Freilicht Open Air Museum

In Salzburg we went to the “Freilicht” or “Open Air” Museum. It was a museum about how Bavarian people around the Salzburg area lived over 400 hundred years ago. They had lots of old houses that they disassembled and moved onto the museum site.

The “Open Air Museum” was very different from our other museum experiences because it was more like a life scale village than a museum. It was good to have a guide because all the houses looked the same after a while.

Before the industrial revolution metal nails were scarce. Because of this they used wooden beams weighed down by rocks to keep the roof shingles on their houses in place. They would have to flip the shingles over every few years because the weight of the rocks would crush the overlapping sides of the wooden shingles.

They also had to weave wood together to make fences. They looked pretty cool and would have been super hard to make. They had different styles of fences for different houses. My favourite one is the one that looks crisscrossed.

It would have been smokey inside the houses because not everyone had chimneys and they had open fires to cook. They also had metal spikes in the windows to prevent children climbing in and stealing stuff.

Dad was interested in the layout of the house. Usually 2 generations of farmers would live in one house. The way the door swung was the side the younger farmer lived and the opposite side was for the retired farmer. The kitchen and living room was on the bottom floor. The second floor was for bedrooms and the third floor was reserved for storage. 

Pigeon house in the top right

The animals usually lived in a barn connected to the back of the house. This means the farmer lived under the same roof as his animals! Horses even could have their own room because they were important and expensive. They sometimes had little pigeon houses so when someone was sick they could eat the pigeons in a soup (like we now eat chicken soup).

Chamber pot in the bedroom

Going here made me so glad that nowadays we have much better living conditions and that we live in a warm place like Townsville.

Spikes in windows to prevent trespassers

Thanks for reading! And until next time, if you’re a pigeon, do not go anywhere near Bavarian or Austrian farmers.