October 15th, part I - A full day in Salzburg.

Welcome to the Parkhotel Castellani Salzburg! This is a four-star hotel, located just up the hill from Old Town in Salzburg. It was absolutely wonderful - the staff was very accomodating, the hotel was beautiful, and the rooms were very comfortable.

They had free internet access for guests in the lobby, and a fantastic breakfast buffet. It sits only about a ten minute walk from Old Town.

I would not hesitate to stay here again, and would recommend it to anyone. Hotel Rates has a description of their amenities here.

The hotel had the largest sago palm I've ever seen. It was in an atrium in the second wing, in front of the elevators. The crazy thing was at least eight feet across.

From above...

And from ground level.

Here we are, walking down to Old Town in the morning. The weather was beautiful and the traffic was light.

Although I don't have any pictures of it, we stopped at a tiny convenience store a few blocks after this first picture, and got some water and soda. It was amusing - I stepped up to the counter and the proprietor spoke German to me.

When Rob stepped up, even before saying a word, the proprietor spoke English to him. Heh.

The second picture is just as we started into Old Town.

If you have never walked around a european city before, you'd be surprised at all the little squares and cafes you find hidden away.

This is one that we wandered into - it had a strange little fairy statue in the middle, and two cafes right next to each other. A full sized image of the statue can be seen here.

You can barely read "Papageno Brunnen" on a plaque underneath the statue, or "Papageno well" in english. I don't know the story behind it, and Google brought up a bunch of pages that I can't read.

We managed to wander onto the University of Salzburg's campus, down in Old Town. It was small but beautiful, and if you look at the sundial in the third picture, it's old too (1623 AD).

A full size image of the sundial can be seen here.

There was a large square right to the north of the Residenz called the Residenzplatz. The Residenz is a building where many of the local government officials live, and seemed to be pretty common in Europe.

The first picture is of the Residenzplatz and fountain, with a clock tower rising above it all. The Residenz was actually behind me when I took that picture.

The second picture is a closer view of the fountain in the center of the Residenzplatz. It had four horses in exquisite detail around the bottom.

The last photograph is a closeup of one of the horses.

Here are some more pictures of the fountain and Residenzplatz. I got Rob to pose next to that incredible fountain for the first photo.

The second picture is of the fountain and Residenzplatz, with the Residenz seen in the background.

The third photograph is of the fountain and Residenzplatz, from the Residenz. If you look closely, you can see a line of horsedrawn carriages waiting for fares in the background. The next group of pictures show them much better.

These are the horsedrawn carriages in the Residenzplatz, probably eighteen or twenty in all. They were beautiful, and I think they were all for hire for rides.

Here are some pictures of the Residenz from another angle.

The first picture is of the arches over the Residenz entrance. If you look closely, you can see the statue shown in the second photo under the center arch.

The second picture is of a man clubbing .. well .. a thing. I'm not sure if that's a seal, or dragon, or some sort of medevial schmoo. A full size image can be seen here.

The last photograph is of another interesting doorway found within the Residenz.

Two more pictures of the Residenz - the first is of the tower atop the building. This was visible over the tree in some of the Residenzplatz photos.

The second is a walkway through the Residenz itself.

Here are some interesting little details I found while we were wandering aimlessly.

The first picture is of a beautiful plaque on the side of a building. It isn't that old compared to just about everything surrounding it, but I thought it was extremely neat. You can view a full size image here.

I'm not sure why, but I get a kick out of street signs in different countries. This one details what vehicles can and can not pass at what hours of the day, I believe.

The third picture is a set of double doors with some elaborate scrollwork on the hinges.

The last photograph is of a somewhat plainer door, but with some interesting pieces of stonework above it.

Here is another square we literally stumbled upon. It had an old carved tree stump barely visible to the left in the top picture (no, I didn't get a picture of that directly, I have no idea why).

The bottom picture shows an ornate little display that told the temperature and humidity, and actually graphed it out onto paper on drums. It was very unique - I had not seen something like that before.

One very interesting thing about just walking around these cities is just how many times you're going to walk through a building, without ever stepping inside. The first picture is one of the many walkways that go through a building.

We also noticed quite a few sundials in Salzburg - this one was south of a line of shops. Rob was exchanging money, so I wandered a bit and found this one.

This is the famous Salzburg Horse Pond, with its incredible statues and frescoes. It was originally in front of the royal stables.

The last photograph is of the tunnel through the hill, directly to the south of the Horse Pond.