Puti's and Keiko's journey to Prague and Vienna

APRIL 06: SALZBURG

This page tells about the day we temporarily left for Salzburg to meet our dear family friend, a famous concert cellist. Her images do not appear here as I have not asked her permission to post them publicly.

Mirabell Palace

This palace was built in 1606 by the archbishop von Raitenau who descends from the Habsburgs. It now serves as the City Hall. One of its rooms is used as a small concert hall. The concert hall is noteworthy because Mozart has peformed there.

Next to the palace there is also a garden well worth viewing.

One more specialty of the palace is the Dwarf Garden, where "Dwarf" does not refer to the garden size, but the dwarf-like stone statues in it. The statues look like bizarre caricatures, but our friend assured us that the makers of the statues made them in an earnest and respectful attempt to depict his contemporary fellow people of various professions.

Mirabell Palace: Baroque Museum

This is a surprisingly little-known museum, considering that it is in the popular Mirabell Palace area and has many very unique works. Besides final works it also shows sketches and preliminaries of images whose actual versions have disappeared or never got made. This museum is going to disappear in September 2012, and the facilities become furnished for some other purpose.

The following painting and the two detail shots of it are a preparatory sketch for a cupola fresco named "Glory of Saint Benedict" and painted by Johann Georg Dieffenbrunner during 1700's. No actual version is known.

Below is Jacob Gabriel Mollinarolo: Loth and his daughter

Below is Johann Baptist Hagenauer: Pietà

Organ from 1710. 2 stops. The instrument is still working.