The mountains, the baroque buildings, the countless steeples. But there was one thing that was ubiquitous in Salzburg - pigs. Sausages on every food stall, ham virtually on every dish, plush toy pigs, pig keychains, hats shaped like pigs, pig T-shirts, bread and sweets in the shape of pigs. Had I accidentally fallen into a pigsty? What was that about? In times of war, people didn’t have much to eat, and families with pigs were considered fortunate because they wouldn’t starve. Therefore pigs in Austria became a symbol of good luck, and are seen everywhere around New Year. I’m not sure pigs themselves would agree: besides having their image exploited royalty-free, they get slaughtered. If I were a pig, I’d stage a revolt à la “Animal Farm” and really take over Salzburg. Power to the piggies!
With so many pig symbols, you’d think Salzburg owes its existence to pig farming, but it was actually the mining of salt, a valuable commodity and at one point called “white gold”, that put Salzburg on the map. Salt was so important to Salzburg that it even gave the town its name, which translates as Salt Castle. But Salzburg is more often associated with music and its most famous son is Mozart.
Mozart needs no introduction. The man was a musical genius – he started composing at 5, wrote over 600 pieces during his short 34-year life and was able to write down entire scores from memory after hearing them only once. He was born and lived in Salzburg until 24, but left as soon as he could because he earned little as a court musician and didn’t have many opportunities to compose what he wanted. Salzburg may have been a bad fit for him, but the town idolizes him in every possible way. There’s the Mozart birthplace, the house where Mozart grew up, and, more than anything else, the Mozart chocolate. On every supermarket, grocery store, souvenir shop, food stall there it is - his face on countless chocolate boxes. I’m sure Mozart wanted to be remembered; I’m not sure though that he’d have wanted to become a chocolate poster boy.
Music also put Salzburg in the spotlight in the 20th century – namely the movie The Sound of Music, which tells the story of the Trapp singing family who fled the Nazis and went to the U.S. in the late 1930s. The real Maria von Trapp sold the story rights to Hollywood for a mere US$9,000 but when she actually saw the movie, she got really upset with all the inaccuracies and was going to denounce it. 20th Century Fox then offered her US$900,000 and she was upset no more.
Austrians don’t seem too fond of the movie either, but the truth is that the most popular tours in Salzburg are those that take you to some of the movie’s locations. They sounded cheesy to me, but I joined one with Panorama Tours anyway and was glad I did because Peter, our guide, was excellent and made me laugh almost all the way through by making fun of all the absurdities in the movie. Plus, we got lucky with the weather and were able to see some beautiful scenery along the way.
And to prove that Salzburg is not only about music of ages past, one of the holiday events was a free rock concert at one of the town’s squares. The band played covers for 2.5 hours and closed the show with a song by…Abba! And after watching them, it became blatantly clear why there is no famous Austrian rock band.
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