Festung Hohensalzburg

Next stop, the fortress on top of the hill. The photo is actually from the Mirabel Garden across the river, but it really gives you a feeling of the sheer size of the complex. Interior views are equally impressive, as we'll see a little later down below. Or we would, if I were any good at taking photos.

Salzburg became the seat of the Prince Archbishop in 582 CE. Formerly the Roman city of Iuvavum, German speaking people came to the area during an expansion of the Bavarian stem duchy, and the former Catholic diocese was re-established by Rupert of Salzburg. In iconography, Saint Rupert is often pictured with a barrel of salt, remember this later.

The history of the area is quite interesting, as there was a lot of back and forth, a good deal of fighting, Magyar incursions, disagreements between bishops, church officials, emperors, and et cetera. The bishop took the side of the Pope during the Investiture Controversy (one of my favorite stories in Medieval history: Pope Gregory VII vs Emperor Henry IV) which in the long run didn't work out so well for the parties that backed the Church. The bishophric stood on the border between the Wittelsbach and Hapsburg families, eventually aligning with the Hapsburgs.

While there was a roman fort at the site, the construction of the structure there now was begun by Archbishop Gebhard von Helfenstein in 1077. It was expanded over the centuries as the Archbishops gained more wealth and power (remember that salt?). Prince Archbishop Burkhard von Weisbriach was responsible for building a number of the towers and outer walls in 1462. An early modern version of a funicular rail system, the Reisszug, was added somewhere between 1494-1505 to carry supplies up to the fortress. It's still there, and we rode on it. The version today is a lot like the lift they use at Hillbilly Golf in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, though fully enclosed. Score one for the hillbillies.

The fortress only came under siege once, during the German Peasants' War in 1525. It was surrendered to French Troops in 1800 during the War of the Second Coalition. After secularization, it was repurposed as there was no more ruling Prince Bishop: barracks and storage depot until 1861, and a prison thereafter. Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg's government kept Nazi activists prisoner there until the Anschluss in March 1938.

Today, it offers stunning views of Salzburg and the mountains beyond. There are rooms open to the public, converted into museum spaces, and when we went, a creepy puppet exhibit. If you like puppets, apologies. They're not my thing, but since we paid for it, we went to look at them.

The museums were well done, parts of the interiors quite impressive. In parts there are a lot of gold, a lot of ornamentation, which is exactly what one would expect from the residence of a Prince Archbishop. It seemed a bit underdone to me, but again, as I mentioned, it's not like other castles/palaces where they sought to recreate the actual living space of the inhabitants at their height.

Again, the size of the fortress is amazing. When you're inside, you can see how enormous it truly is. Even though I've spent a good deal of time reading Medieval and Early Modern History and I knew intellectually how big these places could be, the scale was a bit surprising.

All of this from a simple bailey style fortress with wooden walls.Leer más