STOWAWAY TO SALZBURG

By Greg Evans

Nearly a month has passed since we sat in an astral medieval music room in the 900 year-old Hohensalzburg Castle and listened to an ensemble performing the enduring compositions of Mozart, Hayden and Dvorak as the sun set over the most beautiful and romantic city in Europe, Salzburg. An enchanting Baroque city on the banks of the Salzach river and the northern boundary of the Alps, it remains an absolute gem to those lucky enough to wander the ancient cobbled streets and speak with the kind and curious locals.

Almost every night I find myself dreaming of having coffee with Mom and Mary at the Cafe Tomaselli and eating fried fish and chocolates on the Getreidegasse stopping into small shops to chat with the pretty Salzburg girls working behind the counters. I strolled with the ghosts of Leopold and Wolfgang, shared communion with St. Rupert and scribbled lines of poetry in Mirabell garden while the sound of Mozart's piano concerto no. 21 floated through the warm balmy air. The sweet scent of blossoming flowers, that I longed to pick and place on the hotel window sill, carried in the breeze. Along the river we rode on a square barge against the racing green water flowing down from Bavaria, as the city, stoic and alert passed by eyeing us suspiciously. The ash gray stones of the old cathedrals, worn and tired, history written in the dust collected on the rafters and the echoes of the haunting organ. We sipped Austrian wine and dined on bread and soft sweet cheeses thinking slowly and speaking of music and Mozart, admiring the view from the Straatsbrucke, the padlocks placed for posterity clinging for dear life above the raging water. On the 26th exchange downstream is where ours is located, there forever. There for some great, curious mind to stumble upon one day and stare at it and wonder of the lives that were once lived, tired hands that placed that rusty lock there so many years before.

I have never in my life stumbled upon such an endearing place as Salzburg. Never have I left a city I only just met and experienced such terrible nostalgia. Never have I gazed into the eyes of a local population and felt as if I had known them somewhere before. The angle at which the fading light strikes the city and the eye, the manner in which the aromas catch the breezes and how the music of the people and the past ricochet off the stone walls and steep cliff sides, tales told by candle light and every day a new experience, a new emotion and a new memory. It is the last pure place on the planet and forever etched in my mind that first moment I stepped foot into the old town and for a minute I wondered if I was flying. Soaring over the rooftops like a sparrow, exploring the new town with the wistfulness of a young child, grasping a hold of every scent and sight, sound and sensation of touch and timeless dreaming. Humming The Sound of Music and dancing in the moonlight with a beautiful girl in a green Dirndl with green eyes and braided blond hair, soft hands and a gentle smile. A silver brooch glimmers in the lantern light, and the scent of a freshly lit cigar lingers.