Posted by The Heart of the City
Day 4 of 18… Our 2nd day in Austria began at Dom zu Salzburg, the city’s centrepiece, the heart of Salzburg. Salzburg Cathedral, as it is known in English is a Catholic church whose history dates back to year 767 when it was first built. Parts of the cathedral were destroyed by fire a few times over and every time a bigger, more beautiful church would emerge. The foundation of the Baroque exterior that we see now was laid in 1614.
During WWII, the main dome and other parts of the cathedral were destroyed when bombs finally hit Salzburg in 1944. The cathedral was rebuilt again into the grandiose structure that we see today.
Inside, the cathedral looked beautiful and elegant. It was bright. We were fascinated especially at the massive organs on the 2nd floor and by the pillars.
It was in this cathedral that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was baptised on January 28, 1756. He composed masses (music with a religious theme) here and he played mostly on the ‘Hoforgel ‘organ located at the southeastern pillar (right of the altar).
The main theme of our day, however, was Silent Night 200, and we were delighted to discover that Josef Mohr (1792-1848), the composer of the famous Christmas carol, Stille Nacht, or Silent Night in English, was also baptised in this cathedral.
Do you see my husband in this last picture? The one with a red backpack? It was at this point that he discovered a staircase to the basement, the crypt if I am not mistaken. We spent a good amount of time exploring it. It was quiet there, we could hear our footsteps and we had to whisper. It had a beautiful chapel and a small adoration room where we went inside to pray solemnly, to give thanks for all the blessings and to keep our family living a simple, uncomplicated life.
Before you go, have a look at the video that we took at the crypt. 🙂
Some Tips:
- You may visit the cathedral museum (Dommuseum Salzburg) if you have time. We did not get to do that anymore because we had other plans. We wanted to see the Silent Night 200 exhibit next door. Here’s the website of the museum: http://www.kirchen.net/dommuseum/besuchen/
- The cathedral museum is part of the DomQuartier ticket.
- Visit the crypt.
- We used the audio guide and guide book of Rick Steves for touring the Old Town. I actually think that his guide books have always been the best for our family’s purposes.
Here are the other posts from our Bavaria and Austria Christmas holiday
- Munich: Start of our family’s tales from last winter
- Munich: Viktualienmarkt Biergarten
- Munich: BMW Museum and BMW Welt
- Munich: Theatine Church and Odeonplatz
- Munich: Christmas Markets
- Munich: Hofbrauhaus Beer Hall
- Munich: City Aparthotel München
- Salzburg: Birthplace of Mozart and Silent Night
- Salzburg: Hohensalzburg Fortress
- Salzburg: Residenzplatz Christmas Market
- Salzburg: Salzburg Cathedral
- Salzburg: Silent Night 200 at Salzburg Museum
- Salzburg: Silent Night Tour by Bob’s Special Tour
- Salzburg: Silent Night at Oberndorf and Laufen
- Salzkammergut: Road Trip to Hallstatt
- Salzkammergut: Christmas Market at St Wolfgang
- Salzburg: Krampus Run at Hellbrunn Palace
- Salzburg: Imlauer Hotel Pitter Salzburg
- Obergurgl: A Week in the Austrian Alps
- Obergurgl: Chalet Obergurgl Luxury Apartments
- Obergurgl: Hohe Mut Alm Mountain Restaurant
- Obergurgl: Snowstorm on Christmas Eve
- Obergurgl: Day After the Storm
- Obergurgl: Snowshoeing
- Hochgurgl: Tobogganing
- Hochgurgl: Hochgurgl Cable Car Ride
- Vienna: First Impressions
- Vienna: Hofburgkapelle and Imperial Armoury
- Vienna: Schönbrunn Palace
- Vienna: Imperial Treasury and Hofburg
- Vienna: Prater
- Vienna: New Year’s Eve Fireworks and Waltz
- Vienna: Hilton Vienna Plaza
- Stuttgart: The Mercedes-Benz Museum
- Stuttgart: The Porsche Museum
Here are the other blogs on our Bavaria and Austria Holiday:
- Munich: Start of our family’s tales from last winter
- Munich: Viktualienmarkt Biergarten
- Munich: BMW Museum and BMW Welt
- Munich: Theatine Church and Odeonplatz
- Munich: Christmas Markets
- Munich: Hofbrauhaus Beer Hall
- Munich: City Aparthotel München
- Salzburg: Birthplace of Mozart and Silent Night
- Salzburg: Hohensalzburg Fortress
- Salzburg: Residenzplatz Christmas Market
We Travel Happy 
Hello.
How wonderful photos about this Cathedral. In my country on countryside we have wooden churches. They differ from this very much. For example, our beautiful and colorful bell towers are separated from churches. Some churches offer super beautiful Votive ships hanging from the ceiling, others offer unique poor-man statues. Wooden churches can be small or big. Here are photos from the world’s biggest wooden church:
World’s biggest wooden church
If you wonder what are Votive ships, then:
Ships inside churches
If you wonder how poor-man (Paupers) statues look like and what they are, then here is my first post presenting them in the world’s biggest church:
Statues of Paupers1
Have a wonderful day!
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Thank you forthe kind words. It was difficult to take beautiful pictures of the church because I was too excited to kneel and pray and look at the details of the interiors.
I checked out the links you gave. Wow! That is one BEAUTIFUL church! Ah now I get what you mean by the bell tower being separated from the main church building. I am trying to remember the last time I’ve been to a wooden church, but I couldn’t remember any. Maybe I haven’t.
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Some find cathedral crypts creepy, and okay, that may be true, but so much of the church’s (and by extension, the city’s) history is tied with people “stuck” in those crypts. Did you also see the Mary statue in front of the cathedral’s main entrance?
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Yes that’s is so true and for people who like history, we find joy exploring even creepy places. 🙂 Oh the statue in front has a transparent, cone-shaped cover that time. and surrounded by the stalls of the Christmas market. I didn’t see much of the statue? Is it beautiful?
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Oh yeah, of course, the Christmas Market is laid out in any flat space available! There’s a optical trick with the Mary statue: if you stand at the very west end of the plaza, you’ll see that the two angels on the cathedral facade in the background appear to be “crowning” or placing a golden crown on Mary’s head in the middle of the plaza. I’ll have to dig up a picture of that at some point. 😊
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Yes please give me the link to that picture, Henry! I’d like to see it. That’s really interesting 🙂
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Hi there! I finally posted on Instagram the superposition of the Mary column in front of the west facade of Salzburg cathedral. If you stand at the correct position and angle, the 2 angels with a crown on the west facade appears to crown Mary as Queen of Heaven:
* https://www.instagram.com/p/CDUXpFQpci3/
* https://www.instagram.com/p/CDaDklKp0_u/
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Thanks for the links. I’ll check them out Henry 🙂
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The cathedral interior looks beautiful and it seems Mozart got around a few church organs!
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He did! This church has 5 of them. We had a hard time figuring out which organ was his, it says it is the one right of the altar. The four of us could not agree on what ‘right of the altar’ means hahah…
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