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Salzburg’s Linzergasse: Mail Coaches, Inns and TavernsShielded and shaded by the Kapuzinerberg hill, the ancient Linzergasse leads up from the Platzl next to the Staatsbrücke, to where the Linzer Tor marked the end of the city until 1894, and is a street which hasn’t lost any of its hustle and bustle. The street has been one of the city’s main traffic routes on the right side of the Salzach since the time of the Romans and was the most important main road leading out to Linz, Vienna, and the northeastern corners of the Habsburg Empire. Speedy mail coaches, elegant traveling carriages, heavy duty ox and cart vehicles, and horse drawn vehicles all clattered down the cobbled street, taking passengers into Salzburg and filling the lane with life. A number of these beautiful old buildings can be traced back to the 14th and 15th centuries and are still places of conscientious hard work. The great fire which caused immeasurable damage to the right bank of the city in 1818, didn’t stop at the base of the Linzergasse, but the wounds have healed, and charming, lovingly cared for restored houses and buildings once again adorn this beautiful district in the city of Mozart. The Linzergasse has always been know as being typically Salzburg, with its workshops and manual trades, its small shops, its numerous restaurants and hostels, giving it a distinctive character as the sister of the international and elegant Getreidegasse, on the other side of the river. If anyone needed a wood turner, a cloth seller, a butcher, a box maker, a chain smith, a watchmaker, a cooper, a locksmith, a chemist, a doctor, a hairdresser, a sweet pastry baker, a candle maker or even a bell foundry, then the Linzergasse was the right place for centuries. Whereas the other side of the river in the archbishopric was famous for art and culture, writ large, there was little time or room for such frivolity in this narrow part of the town. Thus, the more important the architectural, cultural and historical delights visitors discover on ambling down this beautiful old lane with their eyes wide open. Coming from the Platzl down by the Staatsbrücke, the passer by can’t help seeing the building at number three, where the famous doctor and scientist, Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, aka Paracelsus, lived from 1540 – 1541. Number seven has been the home of the Engel Apothecary since 1809, whose most famous assistant was the poet, Georg Trakl, born in 1887, and who worked there for a short period. Right next door, at number nine in the Gablerbräu Hotel, there’s a memorial plaque remembering the famous singer, Richard Mayr, the incomparable “Lerchenau Ox” in Richard Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier opera, who was born in 1877 in the very same building and known for the several Mozart opera characters he played. Across the lane there’s an impressive archway and a flight of stone steps tempting visitors to explore the picturesque route up the Kapuzinerberg along ancient Stations of the Cross. With a little effort, the haul up to the Kapuzinerkloster is rewarded with a breathtakingly beautiful panoramic view of the splendor of the old town at the foot of Hohensalzburg fortress across the river. The old city walls erected during the 30 Years’ War, most of which are still intact, are spread across the side of the Kapuzinerberg like a net, and show how well the city was fortified in times of war. A few strides up the road there’s the church of St. Sebastian and the accompanying graveyard behind it, built in 1600 by Archbishop Wolf Dietrich von Raitenau in the style of an Italian “Campo Santo,” and which hasn’t lost any of its centuries of grace and quiet beauty, despite the hectic events of yesteryear and the present day. The graveyard is the last resting place of the famous doctor of his time, Paracelsus. His grave carries the inscription: “On the 24th of September 1541, he exchanged life for death.” The splendorous mausoleum for Archbishop Wolf Dietrich von Raitenau, probably Salzburg’s most famous ruler of the baroque period, in the centre of the graveyard, has always attracted visitors. For music lovers in the search of traces of Mozart’s past on the way to the mausoleum there are also the resting places of several figures in his midst: Mozart’s father, Leopold and his wife, Constanze, her second husband, Georg Nikolaus von Nissen and her Aunt, Genovefa von Weber, mother of the composer, Carl Maria von Weber. Old citizens and business families were laid to rest amongst the stately arcades of the graveyard and a stroll around these holy walls is equal to leafing through the pages of Salzburg’s history. The artful restoration of the Church of St. Sebastian was savior for Philipp Hinterseer’s glorious iron trellis work and the high altar is adorned with Hans Waldburger’s statue of Mary from 1611.
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