The Salzburg City Center is actually surrounded by hills, with a river running through it. One of the hills is supposed to be in a good defensive position, which is why they have this big Fortress sitting on top of it. As Salzburg literally means Salt Castle, salt (which was valuable back then) is what they stored in the fortress. Now it is a popular tourist attraction, with its entrance in the Old Town, offering Cable Car ride up to the fortress. Some of the things they display in the Fortress is kinda interesting; there is a small museum of Marionette (like puppets), and some exhibition on the history of Salzburg and the Fortress. But I was more interested in seeing the view of the city from here, even though it’s been raining on and off the whole time.
To get a good view of the Fortress, on the other hand, we went to the the Mirabell Garden in city center. The garden is part of the Mirabell Palace, now a city administration office and library. The garden with fountains and the view of the fortress is a major attraction in itself. We didn’t get to see the inside of the palace though.
Other than the hill where the Fortress is situated, there were other hills that offer good view of the city. One is just across the river from the Old Town, where we climbed some stairs to get to a church. There is a watchtower and some opening with a good view of the river and the Old Town. Another good viewpoint is where the Museum of Modernity located, on the north end of the Old Town. They run an elevator service from street level up to the museum. The view is not as good as the other two, but the museum is not bad. It happens that they have some kind of Chinese exhibition; their theme name is Mahjong, but we didn’t see any Mahjong related.
