Blast from the Past - Salzburg

Today I went into my blog archives to see what was languishing in the drafts folder.  And lo and behold, I found the most interesting things - including some unpublished posts from some of our travels!  I was ever so surprised - and quite delighted. 

Oh, the wonderful memories that I found from our trip to Poland, Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic in September of 2007!  I decided they simply must be published - mostly for my sake. 



St. Rupert welcomed us to the first of many interesting sites in the Old Town of Salzburg. This square is surrounded by early 20th century Bauhaus style dorms for student monks.



On one side of this square is a restaurant where Charlemagne ate in AD 803, making it the oldest restaurant in Europe - according to the locals. Many restaurants in the city combine dinner with a concert, very appropriate for this city of music. We didn't get to take in one but will definitely do that next time.



This fountain was the first one we saw (after parking in a parkade inside the mountain!).



These mini-gardens and Renaissance style tombs hug the rock wall. This cemetary inspired the one in the Sound of Music where the Von Trapp family hid after the concert, on their way out of the country.



St. Peter's cemetary. In Austria, gravesites are rented, not owned. Every 10 years, a bill is sent to the family and if the fees are not paid, remains will actually be moved out!



Monschberg Mountain, above the Old Town, is the home of Hohensalzburg Fortress, a forbidding fortress that wasn't even used. Salzburg never was attacked until WWII but they did surrender to Napolean. We didn't get up here but would definitely make this a stop on our next visit.



The Prince-Archbishop who ruled here from 1587 - 1612 had grand plans to build Salzburg up as "Rome of the North". This square was going to be the centerpiece of his Baroque dream city. Salzburg has a series of inter-connecting squares that make a grand processional way, like nothing else we saw. This fountain is modelled after the Triton Fountain in Rome.



A detail of one of the horses supporting the fountain. Each of the 3 unique horses had water spouting from different places.




The Glockenspiel has a carillon of 35 bells from the 17th century that play 3 times daily (7 am, 11 am, and 6 pm). We heard them play for nearly 15 minutes twice while we were in the city. They play different music through the seasons. The sculpture on top of the tower is an upside down heart symbolizing that God loves all of creation. (Thanks to Rick Steves and his tour book for these amazing tidbits of information!)



Salzburg is the birthplace of Mozart and this square is named Mozartplatz. You can also see his birthplace, residence and places where he spent the first 25 years of his life.




This shop had incredible displays of painted and decorated eggs! There were eggs for every special day of the year and then eggs in every color of the rainbow, not to mention all the special character ones or the fancy scroll decorated ones. We asked and they ARE real eggshells with the contents blown out. It was a simply amazing place!




This is another of my trip favourites!




As we left the city center, darkness was descending and the castle looked so beautiful.

Archived

I went back in time today and found this! Just one year ago today! It brought back so many memories of an amazing time shared with our daughter and her husband and good friends. I really am in awe just remembering all the traveling we've done in this past year. How blessed we have been to travel safely with no problems and to enjoy so many special places around the world. And yes - I would go again in a heartbeat!!!

Driving Home to Katowice

Our quick visit to Vienna ended just after noon and we headed back on the highway to get home. We thought it should take 5 or 6 hours, depending too on the waits we might encounter at the Czech and Polish borders. We elected to head north and then northeast, which meant we would only cross 2 borders. Driving east would have taken us into Hungary and meant another border crossing. Time was of the essence as Tyler had missed another day of classes by now!!



I got pretty good at taking pictures through the van windows! It helped when the other passengers would watch for trees or signs and yell "Now!" or "Wait, wait."




This route took us through some of Austria's agricultural land and we thoroughly enjoyed these glimpses.




The only crop still left in the fields awaiting harvest were the sunflowers. They were all dried up already.




There were lots of vineyards along the highway. I think the grapes had all been picked and there was just some pruning being done.




Still castles popping up as we drove. I don't think I'll ever tired of looking for them!




The gently rolling farmland gave way to these amazing cliffs as we got into the Czech Republic.




People walking along the roadsides, especially close to villages, were a common sight.




The highway through the Czech Republic was a new divided highway - in some places! In other places the highway was still under construction so we had to detour through the countryside and small villages. In one place, about 4:30 in the afternoon, the local factory must have closed because there were suddenly bikes all over. I think people were pedalling home after work. Tyler was able to navigate us through it all and there were only 2 times were we took the wrong turn. As soon as we did it, we knew it was the wrong way so we were able to turn around and get back on the right path before going too far astray. Mel had worried about this trip home because she knew signs would be very little help when you can't read the language! And she wasn't sure if the map would actually show where things were and if indeed they would be what it said. Thankfully it all worked out okay. God is a marvelous pilot!!




The Czech Republic has many areas where restoration and improvements to buildings have not yet been made. People really do make the best of things and they always seemed to have some garden space for growing food for themselves.




As we got closer to Katowice, these stacks began to appear. We were back in the industrial coal producing area of Poland. Our calculations about time were pretty close and we were back in Katowice by 7 p.m.. Home sweet home!!

Vienna 2

Thank you for continuing to follow my travel log. It's been nearly 2 months since we got home and here I am, just about finishing our first week of adventures!! These first days were jam packed so I certainly have had lots to write about and to show you. I hope you enjoy these little snippets of Vienna.



This beautiful rose garden was just down the street from our pension.




My continuing camera love affair with windows!!




No flowers on this monochromatic wall but still the whole look is so interesting.




Vienna (or Wein in German - remember a 'W' is usually pronounced as a "V") is the home of weiners and little concessions were open along the streets. I'm sure in the summer there are many, many more of them around.




