IBC’s Tour of the Salzburg Fortress - Unsere Führung ‘Festung Hohensalzburg’

This week we visited the fortress. Max was the tour guide that took us on this very special tour ‘Geheime Winkeln’ – ‘Secret Corners’. He took us to areas where the general public is not allowed to go.

First of all, we went to the bakery, which was called the ‘Pfisterei’. It was amazing and so interesting. We were able to see the old oven, the extremely tall chimney where they used to smoke the meat and the slab where the small animals were slaughtered. Inside the oven, it was 3 m long, but they only used the front metre for daily purposes. If there was an attack, they needed to use the 3 metres. Above the fireplace, they had several levels of poles, but again, they only needed the lower 2 levels, which were still very high up in the chimney. It was the job of the children to crawl through a very high, narrow window to help hang the meat over the poles. We were shocked that children at that time had to do such a dangerous job.

Max also showed us pictures of the fortress in 1077, in the mid-1500s, in the 1600s and, of course, how it looks today. We could see how the fortress grew bigger and bigger over time. We learnt that Leonhard von Keutschach was the only prince archbishop that lived in the fortress. He informed us that Leonhard von Keutschach had a very unusual symbol on his coat of arms. It was a turnip. The turnip was a symbol to honour his family who were turnip farmers and worked hard to pay for his education.

Danach gingen wir in die Kuenburg-Bastei. Wir mussten über eine richtig steile Stiege ziemlich weit nach unten gehen. Die Bastei wurde damals als Schutzraum vor Angriffen für die Menschen gebaut und hatte an der untersten Stelle eine Mauer mit dem Durchmesser von 5 1/2 m. Manche von uns hatten ein bisschen Angst. Es war sehr dunkel und eng in diesem großen Schutzraum und wirkte etwas bedrohlich.

Nach der Bastei schauten wir uns den Weinkeller an, der früher als Gefängnis genutzt wurde. Im Weinkeller wurden in früheren Zeiten ca. 100000 l Wein in Weinfässern gelagert.

Auf der Aussichtsplattform hatten wir einen wundervollen Blick über Teile von Salzburg. Wir konnten sogar unsere Schule sehen.

Diese Tour war so cool, dass wir auf jeden Fall in diesem Schuljahr noch einmal die Festung besuchen werden.