Salzburg - Mozart & More

 Well, I won't bore you with years and names and facts, but, for sure Salzburg is one of the famed touristic magnets in Austria. Baroque architecture, Mozart and Festspiele, Sound of Music, the fortress Festung Hohensalzburg, Mozartkugeln (chocolates) and Fiaker (horse-drawn carriages) immediately come to mind. Although, this city has certainly suffered from COVID, too, especially because of the missing American and Asian groups, it is still in good shape and a lot is currently going on.

 

 

We took the train (about 2,5 hours in total one-way) last Wednesday for a 2-day-excursion and research for the update of our CityTrip Salzburg (Reise Know-How). We stayed in the surprisingly nice, newly renovated Imlauer Hotel Pitter (pics below), very conveniently located between railroad station and historic old town. Breakfast buffet on the rooftop allowed views similar to the ones shown above.

Besides checking "old", well-known sights and places, we tried to fit in some "new stuff", like the Botanical Garden (below), the Panzerhalle – a former military building used for storage and the upkeep of tanks and transformed into a modern mixed-use complex with a fancy market (food) hall.

 

Panzerhalle

 

Also, thanks to beautiful fall weather we walked a lot, up to 12 mi. a day!, and found trails and observation points on the hills slopes surrounding the city we have never explored before. One other destination was the green area around the university. The modern university buildings form a striking contrast to the fortress in the background. Equally interesting, architectonically, is new Paracelsus Bad (pool/sauna/wellness & café), fantastic architecture!

(top) University - Paracelsus Bad (bottom)

                                            University Salzburg & Fortress

Also, we focused on not-so-well-known neighborhoods this time, such as the Andrä-, Kai-Viertel or Nonntal, and, we found a very diverse and exciting culinary scene. One other culinary highlight was Schrannenmarkt, a huge farmers' market around the Andrä Church (pics below) taking place each Thursday 5 am to 1 pm.

We ate our first real Salzburger Nockerl at Meissl & Schaden (left), otherwise well-known for its Schnitzel, we had cake, drank beer in the Augustiner beerhalls and found many new restaurants and shops, some of them really leading the way in regard to "environmental consciousness", e.g. "Damn Plastic" (store) or "The Keep" (a new budget hotel). Also, there is a new gin producer in old town, called "5020 Gin" and many nice little cafés and bistros, especially in the neighborhoods mentioned above.

                                            Schrannenmarkt (above & below)

                                            Confiserie-Café Fuerst (above)

 

        Damn Plastic (left), 5020 Gin (right)

The Museum der Moderne on the Mönchsberg (easily accessible by an elevator in the mountain, right pic) is one of our all-time favs and so is the DomQuartier, a conglomeration of different museum in the Neue Residenz, including the cathedral (Dom, photos below)

 

 

 

We visited Mozart's gravesite on the Sebastian's Cemetery (right), walked famous Getreidegasse (below, right), and had a fantastic tour with a young Benedictine frater through the monastery St. Peter, the newly renovated church and the archeological collection. He even let us see parts of the complex not publicly accessible. How peaceful this green courtyard below appeared compared to busy Getreidegasse!

 

No matter where you are, you'll always have differently brilliant views of the Festung:

And, these photos were taken from Schloss Mirabell with its beautiful gardens:

Always an adventure: The Big Apple

Long time no see,,, sorry, but NYC kept us really busy! Such a change from slow-going, friendly, down-to-earth Oklahoma! It's been our 25+ visit to NYC, and, as always, time was too short, days were too busy. Tried to fit in as much as we could in four full days and walked almost 20 km every day, in addition to endless subway trips. Besides Midtown, Downtown and Harlem, we also explored new parts of Brooklyn (Sunset Park, Bay Ridge) and the South Bronx.  

Midtown - the area around Times Square (above) - seems to have suffered most damage of COVID19. Many properties stood empty or were shut down. Times Square was, naturally, not as populated as usually, but, the famous „Naked Cowboys“ put on a show nevertheless.

