Different kind of beautiful Chapter 13: Stepping into history in Fortress Hohensalzburg

Travelogue: 10th June 2015

The plan was to visit the Salzburg Fortress the following day but after resting for a while in our hotel room, the others thought that it might be a good idea to go up to the fortress today since it was still bright at 6 pm.

And so we did.

It was walking distance from our hotel to the fortress. The sun has been shy the entire day, making way for the clouds to play in the sky. It was pretty nice and cooling to walk.

Can you see the fortress at the top of the hill?

Got our tickets for the cable car. Thank God for all these things. We do not really need to hike up.

I am history junkie ok so I really loved visiting old castles and learning all about their history. Perhaps we visited the castle in the evening, there was no crowd and that makes me so happy.

Hohensalzburg Castle literally means ‘High Salzburg Fortress’ sits on top of the Festungsberg, a small hill in the Austrian city of Salzburg.

Hohensalzburg castle was refurbished from the late 19th century onwards and became a major tourist attraction with the cable car. It stands today as one of the best preserved castles in Europe. Source here. 

During the early 20th century it was used as a prison, holding Italian prisoners of war during World War 1 and Nazi activists in the 1930s.

We arrived at the top of the castle and was greeted by this spectacular view  of the mountains and the city of Salzburg.

It was gorgeous. I could not stop looking at it.

I think my travel mates felt the same way too.

It was pretty windy too. While we were busy taking photos, there was an asian lady, I am guessing she was travelling by herself, who stood on the ledge and asked someone to help take a photo of her.

I was stunned because it was such a dangerous act. Like I said, it was windy and she could have lost her balance. All for a good photo, it is just not worth it. Gosh. Young people these days, I wish you would value your life more.

I think my photos turned our great even without me standing on the ledge. Like this one, I got photobombed really bad by AK who was busy listening to the audio guides but I still think this photo turned out great!

Let’s take a group wefie shall we? And not include the background because my arm was not long enough. 

I applaud all solo travelers for having the courage to travel alone but hey, I totally enjoyed travelling with friends because we get to do things like this.

Sometimes we do stupid things together.

Sometimes, we annoy the crap out of each other……

But at the end of the day, I know I can depend on them in whenever I get in trouble during our trip like not having enough money lol.

To me, regardless of how beautiful a place is, there will always be a tinge of sadness if you are admiring it alone. It feels empty.

I feel this way whenever my travel mates are way in front of me and I am lagging far behind. Lol. This is why I talk to myself guys.

This fortress has been around for 900 years and has stand tall through the test of time.

I almost forgot that all shops closed by 8 pm. I really take things for granted in my own country because most shops only close at 10 pm. We came down from the fortress in a hurry to grab food for dinner.

In the end, I settled for Starbucks. I have never ever in my life entered an empty Starbucks. It is usually hard to even get seat in Singapore so it was an interesting experience.

The staffs were busy cleaning up and getting ready to close but the lady behind the counter served me with a warm attitude anyway. Such wonderful hospitality.

She even bothered to write a quick ‘enjoy’ on my drink. I finished my food quickly so that they could clean up and thanked the staffs before leaving.

Thank you Salzburg. It is only our first day here and I am liking it already.