On our second day in Salzburg, we took a 2-hour bus ride to an important, if intense, site in Austrian history: the Mathausen Memorial, dedicated to the victims of the Holocaust.
The location used to be an old stone quarry and the internees were political prisoners from all around Europe. The site has moving memorials and reconstructions of buildings dating from 1938 to 1945. It was one of the last places to be liberated by the American troops.
After this tough historical visit, we went back in time to the 1600s and spent a few hours at the Hellbrunn Palace, wandering around the gardens and summer pleasure palace of Markus Sittikus von Hohenems, a former archbishop of Salzburg. We then took a 45-minute tour through his “trick fountains,” several spots around the palace that were designed to get guests of all types wet from hidden sprinklers. Very creative!
-Jeanne Scheppach (Photos by Hannah Welch)
