Kapitelplatz & the Kapitelschwemme
A broad, sunny cathedral square beneath the fortress, where a giant golden sphere and a permanent chessboard share the cobbles with a theatrical Baroque horse pond. This is Salzburg exhaling, the last easy ground before the stone steps climb to Maria's real convent.
À propos de ce lieu
Kapitelplatz, the Chapter Square, opens behind the south flank of the Cathedral in the heart of the old town, a broad sunlit space watched over by the Hohensalzburg fortress on the hill above. Its centrepiece is the Kapitelschwemme, a theatrical Baroque horse pond built in 1732 for Prince Archbishop Leopold Anton von Firmian, where a marble Neptune reins in a rearing horse and the mounts of the cathedral clergy were once led down to drink and be washed. Today the square mixes old and new: Stephan Balkenhol's giant golden sphere Sphaera, topped by a solitary standing man, was installed in 2007, and a permanent oversized chessboard draws players onto the cobbles. The lower station of the Festungsbahn funicular, running up to the fortress since 1892, sits at one edge, and a flight of worn stone steps climbs from here toward Nonnberg Abbey, making this quiet, locals' square the natural gateway between the film set old town and the real convent above.
À retenir
- 1732 year — The Kapitelschwemme horse pond was built for Prince Archbishop Leopold Anton von Firmian, whose Latin boast that he built it is still carved across it
- 1892 year — The Festungsbahn funicular began hauling visitors from this square up to the Hohensalzburg fortress, and still runs as one of the oldest in Austria
- 3 horse ponds — The third and last of the grand Baroque horse ponds on this walk, after the Pferdeschwemme and the Residenz fountain