The Festung Hohensalzburg is that enormous castle-thingy on the top of a big hill overlooking Salzburg.
The weather wasn't cooperating, so I took advantage of the 40-minute guided tour of some of the inner rooms in part of the fortress. It was actually an audio tour; the guide was merely there to make sure we didn't touch anything.
The picture is a little dark, I'm afraid, but those are iron manacles hanging from the wall in the "torture chamber." According to the audio guide, however, there was really not much in the way of torture or even a dungeon in the Festung since there was no civil or ecclesiastic court held in the fortress. Instead, this room was for ordinary prisoners for short term stays - the prisoners would simply be chained to the wall until they were taken somewhere else for justice. There was a former bishop once imprisoned in the fortress, but he got to stay in a nice suite of rooms in one of the towers.
I was also able to tour, in the innards of the castle, the State Rooms (not the stateroom, like your hotel room on a cruise ship!) To the right is a picture of one of the intricate doorways, and below is an intricate bread oven the was used for special treats for the bishops who called the Festung home.
The Festung is also home to a marionette museum which I did not peruse, and a small museum (in German only) which appears to chronicle Austria's World War I involvement through displays of uniforms, models, rifles and other military paraphernalia, including an enormous collection of military awards and honors, orders and insignia.
I ambled through a couple of the gift shops, too. Some neat stuff if you want to buy a full-sized knight's helmet (which I kind of did - but think about having to explain it to the TSA - "but sir, it's not a weapon - it's just a metal hat!!")
I had taken the funicular up to the castle, but I decided to walk down the steep and winding footpath back to the Aldstat. There I had a late lunch at the fair and did some people watching.
OK, I did some people listening, too. I know I seem to keep coming back to the fair, but it's a lively place - full of energy - and you can't help but to smile. I also decided to check out St. Rupert's Church, since this is his festival.
ABOVE, Left: the knave approaches the nave. Right: the ornate ceiling of the sanctuary.
Having gone to church like a good boy, I decided to head back to the hotel for a bit. Plus, it was starting to rain pretty hard again. Got back, drafted and uploaded the Krazy Interlude, and mapped out my route to my dinner destination of the evening --
The Augustiner Bräustübl - a biergarten that's been in operation for hundreds of years and which employs a secret recipe. The beer is still made in oak barrels, and the staff actually tap the barrels in front of you with old fashioned taps that they hammer into a bung hole (yes, I said a bung hole, but the use was entirely appropriate!)
They have a peculiar procedure here, too - you get your own earthenware mug from a shelf, rinse it in a clear water fountain, and then bring your dripping mug to the tapmeister for your beer to be pulled from the oak cask. You also get your own food, at any one of more than a dozen food stalls around the periphery of the biergarten. I had half a chicken.
At the Augustiner Bräustübl I met these folks, who live in Bavaria (the political subdivision of which Munich is the capital) but who took a train from Munich just to have dinner and drinks here. 
There's a fourth person, but he's the one who took the slightly blurry photo for me. We're all about the same age (I think I look the youngest) and we enjoyed our dinners, a few beers, and good fellowship together. As we were all getting ready to leave, they invited me to meet them on Monday at their reserved table at Oktoberfest to join them in another round or two, and to hoist our tankards with yet another resounding "Probts!" - wait, that's the host of Survivor - I mean "Prost!" I plan to take them up on their offer.
I made it back to the hotel and found that the Wifi wasn't working. It still wasn't working on Sunday morning. I left for Munich on a 9:02 AM OBB Railjet and arrived in Munich at about 10:30. The train supposedly has free wifi, but it wouldnt let me login for some reason. Got to the hotel by about 11:15, but couldn't check in. I had to leave my bag and head out for a few hours to kill time - and I still couldn't post this entry. Obviously I'm in the hotel now, but I'll tell you about my first day in Munich in my next entry!
Baaderßtrasse 1, Munchen, Germany
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