The Pferdeschwemme or Marstallschwemme is where horses of the court of the Salzburg prince-archbishops were watered and groomed.
The archbishops of Salzburg did everything with style. So the important task of presenting the site demanded the Baroque design skills of Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach, most prominent of the Austrian court architects, and the sculptor Bernhard Michael Mandl, who crafted a horse-tamer at work.
The frescoes were later added by Josef Ebner to complete a celebration of equine grace and power.
#salzburg #baroque #europetravel
Nightfall in Hallstatt, one of the most beautiful towns in Europe.
#hallstatt #austria #europetravel
For travellers, České Budějovice has two big things going for it. This southern Bohemian city has one of the biggest town squares in central Europe, Náměstí Přemysla Otakara II. It also has an intriguing array of historical buildings, many of them from the Renaissance.
The centrepiece of the square is a fountain known as Samsonova kašna, which depicts Samson riding the lion.
The square's lustre increases when it is illuminated at night. It's an extraordinary place that's well worth seeing. Above the building facades, which include the colourful Baroque town hall, broods the Černa věž, the Renaissance stronghold whose name translates as "the black tower".
České Budějovice is promoted as a city of beer. Lots of other places brew good beer. But for a combination of historical architecture and beer, we have to turn to cities such as Bamberg for comparisons.
#ceskebudejovice #bohemia #europetravel
I am wondering ... is Vienna the most civilised city on earth?
I know Stockholm quite well, and visited Oslo recently. Both rate highly.
But Vienna's green spaces and stately architecture give it a grace that is matched by liveability, in which the city ranks consistently at the top by world standards.
Also, Vienna is safe. About the worst that could happen to a traveller is a near-miss from a falling chestnut, slipping on dung left by one of the horse-drawn fiakers or being thoroughly overwhelmed by Baroque.
When it comes to the dung, by the way, the fiaker gathering places get hosed down pretty regularly.
Vienna public transport is excellent - in fact, brilliant. U-Bahn (metro) trains arrive at least every six minutes at most times of day. Reliance on bicycles and e-scooters and the extensive provision for them are big advantages. The use of scooters powered and unpowered by various demographics is notable on the city's streets.
The way the city's population blends formal and informal suggests tolerance, a trait that became ingrained in the city's population during its years as capital of the Austro-Hungarian empire.
Culture is a high point. The emphasis is - of course - on music, but there are extensive museums of art and aspects of history. Where else would you get a museum of world globes in the same building as a museum of Esperanto, the leading attempt so far at a manufactured global language?
When it comes to language, English is pretty well universal in Vienna. But the imperial heritage also comes out in the mixture of languages spoken. Vienna has been an international city for longer than most.
Sure, there is affluence - anyone can smell the cigars walking past outdoor restaurants on Friday and Saturday nights. And there are high rates of smoking in general - no general indoor smoking ban came into force until late 2019. Smoking is cheap in Austria.
But everyone gets out to enjoy the public spaces the city has in abundance. Dog-walking is popula
This is an ancient landscape. At Borre, near Horten, nameless chieftains and kings have lain buried for almost 1500 years. About 50 burial mounds have been identified, and some excavated, including a ship grave found in the 1850s. The site overlooks the Oslofjord and was surely a marker to passing navigators to show who ruled in this place – and for how long.
The fortress of Akershus is right in the heart of Oslo. The city, then called Christiania, was refounded around the defences in the 17th century. Throughout its useful life, Akershus was never taken by an enemy and, after a period as a prison, is again a military base.
Welcome aboard the extraordinary polar ship Fram, built by Norwegian-Scottish shipwright Colin Archer for the Norwegian polar explorer and scientist Fridtjof Nansen. Nansen and his small team failed to reach the North Pole, but the ship, designed to be driven into pack ice and drift as close as possible, helped Nansen reach farther north than any previous expedition in 1895. Fram was later used by Norway's leading polar explorer, Roald Amundsen. Today it can be explored above and below deck at an Oslo museum dedicated to polar exploration.
The view of Bergen from Fløyen, at the top of the funicular railway more than 300 metres up. Rain is quite frequent in this beautiful city - on average 239 days a year, I have read - but it can be simply an issue of short, sharp rain squalls hitting an Atlantic coastal city surrounded by seven peaks. This city and its architecture are well worth a visit and city hotels have umbrellas ready for guests to borrow or hire.
It's hard to find the tiny locality Gambogen with a microscrope, but its landscape offers views typical of the rugged beauty of Vesterålen and Lofoten. This view over the Gullesfjord shows a peak identified with the nose of a troll, according to local lore trapped out in daylight and petrified forever. The spot is not far from the car ferry service that links Bogen and Refsnes (or Revsnes) on national route 83.
Early morning view of the Trondenes kirke, the world's northernmost medieval stone church, and the waters of Mågøysundet, from Sør-Troms Museum. The spot is about 3km north of Harstad. The church's date is debated - it could be 13th or 15th century - but the museum includes a medieval farmhouse reconstructed from archaeological digs at the site.
Snow showers approach Nordkapp from the Barents Sea about noon.
