What I did on my holidays, 9 – wet Salzburg | Steer for the deep waters only

What I did on my holidays, 9 – wet Salzburg

And today, the weather had changed. Just like that. It was far cooler, and wet; a constant drizzle, with low cloud that looked much more like October than August. We felt quite at home, although my summery straw fedora wasn’t appropriate holiday wear any more.

I went and did some railway photography at Mülln-Altstadt, a new S-Bahn (suburban railway) station on the other side of the river which was being built last time I was in Salzburg in 2007. Although it was a Sunday morning, there was plenty of passenger traffic, both local and long-distance, and even a freight train. The surroundings were less than ideal: the view from the platform end seemed to give me a very un-Salzburg-like background of brutalist architecture; but I suppose it’s a useful reminder that the places we go on holiday have their own populations and that not all of them work in hospitality. People who live in touristy spots need insurance and washing machines as much as you or I do.

In about an hour, I saw trains from Austria and Germany, belonging both to their respective countries’ State railways and “private” operators. I say “private”, but that doesn’t mean quite what it means in the UK. For instance, after German re-unification, a lot of local railways were “privatised”, but the shares were taken up roughly 30% by the regional government, 30% by the State railway, and 30% by the redevelopment banks, which themselves are part State-owned. Or look at the picture above of the Westbahn train. Westbahn run non-State railway services on the route from Vienna via Salzburg to Munich. They were set up as an open-access competitor to the Austrian state railway (ÖBB) to take advantage of EU anti-competitive practice rules. Yet the French state railway operator SNCF holds 17% of the shares. It seems that the Lilley Doctrine (named for the Thatcher-era Minister Peter Lilley, who once asked “Why did we privatise our railways only to let foreign governments buy them up?”) is ignored as much on the Continent as we’ve allowed it to be in the UK.

Trains from the Bavarian Bayerische Regiobahn run into Salzburg, and many local services are run jointly by both State operations. And just to add colour, ÖBB has sold advertising space on some of its engines to various organisations. Just as I was coming away, I was able to capture a view of a Taurus locomotive advertising the association for Austrian organic farmers, Bio Austria.

Anyway, a little later we wandered along the riverbank – still well-patronised despite the rain – and passed the house long occupied by the conductor Herbert von Karajan. A statue in his memory stands in front of it:

We then headed for the Mozart family home, which now houses a museum devoted to the Mozart family; specifically, to Mozart’s father Leopold (who made his fortune by writing a best-selling violin tutorial) and his sister Maria (known to the family as Nannerl). The museum has various letters and other family documents, original scores and some instruments owned by Mozart himself. It’s not a big museum, but it is quite an interesting one.

But before then, we went to warm up in the café attached to the Mozarthaus. This is a proper Austrian café, offering Gulaschsuppe, Sachertorte and steaming cups of großer brauner coffee; all good, solid Austrian fare appropriate to a cold, wet day – even if it was still August!

The Mozarthaus – with the café on the left.

And then, before retreating to the hotel, we looked at the adjoining birthplace of the physicist Christian Doppler (the effect named for him is well-known, especially if you think of train whistles and police sirens). Perhaps not the most famous son of Salzburg, but a notable one nonetheless.