Our Last Day in Europe

Sunday morning found the six of us attending the 10:00am High Mass at Salzburg Cathedral. WOW! What an experience. The church was packed and there was more pomp and circumstance than I have experienced in a long, long time. The majesty of the Cathedral was equaled by the music and the celebration of the Mass in German. There was what appeared to be close to a full orchestra in the upper rear of the church with an assembled group of professional singers who made the glory of God come alive through the beautiful classical music. There were many priests on the altar along with the Cardinal, bishop and church pastor who concelebrated the Mass. I have probably seen Mass celebrated this way on television but never in person. It was more powerful than you can imagine.


I am making my first attempt to include a video here in my blog. The quality of the videographer leaves much to be desired because there were signs everywhere saying NO PICTURES!! I used Deb's new iPod to do the video and I was trying hard to be unobtrusive so we didn't get our camera taken away.

After church the two of us grabbed lunch in a Rick Steves recommended spot. We strolled across the river to the other side and checked out restaurants for our "farewell dinner" with our friends.

The last 14 days have been magical and we have as much to share as our friends and family will extend to us in time for sharing.


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Saturday in Salzburg

Driving in the Bus O Fun yesterday was marked by all three guys coughing and sneezing their way to Salzburg. For this reason each couple followed their personal interests for the day. Joyce and Frank took a bus 12 miles from her to take a tour of Hitler's Eagle's Nest. This was an extravagant expenditure on a mountain top retreat that his ministers presented to him for his 50th birthday. Bill & Kay crossed over the river to the Gardens after visiting the farmers market right here in the old city. Debbie and I walked the beautiful narrow streets of Old Sazburg window shopping and visiting the open market where folks were buying fresh fruits and vegetables, flowers, sausages and pastries. We found the sights and smells to be beautiful.





The city streets and shopping windows were a real treat.







In the afternoon we decided to power walk up to the Salzburg Fortress that majestically overlooks the city and the river. It was a more-than-challenging journey and by the time we reached the summit Deb was hungry and tired. We stopped within the Fortress at a small place that had military overtones in the way it was built and decorated.

I have posted some photos from the afternoon visit. However, you will have to wait to see the full scale photos that get closer to doing this mountain-top castle justice. It was originally given to a Catholic Archbishop by the Emporer.

The views from this place were incredible.








We took the funicular down the mountain and passed by the Salzburg Cathedral where we plan to hear Mass tomorrow morning in German.









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Bus-O-Fun

As the rest of our tour group prepared to depart from the airport to return to the United States the six of us rolled our luggage on to Vienna's underground subway for a ride to the other side of the city where I had reserved a rental car. It was more complex than the process we would have employed in the USA. However, we persevered and got all of our luggage and the six of us into a new VW van. Silly me assumed it would be automatic transmission but this is Europe! Even the exit from the EuroCar garage was on a hill so I got to kill the engine twice trying to simply get out of the garage. I was optimistic that getting out into rush hour traffic in the downtown and out on to the Autobone would demonstrate more clearly to my friends that they were in safe hands. :-). Yikes! Who's idea was this?

With no knowledge of what the street signs were telling us in German I confidently allowed the "Force to be with me". Others in the car had more confidence in prayer.

Well; we did it and soon we were zooming along at 140 KMH. The drive to Salzburg was about 200+ miles and I successfully exited from the highway into a roundabout that eventually led us to a McDonalds for our first bathroom stop. We decided to take a short detour to a town I had read about that was up in the mountains with a spectacular view of a huge lake. Our cameras were grossly outmatched by the majesty of the views that entertained our eyes. We strolled through the lakeside town and had lunch in a beautiful restaurant while we enjoyed the swans floating by in front of our window.










It was beginning to get cold as we left this most pleasant Austrian retreat and began our trek over the mountains headed for our final destination: Salzburg. The roads were good as we twisted and turned around the curves heading upwards in elevation. The good news is that none of us got car sick. However time was running short to get the rental car back before they closed at 6:00 pm. Everything would have been fine except for making one wrong turn as we came within striking distance of our hotel. I turned down a long path/alley that was blockaded at the end of this "road". We quickly decided to bail everyone out with their luggage and hope that some of us could find the hotel while I returned the car. Three problems quickly became apparent. We weren't certain how close we were to the hotel. Remember! This isn't the burbs with streets that continue in straight lines and the names are on the sides of buildings in gothic fonts in German. The second problem was that we had an address for the rental office but no clue as to how to get there. The third problem turned out to be the most challenging. Driving in reverse back up the alley was not an option and we were hemmed in on three sides by concrete walls and steel post barriers designed to stop the best of terrorist truck bombers.