Monday was „Columbus Day“ (not political correct anymore !) and an Italian Parade took place along 5th Ave. We watched police troups, highschool bands, floats and car parades (photos below).

New attraction in Penn Station: Moynihan Train Hall (right), the new expansion to the railroad station underneith Madison Squaregarden in the city's former main post office building, the James A. Farley Building.

Had a wonderful Korean BBQ (below) - a first for us! - at Jongro Gopchang in Koreatown, in Midtown Manhattan.

 

Next: Hudson Yards with The Spire, The Shed (right) and The Edge, a new observation deck (pic below). The edge of the deck itself is very popular for „selfies“ and highly instagrammable, therefore: long lines. Views are great, photos hard to take because of thick glass walls. I was asking myself, how many more observation platforms a city still needs? One Vanderbilt Summit nearby Grand Central Terminal is about to open soon as the highest one in NYC. We had a special pre-opening media tour scheduled there as well, but it was, unfortunately, cancelled on short notice.

The Highline Park - roughly inbetween the Whitney Museum and Hudson Yards, cutting through different neighborhoods, is getting darker and darker, more tunnel-like. More and more highrises on both sides and growing trees as well.

The newly built Pier 55 - called „Little Island“ (pic above) - is an attraction on its own: viewpoints, playgrounds, vendors, an amphitheater, gardens and views towards the Hudson River and New Jersey.

Downtown, Wall Street, Soho (left photo), Nolita, Lower Eastside (bottom, center), Chinatown, Little Italy (right photo), South Street Seaport - well, there are some closings, many new chain shops, and much fewer people around due to still closed US borders. For the rest: Not too much change. Chinatown seems to take over the Lower Eastside - on one of the photos its interesting "Tenement Museum". The "World Trade Center Site" is always impressive,,,

WTC Site with Calatrava's "Oculus" and WTC1 with Koenig's Sphere:

Above: Wall Street and South Street Seaport at the southern tip of Manhattan.

"Da Bronx": We stayed in a nice, new hotel in the South Bronx - the Wingate by Wyndham - for the first three days and at our friend’s place in Harlem for two more days. The South Bronx was a „first“ for us, and, a good experience! Picking up, but still ways to go. Interesting, nevertheless. Around Alexander Ave./Bruckner Blvd. many attractive restaurants, cafés and stores opened up. We had great dinner (Peruvian/Southern comfort food) at Beatstro, sort of a "speakeasy", owned and operated by Bronx natives, painted by local artists with photos of famous DJs, reminding that this neighborhood was the birthplace of Hip Hop in the late 1970s and early 1980ies

Below: impressions from the Bronx - a street altar, Halloween decoration and murals:

      

Brooklyn’s „backyards“ - the neighborhoods which are not as well known touristically as Dumbo or Williamsburg - are a real hidden secret which we got a chance to explore thanks to our good friend Dom, a professional and successful tourguide: Sunset Park with its mostly Chinese population and the possibly best views in town, with the huge Greenwood Cemetery, where many famous people are burried (e.g. Lola Montez), an interesting culinary scene and NY’s first Coop-buildings, founded by Finish immigrants.  

Bay Ridge (pics below) with amazingly huge, gorgeous mansions and a colorful mixture of ethnicities, many Italians among them. Atlantic Avenue - cutting horizontally trough Brooklyn and ending at the new Brooklyn Piers Park - again, with beautiful views towards Manhattan’s skyline, and, with piers, which are used in many interesting ways (scroll down). 

 

We walked over the Brooklyn Bridge at sunset and that just rounded off the whole experience.

  View towards Brooklyn

View towards Manhattan

Last day: Harlem, our "home away from home", staying at our friend's place at 137th Street (left photo). We explored the famous 125th Street with the Apollo Theater and all its street vendors – on the way to get more and more "gentrificated", and, Sugar Hill - the previously wealthy Afro-American neighborhood.

               

A mosaik and a community garden in Harlem:

Sugar Hill:

Well, that was it for NYC (and the USA) for this year. But, since US borders will "officially" open on Nov. 8th, there is much more optimism now,,,