Thursday, June 02, 2005

SALZBURG: The Old Town Churches

What is it with me and churches! For two months now I've been trying to figure it out. Let me tell you what I think it's NOT: it's not about my being a preacher's kid or about the religious services (we never attempt going) or even about the interiors (many, if not most of the churches we never enter). I've decided it must be the architecture, especially the steeples!

Anyway, since my Salzburg-churches photo album is large (136 photos), here's the blue-book version:

1: Salzburg Cathedral, 1614, from where we caught our horse-and-buggy ride around Old Town and where we had the delightful surprise of seeing/hearing a men's choir outside on the front steps Sunday afternoon.

2 and 3: Collegiate Church, 1696, with its small circle of chairs set up for Sunday worship, reminding me of the Catholic renewal days years ago; and the Franciscan Church, 1120.

4 and 5: Abbey Church of St.Peter, from a monastery founded in 696, and the free-standing Chapel of St. Margaret, 1491, in St. Peter's cemetery, the oldest Christian burial ground in Salzburg. This is the cemetery used as a model in The Sound of Music when the von Trapp family was escaping from the Nazis.

6 and 7: St. Blasius Hospice Church, 1350, and Church of St. Michael, 1776.

8 and 9: Nonnberg Abbey Church, 700, where Maria was a novice in The Sound of Music, and the castle Chapel of St. George, 1501.

There you have it and, by George, I think I got it! Not only the 9 main churches, all of different architecture, but their steeples. My photos betray me. It is the architecture and the steeples!

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