Masks of Mirabell

In a nutshell – expect this here.

It feels a bit like hide and seek. By walking down the famous Sound of Music Steps, flanked by two Unicorns , into Mirabell Gardens you automatically lose all your attention to the jumping Pegasus in the middle of the fountain. A shame that most of the visitors overlook all the small treasures around. The breathtaking Mirabell Gardens built in 1606 keep many secrets you would normally not stumble upon. It takes a closer look to discover two ancient heads, carved in at the wall between the entrance to the dwarf garden and the Sound of Music stairs. Frightening and bizarre, they stare at you between lush rose tendrils as if they were silently calling for your help. can you find them?

Where can you find this place?

The full story of the Masks of Mirabell

The “Wonderful Garden”, as it is called, was built in various stages around Mirabell Palace. Archbishops left their footprints and expanded it continuously, although the basic geometric features and optical alignment with the Salzburg Cathedral have never been changed.

A garden for dwarves

Archbishop Johann Ernst Graf Thun laid-out the so-called dwarf garden, which was decorated with 27 life-size marble dwarfs. (Today there are still 18 left) To separate the dwarf garden and the bastion from the front garden and palace, the bishop had built of various rubble.

The big fire

A good hundred years later, a great fire raged in the city of Salzburg. The fire damaged many buildings, including Mirabell Palace. Today it is assumed that several statues were originally erected on the roof of the castle. With the fire itself and its extinction those figures were fully destroyed. An alternative hypothesis is a storm that knocked the statues to the ground. What so ever, during the clean-up work, some fitting stone pieces were again used to mend the rubble wall. It was also possible to rescue two faces of the rooftop statues. A memorial was set up for them by granting them a front row seat at Mirabell Gardens from where they should be able to observe all visitors ever since.

Forage for further odd places in Salzburg

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