The Last Trees of the Fordhof

A grand hotel once stood where an apartment courtyard is now, and two of its trees are the only things that survived the change. The Hotel de l'Europe operated from 1865 to 1938, was bombed and stood empty until cleared around 1949, and the housing blocks of the Fordhof estate went up on the same ground in 1953. Everything about the hotel disappeared except a plane tree and a black pine, both registered as natural monuments, both still growing in what is now a residential courtyard. The plane went onto the register in 1964, the pine in 1973, each protecting 113 square metres, and both entries say the same thing in the same words: this is one of two surviving trees from the hotel's park. That claim is the whole basis for an age. If either tree was planted right at the end of the hotel's run, it is about 88 years old; if it dates from the 1865 opening, it is 161. Nobody has narrowed that further, and neither should we. This is the least garden-like setting on Salzburg's list: an ordinary 1953 housing estate off Rainerstraße, a short walk from the main station, with public footpaths running through the courtyard between the blocks. Nothing gates it, but it takes a moment to believe two centuries-old natural monuments are sitting in someone's car park. If you know which end of that date range is closer to true, or have measured either trunk, tell us.