We started from Vienna on a Sunday morning on board the steamboat Karl for Linz; and trudging thence on foot came on the following Saturday night into Salzburg, the queen of the Salzack. We rested here one happy Sunday: not so much in the town, which had its abundant curiosities, as in the pleasure gardens of the old Archbishops of Salzburg, at an easy stroll from it. This garden is pleasant enough in itself, but there are besides a number of water eccentricities in it such as I should think were in their peculiar fashion unequalled. Here blooms a cluster of beautiful flowers, covered as it were by a glass shade, but which turns out to be only water. There a miniature palace is in course of erection, with crowds of workmen in its different storeys, each man at his avocation with hammer and chisel, pulley and wheel, and the grave architect himself directing their labour. All this is set in motion by water, and is not a mere doll’s house, but a symmetrical model. Then we enter a subterranean grotto, with a roof of pendant stalactites, where the pleasant sound of falling waters and the melodious piping of birds fill all the air. There is a sly drollery too in some of the water performances, invented years ago by the grave Archbishops of Salzburg; for suddenly the stalactites are set dripping like a modern shower bath: and the gigantic stags at its entrance spout water from the very tips of their horns. The garden is not a Versailles, for there is nothing grand in any of its hydraulic arrangements; but in the beauty with which are clothed such trifles, the artistic spirit which has suggested its objects, and the humour which spirts up tiny jets of water by seats where lovers sit, and in unsuspected places where the public congregate, even in the middle of a walk, it is a wonderful and delightful exhibition. This garden was thronged by the holiday folks of Salzburg. There was an official to explain the curious display, and nothing but innocent gaiety was to be seen.
The Sunday we spent in Munich was passed in the Kirche Unserer Lieben Frauen, with its self-supporting roof; in the English Garden; and at a lovely spot on a hill-side, in the environs of the city. During the week we were escorted by a friend to a sort of tea-gardens of some notoriety, but found it silent and deserted. Our friend apologised for its dulness, but exclaimed, in part explanation, “You should see it on Sunday!” It was evident that Sunday was a day of rest and enjoyment, and not a working day in Munich. My own impression of the Munichers was, that they drank too much beer every day in the week.