Two Days in the Alps

I went on holiday! I had my first family visit here in Prague recently, but instead of confining ourselves merely to Czechia, we hopped in the car, headed for the highway, and went west: to the Alps.

The view from our AirBnB outside Siegsdorf, Germany, near the Austrian border.

Since we only had two full days to see everything we could before coming back to Czechia, we had to narrow our focus. The famous city of Salzburg--birthplace of Mozart!--quickly rose to the top as the one place we *had* to visit.

Mirabell Gardens and the Hohensalzburg Fortress.

Looking north from one of the several footbridges.

And south. I think we made the right call to prioritize this spot.

Salzburg, as the name might suggest, rose to prominence and prosperity largely because of its location near valuable salt mines, as well as being a key stop of the Salzach River, which transported the salt. With the Alps to the south and rolling hills to the north, Salzburg has a history stretching back thousands of years, and we know it was settled by the Celts, and by the Romans thereafter. The modern city roughly forms a circle around the thousand year old Hohensalzburg Fortress, high on a hill overlooking the city.

The fortress and the Old Town below it.

Because we only had one day, we decided to do go broad and do a bus tour around the area. My favorite stop was actually the first and last stop--Mirabell Palace.

The palace itself, dating from the early 1600s and originally outside the Old City walls, is actually now used for town administrative offices. However, the gardens are absolutely stunning and create an excellent vista when paired with the fortress.

The Old City itself is mainly a pedestrian zone, so our bus didn't go there, and the limited mobility of some of my family kept us on the perimeter, but we did make it to Getreidegasse, the Old City's busiest (and most expensive, it seems...) shopping street, also the location of Mozart's birthplace.

The medieval signs are required by the city--even the McDonald's has one!

The bus tour also took us outside the city to look at a few of the numerous villas and chateaux that surround the city. Apparently one was used as a filming location for some movie musical about singing mountains or something.

There were a lot of people singing when the bus stopped to let people take pictures here...

Overall, I was enamoured with Salzburg, though, as a Mozart lover since childhood, I found the intense commodification of his memory somewhat distasteful. Poor Wolfie is used to sell anything and everything. Still, I definitely hope to visit again and really explore the city.

For our second day, we had actually planned to go back into Salzburg and do some more exploring, but there were some pretty serious concerns about bad weather--chilly and rainy being a bad combination when your plan is to wander a historic city on foot. Trying to think of something more indoorsy to do, I proposed taking a scenic drive through the Alps--to Italy. Since it was only a few hours away--and since we were all Americans who thought of a few hours as a short and easy drive--we went for it.

Again, it ended up being a good call.

The drive there and back was incredibly gorgeous, with the highway navigating lush alpine valleys and mountain passes for most of the journey, castles and palaces dotted along the highway as frequently as rest areas. The mountains themselves seemed like Hollywood backdrops, airlifted into place. After crossing the nerve-rattling Europa Bridge, we went through the Brenner Pass and arrived in Northern Italy, stopping just across the border in the small medieval city of Vipiteno. Indeed, Vipiteno was, for many years, part of the Austrian Empire, and it has a German name to prove it--Sterzing. Whatever its name, however, it's an incredibly charming city--which is quite fortunate, since I had essentially picked it at random.

In America, Old Towns date from the 1700s. In Vipiteno, the New Town dates to the 1400s.

Seriously, I had no idea we would find this. Then again, Europe...

The town originally dates back to 14 B.C. as a Roman military encampment, though it didn't really get going until the early middle ages. Several castles stand nearby to attest to its prosperous past as a trading hub for goods and people coming through the Brenner Pass to the north. A fire struck the town in 1443, giving the town a chance to rebuild itself. The town's wealth was put on display in a number of impressive structures, including the Zwölferturm--the tower shown above, which served as a gate to separate the New Town from the Old Town.

Looking up the high street of the New Town, past the tower and to Mount Cavallo beyond.

Even older than the Zwölferturm, however, and standing just across the town square from it, is the Church of the Holy Spirit, built in the Gothic style in 1399. The outside of the church is fairly unprepossessing. However, the interior contains amazingly well preserved frescoes painted in 1402 by one Giovanni of Bruneck.

There was a woman praying in the church, so I couldn't get nearly as many pictures as I liked.
Still, you get the idea.

Vipiteno was a wonderful reminder that there are scores of smaller, lesser known towns all over Europe that most tourists never visit but that offer truly incredible experiences. While Vipiteno wasn't some isolated no-place--they're on a major highway, have a ski resort, and plenty of shops, etc.--it was a far cry from the completely tourist-dominated Salzburg with its bus tours and kitschy shops. Between the two of them, I know which I prefer, but both offered something to make a quick trip through the Alps even more memorable.

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