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Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Eastern europe day 12


The temperature in Salzburg was a sweltering 30+ degrees. I think the coolest place in town must certainly be this cathedral. The cathedral is built in the early baroque style. It is naturally cool, there is no air-conditioning in the building but it's actually quite quite cool and was a welcome respite from the heat in the square outside. So, we all took our time in this incredibly beautiful church. The interior of the church is designed to be mostly in black and white except for the paintings of the passion of Christ. The back of the church and the hallway leading to the gorgeous altar is mostly b&w, symbolizing the darkness leading to the light of the altar. There are 5 sets of pipe organs in the cathedral with the largest one at the back. The organs can be played independent from each other and if you're lucky enough to attend one of these performances, you can hear the organists improvise musical answers to each other. This isn't the cathedral's only link to music, Mozart and Joseph Mohr, the man who wrote the lyrics for Silent Night, where both baptized in this cathedral. However, as our tour must go on, we had to tear ourselves from the cool comfort of the cathedral and re-enter the oven outside.

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