This was my third trip to Salzburg, a wonderful place to visit any time of year, though early January would not have been my first choice. I had some work and sleep to catch up on, and they kept us busy with concerts and dinners, so this won’t be the grand tour. We won’t be taking the Sound of Music Bus Tour, visiting the museums or Fortress, or taking any day trips to visit the salt mines or Hitler’s Eagles Nest, as I did on prior trips.We’re just going to take a few hours to visit my fave spots in this wonderful little city.
Mozart was born in Salzburg, and was court musician to the Archbishop here in his early career. The city celebrates him with festivals twice a year, one in late January and a bigger one in the summer. A visit to his birth house is a must.
If you miss the festivals, catch his music at the Mozart Dinner theater- it sounds hoaky, but it really is a nice experience – they serve a menu from Mozart’s era and serenade you with his music. ( Definitely beats the Sound of Music Dinner Theater, which is to be avoided at all costs.)
Chess at Kapitel Platz
Salzburg Markets
The weekday Green Market is located near Collegiate Church. It was small in this weather, but there were still beautiful breads and meats. Even better is the Thursday Schrannen Market at Mirabellplatz, and the Christmas markets in December. Maybe next time.
Shopping in Salzburg
Shopping in Salzburg is a cultural experience, as you wander through the old streets and narrow alleyways. There are literally hundreds of shops, and prices are not always so cheap. I mostly window shoppe, but always stop at Furst Condiserie for chocolate and visit the tiny Kaslochl Kaserei near the river just down from the Mozart Geburtzhaus.
I recall my first visit to this tiny family-owned cheese shop 9 years ago. The owner’s two -year old daughter was sitting beside her on the counter. Of course, she’s a big girl now and was in school the morning of my visit, but I had a nice talk with Mom about the cheese business, and bought some local goat cheese for lunch.
My favorite place to shop in Salzburg is Interio. It’s sort of like a slightly upscale IKEA. I got some gorgeous placemats.
Near Interio is Ma Lai a wonderful woman’s clothing shop that mixes new and used clothing.
The Supermarket
One of my favorite things to do in a foreign country is to go food shopping. It makes me feel like a local, and I love exploring the local foods. Here in Austria, it’s the meats that are unusual – many varieties of smokes bacon and pork, with Speck being the local favorite. (My colleague Amos tells me that Speck is amazing, so I buy some to bring home – I’ll tell you how it is once I use it.)
I pick up some teeny sausages for my lunch and head down the aisles. I note that every kind of sugar imaginable is available, including beet sugar.
Entire aisles of chocolate, and I notice mostly locals buying it.
I pick up some tiny noodles for soup and mayonnaise. Why the mayo? It was in a tube!
Biking in Salzburg
My Lunch
Having spent a good 5 hours wandering the city, I headed back to my rooms at the Schloss to enjoy a late afternoon lunch with the provisions I had purchased. I fell in love with the tiny sausages – so delicious!
What is so special about “beet sugar”? In Europe is the most common sugar, cane sugar is considered more special.
Ok, it is not too usual to find it in a nice box, and bio, like the one you show, but it is the sugar we use most and consider less interesting.
And it is not possible to have it less refined (like you can have brown cane sugar), it is rather disgusting before being cleaned up of all “beet residues”.
I have no idea what beet sugar tastes like, if it is good or why one would use it. I just found it intruiging.
They also had various varieties of unrefined sugar. More different sugars than I’d ever seen in one store before!
Beet sugar is and tastes like refined white sugar (sucrose), table sugar.
The European union is the second world exporter of sugar just exporting this kind of sugar.
It is extremely common, that’s why I’m surprised of your surprise (I’m the same anonimous as above).
There seems to be quite a lot of beet sugar produced in the USA too, only I don’t know how the source of the sugar is indicated on the package.
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