As I tried to make a classical 3 point turn it became clear we were risking damage to our fancy big van. The situation moved to threat level Orange when the fancy van's computer sensing system began ringing incessantly within the vehicle and flashing signs on the Display screen showing quite graphically "You are going to do damage to this expensive rental car" if you turn the wheel or move the car more than one centimeter. This was hardly a problem for someone who has little experience with a stick shift van and, yes, we were on a slight incline and the engine died several times as I tried to respond to the gestures, grimaces and shouts from my colleagues.

Now let's add the element of walkers and bikers who apparently are accustomed to using this quaint passage way to make their way home from work or shopping. So while I was trying to avoid incurring significant damage to the EuroCar I had to stop several times for people to pass through the "death space" between our van and the concrete wall. Having an audience while I was seeking to perform this superhuman task was not helpful! The coup de gras came when a large Bavarian man in his 50s began screaming directions to me through the open front passenger window . . . In GERMAN! I heard my friend Bill trying to explain to him that the crazy American behind the wheel did not speak German! By the grace of God an invisible hand must have reached down from heaven and adjusted the position of the van 3 degrees to the south and I began driving down the escape route toward the unknown location of the rental car office.

Frank joined me in the passenger seat and we employed the GPS to get directions to the office which seemed to be on the other side of the city. We pulled in with seconds to spare and soon came to realize that all of the paperwork for our hotel was with our spouses. We knew neither the name or location of the hotel we were supposed to return to on the other side of town. After resurrecting the name of the hotel in English the counter girl translated it into proper German and called us a cab. By this time our wives and friends had arrived at the hotel Weisse Taube and asked the clerk to call the three Eurocar locations seeking to find us. The rental car rep assured them that we were safely in a cab headed toward the hotel in Old Salzburg.

As the sun set in the west we all reflected upon the joy of travel.

We turned in early at our new destination city.

Bidding goodbye to Vienna

Tomorrow morning the six of us from Chicago depart in our rented van to head toward Salzburg. Last night we found a lovely Viennese restaurant off the beaten track that was frequented for the most part by locals. It was quite awesome.


As has been the case in our last several guided tours, one person at the beginning of the excursion comes down with a cold or something and soon each day one or two more tour participants are hacking, sneezing or coughing. Proximity is the primary problem but the pace and the cold weather seem to contribute to the spread of the cold bug. The last two days have started out in the low 30s and walking/standing outside on a 3-5 hour excursion doesn't make things better.
This morning we boarded the public transportation subway to make our way to another area of the city where music and architecture abound.
Everywhere we turn our heads we are amazed by the public buildings and residences of center-city Vienna.




Here are a few shots including last night's view of the State Opera House where we had the famous Sacher Tort - double chocolate layer cake with whipped cream.


Like Berlin we walked by walls on several streets that still show the bullet holes from the Russian tank's machine gun blasts at the end of WWII.


As we passed through the neighborhoods we came to the biggest farmers' market I have ever seen - Vienna's Naschmarket. The famous Farmers Market in LA and Pike's Market in Seattle don't hold a candle to this one. We walked up and down the blocks upon blocks of stores and markets representing every ethnic group on the planet. It was really something to see.







We passed by the first Opera House in Vienna where Mozart's Magic Flute premiered. It is still in use today.




Our next stop was Belvedere Palace - home to many, many Renoir's, Monet's and Degas world famous pieces. I even snapped a photo of a 1894 painting of the Market we walked through earlier in the day.






Naschmarket in Vienna 1894

Viennese Culture

The Hapsburgs ruled Austria for 600 years and today we had a chance to visit the interior of their Palace in the city center. Here are some pictures of the Palace and two interior rooms.









