I was only in Salzburg for less than 24 hours, but the scenery and the town was truly amazing. Unfortunately, we had to leave to Vienna (and then to Prague) almost right away. They weren't lying, the sound of music really can be found throughout the streets, even more so than in Munich. We even found a cow with "The Sound of Music" painted on it, since as you may know, the movie was filmed in Salzburg. Salzburg is also the birthplace of Mozart and the locals performing on the streets do their best to show that he rubbed off on them too. Overlooking the entire town is the Salzburg Castle, which has possibly the most boring 900 year history of all castles. Basically, it was never attacked and the only time opposing forces occupied it was when it was given up to Nappoleon without a fight. But still, it was very intersting to read about the countless Archbishops who, sometimes ruthlessly, ruled over Salzburg. The view from the castle walls is absolutely breathtaking: you can see the entire town scattered around the river, as well as the clouds hovering around the peaks of the nearby alps.

This cow is painted red and black and respresents a tale of a long time ago when one of the Archbishops was under seige by the peasants of the town. They surrounded his castle, trying to starve him out of power. When he was down to his last cow, he painted it different colors every day in attempt to show that he actually had a vast supply of resources. Discouraged, the people gave up their assult. Unfortunately, we weren't able to find any real cows that were covered with paint. So sad...

I found this cow while walking back from the castle. My mom loves The Sound Of Music, so I had to snap a picture.

Here are some musicians, all playing odd string-based instruments I've never seen before. They were really good, but that still wasn't enough for me to shell out 15 euro for their CD!

This is the view overlooking the town from the Salzburg Castle ...

... and this is the view in the other direction where the alps are.