March 25, 2012

• Stuff Inside in Salzburg

  In a continuation of theme, this entry is devoted to “Stuff we saw INSIDE places in Salzburg.” Some of them, I remember where we saw them. Some of them, I’d have to look up. But really, do you care that much? I didn’t think so. So let the adventure begin!

  First up, we have a Roman mosaic of two wrestlers. Why is this at all interesting?  

  

  Well, when they wanted to make this lovely square with a statue of Mozart in the middle…

  

  they dug up the ground and what do you know? A Roman ruins with lovely mosaics was just sitting there! So, they excavated it for about two years and put Mozart on hold. Also, the audio guide said that they think the Roman ruin was of lascivious intent perhaps. Oooh.  (Kids, it’s a new SAT word! Look it up!)

  I really liked this set of statues. They were from an unknown altar set in an unknown church.

  

  There were several things I liked about it. One was that Jesus looks like a person. In many altar statues, he is really scrawny or misshapen or something. Mary Magdalene is at the foot of the cross, and John is comforting Mary, Jesus’ mother. But what made this interesting to me was the other two guys. 

     

  I loved the detail in their faces. The one looking up is supposed to be a Roman soldier, and the fat guy is supposed to be his superior officer. I am not sure what the sculptor was trying to convey with these two, but I liked the unusual nature of the set. 

  Here’s Saint George killing his dragon. I saw a lot of St. George’s.

  

   

  This is a sepulcher. A sepulcher is a tomb. But, I am not really sure what one does with this in the Catholic faith. The audio guide said something about people being able to venerate here and it counted just as much as if they had gone to the real sepulcher in Jerusalem, but I didn’t have enough background to understand it as well as others might. It was about the size of a loveseat, just to give you some scale. 

  

   

   This is a painting of Mary. I saw lots and lots and lots of paintings of Mary. 

  

  I liked this one. It’s a “Madonna of the Wheat.” She’s got grains of wheat painted on her gown, and there is a bunch of symbolism, even down to the types of beetles at her feet. I am so grateful for audio guides that explain cool things! 

   

   

  The one place we visited which was indoors was The Residenz. When the Prince Archbishops were not living in the fortress, they lived in a 180 room palace and office place right at the base of the fortress. Not all 180 rooms were open, but the ones that were were pretty nice.  

   

          

   

  This is the bedroom of the Prince Archbishop.  Just like all the other rooms, it had amazing artwork on the ceilings, gold overlays all over the place, and more. But what I wondered was this:

  

  If you are going to have a million dollar room, why not get a bigger bed? 

  Look at the thing in the corner, the white thing with the gold round thing on top.

  

  What is it? It’s a heater! All the rooms in palaces and such had these ornate, ceramic heaters. Some were painted in all different colors, too. 

  This was a wooden box in one of the rooms. I was admiring the room, turned around, and the kids were opening this chest! 

  

  “What the HECK are you doing?” I said.

  “It doesn’t say, ‘Don’t touch,’ Mom. It’s okay.”

  “NO IT IS NOT! Stop touching that!”

  Oy…we are going to wind up in Austrian prison yet.

   

  This staircase was neat. For a lark, the builder decided to make the metal…um… what are they called? Those up and down spindle parts? These things. 

  

  Anyhow, the person made them out of bell metal and tuned each one to a different pitch. So if you tap on them (which we did), each one plays a different note! 

   

  

   

  We saw lots of other nifty things, but I think it is time we leave Salzburg and see what else we’ve been up to!

  • 7:35 pm
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