Salzburg Day 4 and 5

Day 4 and 5 (04-05/10/2006)

We our in our final couple hours and I have to say this has been a perfect trip.  Just the right amount of time to not feel rushed, to do everything in a couple days, and a manageable size town in which to accomplish everything we wanted to really see that represents the town.

The food has all been wonderful and we didn’t even eat at a 'fancy' restaurant this trip - it has all been bistro-type places with local Austrian/Germanic food and a little Italian thrown in for a change of culinary scenery.  Maybe because it is in my heritage, but I do love this region's food -  although one needs to be a manual laborer to burn all the calories the dishes have!  Reeves has also been quiet the little German speaker.  He always thinks he doesn't do well, but he understands so much and can at least order food, converse short dialogues with the locals and get us where we need to be.  In fact, he had an exchange in German with a wait-person whereby he told her his German was very bad and he had forgotten most and she said "well, you are understanding me now aren't you!"

We have also been a bit shocked with the smoking everywhere here.  We realized we had been eating every meal outside and commented that it wasn't that bad until we were forced, by the rain, to seek refuge in the cafes. We definitely admit we would have a hard time living in a country that allowed smoking as many places as they still do here.

Yesterday, however, was my birthday and I had a wonderful day.  Although we woke up to overcast skies, the rain stayed away enough for us to not be caught outside getting wet. We started with the Dom museum which I have to say was a really well done exhibit. It was located in the mezzanine level in the cathedral, on the upper levels above the ambulatories.  On one side there was art and artifacts from the church and its history. One then crossed over to the other side via the platform for the large pipe organ at the back of the church.  On the other side they had a special exhibit on Mozart, placing his life, work and religious devotion, or lack there of, within the context of the time and the city's character.  There were many different sorts of artifacts, letters, hand-written pieces of music, etc. from Mozart which we were excited to see in this display. 

As a side note, we were a bit annoyed with the cost of exhibits and museums - there was not a free one the whole trip.  In fact, several places charged you multiple times to see different things with the same location.  Additionally, most were over 10 euro a person which, I think, is excessive for some of the smaller ones.  I am all for supporting the arts, but we must have spent half what we spent on food in "seeing" things.

The next item on the agenda, however, was the Rezidenz which was a beautiful series of palatial rooms used by the Prince-Archbishops as state receiving rooms, as well as their residence.  The rooms are still in use and we were lucky to get in as they were closing early for an event. Like the cathedrals, the rooms were in the Baroque style, again, very different than the multitude of English, French and Italian palaces I have toured.

Our very last tour was visiting a Mozart exhibit created especially for the 250th anniversary year and featured the latest state-of-the-art in museum display technology.  One of my enjoyments of visiting museums is not just in what is on display, but how it is being displayed.  Call it the archivist or historian in me, but I love evaluating each collection on a few different criteria...

1. Are the items pleasingly displayed?

2. Can you see the item from a 'normal' upright position?

3. Do they have descriptors for each item?

4. Do the descriptors contain date, location of origin, something more descriptive than "hat" or "shoe?"

5. Can you read the descriptor card from a 'normal' upright position? 

- these all seem logical and simplistic when read like this but it is amazing how many of these are lacking even in the most modern and most 'high tech' of exhibits.

Case in point, the Mozart exhibit - of the few 'original' pieces presented, many had the overly simplistic labels like "pair of shoes", no date, no origin, no context other than they looked old.  Additionally, many cards were illegible due to the color font on the chosen backdrop or because of too low of lighting.  Yes, one needs low lighting for conservation issues, but these objects were REPRODUCTIONS!

My last, and the most annoying observation, was in the audio tour. Normally I am a huge fan of the audio tour, I will even pay extra for one, but even with the cool technology this one used <it would automatically start playing the correct soundtrack when you walked in a room or touched an object on an interactive screen> we were ready to throw the thing out the window by the time we were done.  It was done in first person, specifically Mozart was speaking, with sidebars by his sister, mother and a few other people.  Not only was it annoying to listen to his trite repartee, he spoke in definitives, with 'modernized' history.  It is true there is much known about his life and work through an extensive library of letters and other correspondence, but much of what “he” was spouting was stated as 'fact' which really is speculation and supposition.         

We had a late flight out of Salzburg, which, of course, was delayed by an hour.  We didn’t get home till quiet late, but it was certainly a wonderful trip to remember!