Our city guide directed us past the Cathedral and some of the art museums and music houses made famous by Motzart and Strauss. After lunch with our friends Debbie and I strolled through two of their beautiful city parks. We were reminded of similar strolls through Central Park in NYC.





We finished out the afternoon with a gelato and some window shopping that paralleled similar experiences in Florence and Los Angeles. We checked in on the rental car office where we will pick up our van for the trip to Salzburg on Friday morning. There at the counter another fluent-speaking German woman pulled out her credit card and her California Drivers License. I asked about her license and she said that she went to school in Santa Cruz and now lives most of the time in Europe. She is an accomplished singer in German-speaking operas. What a coincidence!


This is a picture of the state Opera House in Vienna

Vienna: Here We Come!

Departing the Czech Republic and crossing into Austria we passed through Linz which we had visited with Kathy & Dave last May on our river cruise. The good news for us, personally, is that our "Rick Steves" bus did not stop there. However we did go on to the Benedictine Abbey at Melk. We had seen this beautiful tourist attraction from the deck of our boat as we made our way toward Vienna last spring. While we knew we could not see everything on the river cruise we were disappointed that we had missed this spot. So for Bill & Deb it was the right confluence of itineraries. Additionally, our bus is going to make a stop at the Schonnburn Palace formal gardens. Readers of my blog from last May recall that our visit to the Hapsburg's Summer Palace and Gardens last May our umbrellas were blowing inside out due to the wind and rain. Conditions today - chilly but sunny - will make the Abbey visit and the stop at Schonnburn MUCH more pleasant.



The Abbey was another example of the lavish use of gold and marble to build an edifice in the Baroque style intended to provide worshipers with a glimpse of what heaven might be like. As was popular at that time, rulers and Church leaders were into relics. You may remember my remarks about the Cathedral in Cologne that housed the skulls of the Three Magi on their main altar and the Church in Frankfurt where the altar had a drop of Jesus' blood. Here they had a monstrance that had a tooth from one of the martyrs embedded in the monstrance. The Abbey church was overwhelming with gold and gold and more gold. I have included a couple of pictures along with two pictures of the side altar of John the Baptist which holds the actual skeleton of one of the early Christian martyrs that had been buried in the Rome catacombs and was gifted to the Abbey by Maria Theresa, the Hapsburg Empress. Just in time for Halloween.








The temperature is dropping. It is about 35F in the AM and the temp rises to about 52-55F. I didn't think I would need a coat. Yet I wish I had brought one.

Here are a few shots from the Summer Palace Gardens in Vienna. It looks a lot like the Palace in Versalles.

An interesting stop-over in the Czech Republic

Between Prague and Vienna we stop in Cesky Krumlov (CHESS-key s KROOM-off). The name means "Czech Bend in the River". It is the second-most-visited town in the Czech Republic and described as an "enchanting Bohemian village". The town holds a rich mix of buildings displaying Gothic, Renaissance, and Baroque styles of architecture. Movie producers consider it ideal for films. The opening scene from the 2006 film, The Illusionist, was filmed here.


Czechoslovakia was created in 1918 after the vast Habsburg Empire lost WWI. In 1938 this area was ceded to Germany and the Czechs were expelled. Hitler posed here for pictures with a backdrop of long Nazi banners to celebrate the takeover. 30 years later, Russian tanks rolled over the same spot. In 1993 the Czech Republic was formed along with Slovakia. Shifting borders with ethnic cleansing. We have it easy in the US!

After a brief walking tour of the village with our guide we break for a "light" Czech lunch :-)



I had a very tall beer with my potato pancakes, rabbit, slaw, ham and bread for about $8.00. After lunch we found a place where a gal was preparing and selling "chimney cakes". These were pastry dough wrapped around a 3" diameter tube; rolled in butter and cinnamon; baked in an oven and slid off the tube (hot) and into my waiting hands.


This evening we have been promised a trout dinner with potatoes and blueberry dumplings for dessert. The trout is fished from the river next to where we had lunch and the blueberries are picked fresh from the forest adjoining the town.






This stop was intended to allow us to catch our breath before entering Austria tomorrow morning to visit the Abbey at Melk and check into our hotel in Vienna. Here are some shots from our venue here.