Today, we are aiming for Hellbrunn Palace on the outskirts of Salzburg.

The drive is easy and we arrive around time for Cynthia to find yet another calorific confection to fuel her foray through the relatively small and intimate palace rooms and the relatively extensive gardens and trick fountains, all of which the builder, Prince-Archbishop Markus Sittikus, had constructed in two years.

Even then, it was a pleasure palace, a “villa suburbana.” He was trying to have it finished before the Austrian king came to visit (say triumphal arch, ballroom, reflecting pool, hero’s walk, trump center for the performing arts three times). Unlike modern narcissists, he succeeded.

In the palace people come and go, talking of Michaelangelo while we take in the beyond- cruel cat piano used in a 1618 parade in Salzburg, and the modern-cool sculpture in the palace music room.

From the villa, we joined a tour of the tricky fountains. Not all of them work but they are turned on and off by our guide, who clearly delights in waiting until an oblivious or forgetful tourist walks across a hidden spigot or a path bordered by sprays.

Markus clearly had a sense of humor because he built numerous scenes of miniature people — a whole town square included— powered by water as amusements along a path in his fountain garden. As visitors gathered to see them, they might be sprayed by hidden jets.

We drive through Salzburg’s suburbs and somewhat inner city not so pretty sections and find the parking lot for our “old town” hotel, the Blaue Gans (blue goose) right under perhaps the only Methodist church in Austria (hyperbolic bad joke). We check in and walk around getting fleeting glimpses of monumental structures.

Dinner was quick and so was sleep.