From Munich, it is super-easy to take a day trip to Salzburg. With the Bavaria Train Pass (called "
Bayern Ticket" in German), you can go anywhere in Bavaria and also Salzburg for only 30 Euros. I think that the 30 Euros is good for up to 5 people, too.
Kev and I started our day at Munich's Hauptbahnhof, or Central Station. All of the U-bahns (subways) and S-bahns (above-ground commuter trains) stop at Hauptbanhof so it's easy to get to.
I took a photo with the Bavarian lion statute there.

We were there early so we got a coffee and a pastry (naturally) and tried to read the German newspaper.
The trip there took about 2.5 hours because we had to transfer twice. It wasn't a big deal though, because one of the advantages to traveling by Deutsche Bahn (German Railroad) is that you can peer into the pastoral Bavarian countryside.
Here I am on the train.

The way back was direct, though, and it only took 1.5 hours.
Ok, so we arrived in Salzburg and we bumbled around until we made it to the old part of town.

And here I am close to the Salzbach river.

We crossed the Salzbach river to check out the Salzburger Catherdral ("Dom") and find something to eat.

The
Salzburger Cathedral is beautiful. The entry is free, as are most European churches it seems, and the interior is covered in frescoes. It has been in a constant state of renovation since it was first built in 800 AD. It was burned to the ground and endured several remodels but has been in more or less the same state since the late 1600s. It suffered some damage to the main dome during WWII, too.
Here's the inside:

Here's one of the ceiling fresco:
Then we bummeled around to the Catacombs of St. Peter. It was a verdant and overgrown graveyard that dates to early 1620.

I spied this cool tombstone that reminded me of that children's song, "The Worms Crawl In, the Worms Crawl Out."

We were searching for the restaurant St. Peter's Keller, which we did not find until later, but we instead came across St. Peter's Bakery (
Stiftsbackerei). It was located in this charming courtyard with a water wheel to pump air into the bakery's wood ovens.

There's Kev on the stairs. You can also see the Salzburg Fortress on the hill in the background.
In any case, we ended up having some wienerschnitzel and a beer at a cafe down in the old part of town.

We needed our strength because we decided to walk to the top of "
Hohensalzburg," which is the medieval fortress that towers above the city.
We wandered up the narrow and steep cobblestone street to the castle. The entrance was 7 Euro a piece- well worth it. Here's Kev at the entrance gate and "arrow alley." There were little windows all around that archers used to ambush the enemy. It looked pretty deadly.

Here's Kev peering out of a cannon window.

Hohensalzburg was originally a monastery that was heavily fortified against foreign warring peoples or, as the case may be, Salzburgers that were seriously pissed off. The bishops and other powerful religious leaders would hole up in there. Construction on the fortress began in 1015 and it was expanded in the 1500s and during the Napoleonic wars. It was also used as a prison in WWI.
There were a few rooms at the very top of the castle that had the medieval decorations still intact.

It was easy to visualize
In the Name of the Rose in this place.
The views from Hohensalzburg were unbelievable. Here's one of the Austrian Alps.

Here's another one of the Alps with a view of the other smaller buildings within the fortress walls.

We took the little cog railcar back down (which, might I add, took 30 seconds as opposed to the 20 mins it took to walk up there) and then checked out other Salzburg sights.
First, the Christmas market had already begun in Salzburg. There are stalls upon stalls of Christmas cookies, ornaments, decorations, and presents for sale.

There are also stalls selling punch and mulled wine. We warmed up with a mug of Gluhwein, which is drunk while standing at a table that we shared with some Italians.
We also found the location of Mozart's birth.

Mozart was born in Salzburg but he was not celebrated there until his death. Now, every other thing is dedicated to Mozart here. They have numerous Mozart festivals and the city's chocolatey confection is called the "
Mozartkugel" or Mozart marble. Along those lines, before we headed back to Munich on the evening train, we enjoyed another special Austrian dish. The Dampfknodel, or steam dumpling:

The dampfknoedel is a steamed wheat bun filled with sweet stewed plums. It is smothered in vanilla sauce and topped with poppy seeds (I think). Very good. Another specialty is Austrian "nockerl" which is a raspberry and vanilla sauce topped with huge meringues.
Salzburg was beautiful. We got back to Munich at about 8pm, which was perfect because we were pretty tired from walking for 12 hours straight.
Up next- another Bavarian day trip to crazy Ludwig's castles!