We were walking together, this girl and me, and it was our first week in Salzburg. I didn’t know at the time that this particular individual would turn out to be one of the greatest friends I’d ever meet; we walked together from the necessity of familiarity in a city full of strange people and places older than anything we’d experienced on our way to something else brand new.
We left way too early; the pizza place that was to be our dinner wasn’t even open yet. We walked to the old town then, looking for a stand, a hole in the wall, anything with palatable sustenance. We left early to avoid being late, we left so that any other new obstacle wouldn’t be one that made life even more stressful while trying to find a room in streets that wound organically from 1,000 years of use.
We found pretzels, I think– there’s a green market in the heart of the old city, between the Universitatskirche and the Getreidegasse, right outside the Mozart family’s first backdoor, and there are a few stands with pretzels there that could put Auntie Ann to shame. Armed with that excellent dinner, we wended our way to the back door where we were trying to be, arriving, of course, 45 minutes early. As it was January, and it was early evening, it was already dark and most things were closed, and so we found ourselves standing and talking in the heart of the Old Town, the Altstadt, at 6:00 PM on the dot.
The Altstadt was completely redecorated in the Baroque style by one of Salzburg’s many ruling Prince-Archbishops; the result is a stunning conglomeration of majestic, two steepled cathedrals, stately pseudo-palaces, fountains, and old houses and shops, all in the shadow of Salzburg’s distinctive 9th century fortress and nestled between the three city mountains. Churches abound in the Altstadt: Salzburg was an independent bishopric of the Holy Roman Empire, an outpost of the Vatican, until 1805, so beautiful Catholic churches are all around. As good Catholic places of worship, each church and building associated with the Holy See is equipped with its own bells: The Dom, Salzburg’s main cathedral (and Mozart’s inspiration for several masses) has massive, deep, bone-quaking bells; the Residenz, home of the Archbishops, a delicate glockenspiel; and the rest of the churches in the city and the nunnery and two monasteries tolling down from the mountains somewhere in between.
It was 6:00pm, and every bell in the city began to ring. The girl and I were discussing life back home, I think: she has more siblings than I could straighten in my head, and we had just begun to talk about the differences between her native Georgia and my New York when the bells began.
There is nothing that I will experience like those bells the first time I heard them ever again.
I have heard them since, and I hope to hear them again, but standing in their music, in the center of all the churches, in the courtyard between the home of the Bishops and the great Dom, is an experience that I will hold dear for the rest of my life.
The first bells began, and we stopped talking to listen. They were beautiful; real bells tolling, not like the giant speakers in churches back home. The next church’s bells began, and their dissonance created a harmony that was quite striking. When the third set of bells began to toll, while their neighbors continued, the experience began to be quite special: after 30 seconds, so many sets of bells were ringing in a music so unique, so loud, that all we could do is stare open-mouthed at each other in wonder. Had we wanted to speak, we couldn’t have heard each others’ voices; so many bells were ringing so close to each other and us that even shouting to each other wouldn’t have been effective (and it would have marred the music, anyway).
The bells tolled in their many voices, calling to each other that the day was three-quarters through, their silver and gold and bronze toned voices echoing through the Baroque square, beautiful in the cacophony. They sang, some brightly, some so low that we could feel them in our souls, that it was six o’clock, and time for the people to be home with their families, preparing for dinner together, chiming that all was well. They welcomed the girl and me to our new home in Salzburg, letting us know that even if we were homesick, bewildered, and afraid, the bells would report that time was turning, steady and reliable, and we could always count on their exquisite tolling for stability and comfort.
The bells tolled, and Salzburg became a little more home.
(Love and miss you, Marigrace! I’ll treasure this moment with you forever.)
