mozart’s birthplace – listened to and read about HOW he wrote his music.  His sister, Maria, was also an amazingly accomplished pianist.  When they were young, she and Mozart gave joint concerts all over Europe.  However, living in the shadow of Mozart, she never received the fame he did.   The kids were really interested in it.

We walked around and window-shopped more.  Georgia tried on a traditional dirndl dress and wanted one SO BAD!

On the way home we stopped at Billa for dinner fixin’s – Georgia helped mom shop and we decided to do Mexican night again.

And then….. the fateful SNEEZE.   [We’re switching to LouAnn’s perspective at this point….]  Paul’s back had been hurting all afternoon long, most likely from the long car-ride the day before, and lots of carrying bags.  Around 8:30, Paul had a sneezure (what we call one of his big sneezes), and his back seized up.  He lay down until dinner to try to get it to calm down.  GT & I fixed dinner- yum!  Taco salad and sad little pita tacos, but it tasted soooo good!

Paul’s back was no better, so back to bed after dinner.   He tried to find a comfortable position during the evening and night, but the pain was excruciating, and he could never get it to calm down. Much worse than it has ever been.  He couldn’t even get in/out of bed, turn over, or walk by himself.  We all turned in, hoping that it would calm down.

From the Salzburg Fortress – the executioner’s house.  No one wanted to live next door to him!

 

Doesn’t this chair look comfortable?

A door just for GT!

The others actually found a place to SHOP inside the Fortress.

Jack trying a LITTLE too hard.

This captures what happens when we’re posing for the 63rd photo and LouAnn discovers she actually has the camera on “video”.  You have to watch it four times to see each person’s reaction.

There!  Got it!

The marionette museum.  Papageno!

Beautiful set piece depicting Hellbrunn Palace

With their newly-acquired souvenir weapons.

LOVE this one.

Isn’t she ADORABLE?

At Mozart’s birthplace – learning about how he wrote his music.

Buying groceries for Mexican Night!