On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
As you will see, otmar appears to be a man of few words in his introduction this evening :-) but Part 1 was just this morning, so hopefully we all remember where we are!
It’s the end of our first of two weeks of On the Road After Dark, where we are catching up on some of the submissions that were waiting in the wings during On the Road Virgins week. (Perpetual h/t Baud.) Once you’ve finished talking about the photos, I would love to hear your thoughts about After Dark.
Is it too much having two OTRs in a day, or is this a good way to handle the scheduling delays when we have On the Road Virgins week? Personally, I have loved the submissions from new people and I’m thinking that I’d like to do a regular Virgins week once a month to encourage new people to submit. All feedback welcome, once you have given otmar and his photos their due. ~WaterGirl
otmar
This continues my last submission.
This is the entrance to the “Hoher Stock”, the central part of the fortress.
Stepping out on a bastion, this is the view of the fortifications. The walls themselves are impressive but combined with the geography of the ~ 100m high mountains, this castle is really well defended
Shooting down is always easier than shooting up. Anyone laying siege would be exposed to the cannons positioned on the bastions and walls of the fortress.
The fortress was built by a succession of Archbishops that ruled Salzburg until ~ 1800. Whenever one of these made additions, they added marble plates to the new parts indicating who built what. This one is from Leonhard von Keutschach from 1505.
From the bastions of the fortress you can survey the surroundings. This picture shows the view to the south towards Nonntag, Freisaal and Hellbrunn. This is my hood, here is spent the first 27 years of my life. Included are the house I lived in for 23 years, my primary and high school and the natural sciences buildings of Salzburg University.
Looking south-west, this is the reverse shot of a scene of Sound of Music. We’re looking towards Schloss Leopoldskron.
Leaving the fortress, back to the Hoher Weg, the sun has almost gone down, giving us a good view of the old city centre
The fortress itself is still illuminated by the sun. On the right side you can see the funicular that shuttles tourists up the mountain.
Omnes Omnibus
Castle!!!
J R in WV
Really nice photos of ancient fortress! And then of the city below.
Wonderful scenery, great photos…
Thanks so much !!!
Wag
After dark is a nice respite from Roger Stone. I vote to keep it going, at least a couple days a week, through the election.
Wag
And great photos, as always.
realbtl
Thanks, I enjoy the evening break.
Emma from FL
That first shot is a perfect architectural image. Beautiful!
?BillinGlendaleCA
I have a picture from the ride up the funicular. I loved the 2 weeks in Salzburg.
Omnes Omnibus
Of course you do, but this is otmar’s thread and you have to learn to share.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Omnes Omnibus: And my picture will never see the light of day cause it’s crap.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Austria is a beautiful place. Love the architecture of the castles and the rolling green hills
Elizabelle
Have been there. I loved it. Never took the funicular. Just trudged uphill, and uphill, and uphill. It is worth every step.
And: got to put in a plug for Fraulein Maria’s bicycle tours in Salzburg. Two wonderful young Australian women told me about it one night at dinner, and it was as much fun as they said. Easy ride to many of the sites used in filming The Sound of Music. A bit of walking bikes when the city streets were too steep.
Got to swing on the gate used as an exterior of Captain von Trapp’s House.
I could live in Salzburg. One of my favorite places ever. And, there are mountains too.
mrmoshpotato
That opening also looks wonderful for flinging farm animals if they run out of cannonballs.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Elizabelle: I took the Sound of Music tour when I was there in 1979, I hadn’t seen the Sound of Music. It was a bit confusing.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
Oh, wonderful pics and such fond memories! My mother and I went to Vienna and Salzburg in 1986 – the castle, the beer, the schnitzel, the history, the amazing scenery (and the beer)! I loved it.
That was, as it turned out, a scant two weeks after Chernobyl – long before the internet could tell us how afraid we should be. People in Vienna were mad because the government was saying “everything’s fine!” but also telling them not to run their air conditioners. My mom wouldn’t let me eat any fresh produce. If we’d known then what we know now, we probably wouldn’t have gone, but I’ve never been able to get back and I’m so glad I saw it all.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
LOL!
Uncle Cosmo
Well, I got my Riesenschachspiel…I guess. (It’s right in the center of photo #3, just right of the brass ball. Doesn’t look very Riesen from that far up, though, duzzit?)
Most halfway-touristy towns in Europe hand out brochures that read something like, To really appreciate our beautiful city you must spend two weeks here. When I first got to Salzburg in 1980, the tourist brochure read
Followed by a comprehensive walking tour.
I only had a day, and I did – everything but the last stop, which was the Festung. I always appreciated that the town would go to the trouble for a flybynighter like me.
Elizabelle
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
This will date me, but The Sound of Music is the first movie I remember. My mom took my sisters and me (in dresses) to a screening on a military base. Have loved it ever since.
Robert Wise is an amazing director. He also did the The Haunting (of Hill House — incredible B&W, based on a Shirley Jackson story; that house breathes), West Side Story, The Day the Earth Stood Still. And many others.
Uncle Cosmo
Kingside or queenside? O-O or O-O-O? Chess Informant wants to know!
Barbara
We were in Salzburg only for one night and not in time to go through the castle, but we went up the hill and walked around and then decamped to a cafe outside the castle, where we were able to see some of those glorious views as the sun faded. There was a thunder storm at night and try as I might I wasn’t able to get any good photos of the castle being lit up by lightning. It was the last night of the opera festival and they had a simulcast set up on a big screen in the square below the castle. Alas, the storm.
KSinMA
What a lovely place. Thanks, Otmar!
BigJimSlade
Thank you otmar the otmarian! We were supposed to be in Salzburg in a couple weeks, but then… you know how pandemics go. :-/
rikyrah
Beautiful pictures ?
JPL
Otmar, thank you so much for sharing your pictures with us.
arrieve
I like having the after dark series. We need all the respite we can get these days, and since I’m stuck at home like everyone else, I enjoy the vicarious travel. I’m supposed to be on my way to Oxford for a three week course in Anglo Saxon archaeology. It’s been postponed until next summer, but I’m betting that’s not going to happen either. On the Road is one of the things I look forward to every weekday and Moar is Better.
MelissaM
Beautiful!
Elizabelle
@arrieve: Fingers crossed you (and we) get to travel — safely — sooner than we are expecting.
I just read Connie Willis’s “The Doomsday Book” (about time travel to medieval England) a few weeks ago. Pretty much in one sitting, since we all have extra time to sit, these days. Really liked the novel’s medieval chapters.
Laura Too
What lovely photos! I love to live vicariously through everyone’s pictures and stories behind them, and as importantly hearing all the memories they bring out in everyone else. I come from a family of story tellers and at every gathering we would sit around and hear legends and history, these remind me of that, so for me the more the better. Thanks to all for the pictures and Watergirl for the loving devotion to Alain’s gift to us all.
Jim Vande
This guy has a turnip on his coat of arms!
otmar
@Jim Vande: yes. The story is that his father threw a turnip after him when he left the family farm for a career in town.