And a pub calling our name!! This is the traditional spelling of our last name (although I'm not sure what that L is doing at the end - it didn't seem to be lit up.)




In case you were wondering if there was a rest stop ahead!




An archeological dig was going on in this section of the city - right beside the busy street. It looks like there's a brick oven at the back of the plot. It was fascinating to watch them use toothbrushes to brush away the dirt and painstakingly record every single thing they found.




Some sidewalk reconstruction was going on here. We were amazed by the tree roots and how carefully they had been left to grow. I wonder how old these trees are.




At this main circular intersection, a double-decker transportation hub has busses unloading on the top floor and the subway stopping on the bottom floor. It's really convenient if you have to switch from one to the other. In the center of the circle is a green space park. Europeans are very creative with their use of small spaces.



My maiden name was Lange and here was a whole street with that name!




Tyler humoured me by sitting down at this sidewalk cafe'. Does it not look like a place kids would want to hang out?!!

I feel like we just had a little appetizer of what Vienna is like. We definitely want to visit for a much longer time again soon!! Mel tells me that there is an awesome Christmas market in the square - that sounds interesting!!

And Happy Thanksgiving to all of my American online friends! I hope your turkey was juicy, your pumpkin pie was smothered in whipped cream and your family time was priceless :))

Vienna

We left rainy Salzburg and headed out again. Highways in Germany and Austria were in excellent condition and Bob did a great job of driving. I was able to snap some good pictures while we motored along.




We were leaving the mountains of Austria behind and heading east to the capital city, Vienna.




Another scenic view as we drove along.




Where in Canada can you see a castle and a farm in the same valley?!! Nowhere!!




An Austrian wind farm.




This was the scene on the highway between Salzburg and Vienna about 2:30 in the afternoon. Yes - you are seeing it right - bumper to bumper traffic that's not moving! We weren't sure what the problem was - we were just very thankful that it was traffic going in the opposite direction of us!


We arrived in Vienna mid-afternoon and with some careful navigating, found our pension which was quite close to downtown. We parked the van and used public transit, since parking (not to mention navigating) in the historic core would have been a nightmare. Our guide book had nearly 100 pages on Vienna and we had less than 24 hours in town - remember we had "Tyler, the student" with us! We barely scratched the surface but tried to pack in some of the highlights. It helped that Melinda and Tyler had spent a long weekend here last year and they were excellent tour guides, once again!



A city of 1.6 million people, there are many beautiful statues of famous Austrian citizens like Mozart and Strauss.




From the tram window as we rode along and saw some of the important city buildings. I didn't get a picture of the Rathaus, or City Hall, which is a huge Neo-Gothic structure. During Advent, it becomes a huge Advent calendar, with 24 windows opening - one each day, as Christmas approaches.




The Vienna Opera House - truly a landmark of the city, rebuilt since the war! If you are a music lover, this would be "one of the planet's premier houses of music" (Rick Steves) Our tour guidebook said to drop by halfway through the performance and see if there were standing room tickets left. Alas, this day was a sold out performance but! We were able to beg some tickets from people as they left the performance early - way to go, Tyler!! We ended up with 3 tickets so took turns going inside to hear a bit of the performance and see the inside of this splendid, historical building. Mel and Tyler scored tickets in the top most balcony so they had an awesome view of the whole interior. Bob and I shared the one on the main floor so we enjoyed more of the performance and less of the view. I think next time (when we have a few days here) we'd buy tickets ahead of time and enjoy a full show. The performance did have English sub-titles displayed on a screen so it wasn't too difficult to follow the storyline.




The imposing front facade with its double rows of statues. At night each alcove is lit and the whole building seems to glow.



You needed to see the side view of the building in order to realize just how big it actually was! I think it covered the entire city block, which explains the spaciousness inside.




I never got tired of the architecture and there was always another photo op calling me!




Statues were everywhere!




After walking through the gates and up the driveway, this view of the Hofburg Palace greeted us.




A closeup of the statues set into recesses along the curved wall of the Palace.




I think I have one very favourite picture from each of our major stops during this vacation. This is the one from Vienna. I love the spires, the statue and the tree tops. Sometimes I surprise myself by capturing these little vignettes!




The Red Gate, according to us. And I can't find any information about it. If you know what it's proper name is and its significance, please tell me. For now, it's just a beautiful gate.




A spectacular dome over the covered walkway that connected buildings on the Hofburg Palace site.




When we considered things we could fit into a quick morning in Vienna, the Spanish riding School, at the palace, where the Lipizzaner Stallions are trained was a recommendation. After buying tickets to the morning training session, we watched while horses and riders practiced individual routines, steps and warmups. The arena had 3 of the biggest and grandest chandeliers imaginable hanging over the performance area. Tickets to performance events are sold out months in advance so you will have to plan ahead for this when you come to town.



This mime played a tune of Mozart's when you dropped a coin in his box. I thought these characters added so much to the historical experience whenever I saw them. Plus you have to admire someone who can dress up with full makeup and stand in the street for extended periods of time to entertain tourists!



There were so many amazing roofs - with statues, sculpture and amazing details. We saw more gilded statues here than any other place we visited in Europe.




I love how it all comes together in this picture - the curves of the Burgtheater (Austria's national theater), the red trolley and Mel and Tyler walking. It just seems to be an interesting photo.




The "votive church", built in 1853 to thank God when an assasination attempt on the Emperor failed, as seen from the transit center - which explains all the lines and cables!

Nearly a quarter of Vienna's buildings were destroyed in WWII so alot of restoration work has taken place. Tomorrow I'll show you some of the street vignettes in Vienna!