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.
Su questo luogo
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.
Fatti principali
- 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