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From Away.com
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To the Castles
Hohensalzburg: Urban Jewel

By Kit Carlson

After several days of rural roads and empty castles, Salzburg's hubbub is startling. The mighty castle Hohensalzburg perches above the old city. We can see the steeples of Salzburg and the gargantuan hulks of the Bavarian Alps spread out before us. This is the largest, best-preserved, Gothic fortress in Europe (as the signs often remind us).

Hohensalzburg is a testament not to the power of kings, but to the strange, medieval union of church and state. It was the seat of power for prince-archbishops who ruled Salzburg and its environs for almost a thousand years. In the town, they built churches to inspire the people's devotion. On the hill, they erected a castle to inspire obedience and fear. Inside the castle, they employed implements of torture to keep people in line. Spanish suspenders, for example: an iron vest, heated in a fire, then strapped onto the prisoner's torso. We peek through a grate to the dungeon, a big, dark hole into which offenders were lowered by rope and left until they rotted or were executed.

Tucked away in a glass case, I find a display that tells the story of an archbishop laid low by love.

Raised in Renaissance Italy, Wolf Dietrich sought to make Salzburg the Rome of the north. Along with Italian art and architecture, he brought his country's mores to the city. Like the Medici popes, Wolf Dietrich had a mistress, Salome Alt. She bore him 15 children; he built her a palace.

But Wolf Dietrich lost a war with the Duke of Bavaria, and the duke publicly demanded that the archbishop be punished for his sins. The sinner was imprisoned in Hohensalzburg. When he was caught dropping love letters to Salome from the palace windows, his jailers had the windows sealed.

Practically Speaking
Hohensalzburg is open year-round.

Meersburg: Well-Preserved Beauty
The drive through Austria's panhandle to Lake Constance is a drive worth taking: four hours of one outrageous alpine vista after another—here a crag, there a peak, everywhere a plethora of perfect mountains. And castles! There's a castle or a ruin every 20 miles or so. Tiny towns dating from Roman times line the shores of Lake Constance, including Meersburg—a town as enchanting, ancient, and well-preserved as Durnstein. The half-timbered houses sport green shutters, steep roofs, and gables. With its delicate paintings on stucco walls, orange clock tower, baroque palace, and castle dating back 1300 years, Meersburg is as old as can be.

If ever I wanted to lay hold of the Middle Ages, this is the place. Tradition says the castle here has been inhabited ever since 628. Even though Meersburg offers no tales of captive kings, no drunken knights, no lovelorn bishops, it brings the past to life by simply showcasing the daily routines of a medieval castle.

There is no guided tour, only a flimsy brochure describing the castle's rooms. I read, and walk, and pause, and muse: in the close confines of the Durnitz, the oldest room, with walls nine feet thick. In the hunting hall, which displays the finest collection of antlers I've yet seen, as well as the spears, swords and crossbows used to bag them. In the Palas, where medieval music plays in a distant corner, an ancient backgammon board is set up as if the lords and ladies have just left.

Practically Speaking
Meersburg is open March through October.


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Kit Carlson is a freelance writer and editor, a history buff, and a romantic. She lives in Silver Spring, Maryland.
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