In the town itself rise two considerable hills which serve to confer upon it a distinction of its own. One, the Kapuzingerberg, on the eastern side of the river, rises to the height of 800 feet, and the second, on the western side, to a height of nearly 450 feet above the city. It is between these two that the greater part of the old town lies. The steep sides of the Mönchsberg and the Gibraltar-like rock on which the old, grey fortress of Hohen-Salzburg stands are ivy-clad, and in the crevices and fissures wall-flowers, valerian, stone-crop, houseleek, and other flowering and lichen-like plants have taken root, whilst from the greater crevices and ledges wave feathery birches, and the lower slopes are made beautiful and shady by spreading beeches and odorous limes.
After several visits to this delightful city, which has an atmosphere entirely its own, and a charm difficult to describe, one is at a loss to set down in what it exactly differs from other similar towns. Part of the attraction it possesses is doubtless owing to its situation amid a stretch of lovely valley, and its romantic and historic past. But there yet remains that elusive quality which may be described as "the personality of the town," in addition to its geographical and historical claims upon one's interest and imagination.
Salzburg is not, however, merely the name of a town, but also of a province or "department" of Austria, to which empire it is the last added territory.[15] Lying between Tyrol (of which by many it is erroneously supposed to form a part) and the Salzkammergut or the lake region of Upper Austria, which commences in the near neighbourhood of the city, it was an independent episcopal principality until after the fall of Napoleon, not having been incorporated with the Austro-Hungarian Empire until the year 1816.
THE SALZACH VALLEY
The province consists chiefly of the mountainous district of the Salzach and its numerous tributaries, which wend their way from their sources amid the glaciers and snow-fields of the great peaks of the Hohen Tauern and lesser ranges to the plain where the Salzach itself ultimately flows into the Inn.
It is the great Hohen Tauern range with its gigantic snow-crowned peaks of the Gross Glockner, 12,460 feet; Wiesbachhorn, 11,710 feet; and Gross Venediger, 12,010 feet; Hohe Furlegg, 10,750 feet; Habachkopf, 9945 feet; and many other almost equally stupendous heights, which forms the southern boundary of the ancient Principality. The whole range is one of impressive grandeur, and possesses a picturesque beauty upon its lower slopes unrivalled by any other Alpine district. The foot of the Hohen Tauern is almost invariably clad with pine forests, which melt away into the higher slopes where blooms the bright pink "alpen rosen," whilst yet higher, and just below the line of perpetual snow, on rocky ledges and on slopes of coarse grass appear the silver-white, star-like flowers of the edelweiss. Above this zone of fresh green patches amid the grey and weather-stained rocks one passes into that exhilarating region of eternal snow and ice where dwells also eternal silence unbroken by the sound of birds, the hum of insects, or murmur of other living things.
Not only is the Hohen Tauern the region of Alpine giants, vast glaciers, and untrodden snow-fields, but as a natural consequence of these things it is that of many rushing torrents, stupendous waterfalls, and tinkling streamlets, all of which contribute to make the province it borders one of the best-watered in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Upwards of half a score of large streams flow into the Salzach; whilst of fertile valleys there are so many that to number them is difficult. Most are beautiful in the extreme; many are almost unknown to the ordinary tourist, who usually sticks to the well-worn paths and more frequented highways. In the famous Krimml Falls the Province of Salzburg possesses by common consent the finest waterfalls in the German Alps. They issue from the vast Krimml Glacier and descend over the edge of a pine-clad precipice in a cloud of drifting spray into the valley beneath, a distance of nearly 1500 feet, in three stupendous leaps, the highest fall in two leaps from a height of more than 450 feet.
Although, as we have before said, almost every valley of the Hohen Tauern range is notably beautiful, none excel in interest either pictorially or geologically the longest and widest, the Gastein Valley, with the fine falls some 500 feet in height near Bockstein, where the Gasteiner Ache, after passing through narrow gorges, plunges down into the valley, and thence flows through the broad, flat plain of Hof-Gastein to join the Salzach, passing on its way delightful Bad-Gastein, with its old town of interesting and picturesque wooden houses nestling on the eastern slopes of the valley, and the newer, with its hotels, churches, villas and other handsome buildings, peeping out from amid the pine-clad slopes or lying in the valley itself. It is a delightful though nowadays fashionable health resort, at which many tastes, both gay and quiet, are consulted.
From Lend at the foot of the Gastein Thal to pretty little St. Johann, where the Salzach flows northward, the river has passed without opposition quietly onward. But at St. Johann are some towering and remarkable limestone peaks, including those of the Tennen and Hagen Ranges, some of them attaining an altitude of 8000 feet; with the desolate-looking Steinerne Meer, 8800 feet on the western flank, and the Dachstein more than a thousand feet higher on the eastern. The river flows onward to a point where the two ranges we have mentioned coalesce. Here the great ravine known as the Lueg Pass, six miles in length and possessing fine scenery, forms a very fitting entrance to the beautiful valley of Golling, which gradually opens out from Hallein onwards till Salzburg itself is reached.
The valley of the Salzach on its eastern side is bordered by a range of pleasant green-clad heights and gentle slopes, with the Gaisberg, 4290 feet, a short distance to the north-east of Salzburg itself, dominating them, from which point the mountains gradually decrease in height. From Golling onwards, however, the western side of the valley is shut in by great peaks, some of which spread out their lower and rounded emerald green slopes towards the river. Of these impressive and beautiful mountains the Hohe Göll, 8275 feet, the majestic Watzmann, 9050 feet, the chief of the Berchtesgaden group, are the most noticeable. The cave-pierced and lofty, dome-shaped Untersberg, the highest point of which is the Berchtesgadener Hochtron of 6480 feet, standing isolated like a sentinel in the plain near the city.