I've been a little remiss in posting...and now I'm a few more days behind! I think I'll attribute it to the confusion of being in a German (and not French) speaking locale! We flew from Paris to Vienna (or Wien in German) on Wednesday of last week - June 22nd. We arrived late at night after a long day of travel (train from Amboise to Paris with three "layovers"/train switches and then the plane ride) and took a taxi to the apartment we were renting for our stay in Vienna. Our "renter" Kateryna met us with keys to help us get in and settled. After a good night's sleep and a delicious breakfast of cereal, joghurt (yogurt German-style!) and fresh fruit, we set out on our first day of exploring the city. What our tour was lacking in structure (we got rather lost a few times...) it made up for in beauty! We saw some incredible buildings, including the Rathaus (town hall), several amazing churches (including the Votivskirche and Steffensdom), the Parliament building, and the Hofburg Palace museums. We even had laberkase sandwiches from a street vendor for lunch! Our second day in Vienna we went to see the Schonbrunn Palace, and then climbed up the hill behind it to eat at the Gloriette pavilion and take pictures of the gardens down below.
Then we took the trolley/bus/tram (it's quite a system!) back to the main center to try to see the interior of Steffensdom that had been closed the day before. Sadly, we arrived in time for the English tour they had told us about the day before, but it was cancelled for some kind of extreme high mass complete with a whole parade of priests, altar boys, and even a bishop! So we missed out on the interior, but Shannon, Dad, and I climbed up the tower (353 very narrow spiral stairway steps!) for the view of the city. It was beautiful, but not sure if it was worth the climb. We had dinner at a typical beer garden where Mom and I both had delicious peach wine spritzers and Shannon and Dad ordered the house beer vom fass (on tap). Shannon's meal was ENORMOUS - we all had to pitch in and still didn't finish it. After a good (but short) night's sleep, we were picked up by Claudia (Mom's father's cousin's daughter - yeah, yikes) and her husband Martin and their son Florian.
We drove and chatted (well Mom did...we only got in a few words since we couldn't understand most of the rapid-fire German being spoken) until we arrived in St. Florian on our way to Steyr. We stopped in St. Florian for lunch at a restaurant with Martin, Claudia, and Florian, and then Martin showed us the church. We learned that he had lived in the attached (former) monastery for a year when he was in the St. Florian's boys' choir. After exploring the church, we got back in the car and drove farther along the route towards Steyr.
We stopped at the former Malthausen Concentration camp - a sobering but very interesting experience. The audioguide was full of so much information we weren't able to listen to it all, but what we were able to hear was both disturbing and fascinating. Learning about the Holocaust in school and then actually walking the ground where the victims walked and seeing the bunkers they lived in are totally different - it was very eerie and almost unreal. My favorite part was the variety of memorials on the grounds - especially the personal ones for family members who were victims that were in the two preserved crematorium chambers. There was also a garden between the camp and the quarry where prisoners worked with art and monuments from every country that had lost people in the camp.
Next, we shifted moods completely, and headed back to St. Florian to meet up with Claudia's parents Lisi and Pepi and her aunt and uncle (Lisi's brother and his wife) Daniel and Monika. Luckily we had a table reserved since there were 11 of us for dinner! Everything was delicious, and even when we didn't understand everything that was being said we still got the gist of most of it. Plus, since the relatives were all so sweet and very funny, we had a great time - even when we were laughing but didn't know why! Mom had the most fun, and the more time we spent with them, the more her German speaking improved. By the end of our time in Austria, she could genau with the best! After dinner (and a lot of hugging and cheek kissing), we headed back to our gasthaus (part bar, part hotel) to unpack and fall exhausted into bed.
Our first full day in Steyr started with buffet-style breakfast at the hotel with the manager serving as wait staff - a very interesting man who spoke 7-9 languages! So we ordered and conversed in French (for me and Shannon), in German (for Mom) and in English (for Dad). Then Pepi came to pick us up, and we joined up with Daniel, Monika, and Lisi for an insider tour of the old portion of Steyr. What a beautiful and historic city! It was such an incredible experience to have a tour from actual residents - especially such knowledgeable ones! We also got to see a 5k footrace that was being held that morning - they had all the streets blocked off and people were everywhere! We met up with Martin, Claudia, Florian, and their daughter Julia and her boyfriend Manuel for lunch - an even bigger table this time! After lunch, we carpooled to the highest point in the city - well to the base of the hill. Then we climbed it - even Claudia in her high heels! At the top was a cute little yellow chapel and an amazing view over the city. After climbing/falling down the hill, we went to dinner! (We thought we were going to explode with all the food we'd been eating - but we all survived!). For dinner, we went zum Heurigen - to a farmhouse/restaurant where we were able to sample their wines, beer, and moast (an alcholic cider) as well as different cold cuts of meat and cheese. For dessert? A "farmer's donut" bauern krapfen - a donut topped with apricot jelly and powedered sugar still hot from the oven - yum! After dinner (and some emotional goodbyes to the family), we went back to the hotel to pack and get some sleep before Martin picked us up in the morning.
He drove us to Salzburg via the scenic route - we were able to stop in a tiny (very touristy but still adorable) Austrian town called St. Wolfgang on Wolfgangsee (the Wolfgang Lake). Between the adorable alpine houses and the amazing view of the crystal-clear water, we never wanted to leave!
Then we arrived in Salzburg, where we said goodbye and thank you to Martin and found some lunch before officially checking into our hotel room. We did some exploring and then came back for a quick nap before Edgar came to pick us up! (Edgar is the son of my Opa's - Mom's dad's - best friend). He showed us around the old town of Salzburg with it's narrow medieval streets, intricate hanging signs, and beautiful old buildings. For dinner, we met up with his wife Evelyn (who also, bless her, spoke English wonderfully), and their two sons - Alex (14) and Benny (6). We had delicious food, great wine and beer, and amazing conversation!
Our second day in Salzburg, we met up with Edgar and Stefen (Edgar's sister Birgit's husband) and carpooled over to Schloss Helbrunn - a castle built by archibishop Markus Sitticus. The castle was very interesting, but what we really came to see was the vasser spiele - or "trick fountains." We found out on our tour of the gardens that the prince arcbishop had a sense of humor, and had hidden fountains installed throughout his gardens running on a complicated system powered (originally) just by water! For our first demonstration, our tour guide called volunteers to come sit at the stools around the table that the archbishop had used for entertaining his guests. All of a sudden, water started squirting out over the table from either side, from the middle of the table, and even from the seats of the stools! Everyone except the woman sitting in the archbishop's chair and the spectators who were far enough away got sopping wet! We missed out this time, but throughout the course of our tour we all got squirted a little here or there. I, however, was the only one who got really soaked! We had just finished touring one of the decorated cave grottos when our tricky guide started playing with the fountains by the entrance so that in order to get out you had to run through the water. At that point, the two streams from either side of the path crossed high enough that I could run under so I decided to chance it. Unfortunately, I forgot that he could adjust the height and as soon as I and another girl made a run for it he lowered the streams so I got blasted in the face. Thankfully, I survived and it was warm enough that I dried off rather quickly.
After Helbrunn, we drove back to Salzburg for "light" lunch. Dad ordered knodel and roast - but when it arrived he saw that the knodel (a ball tasting similar to a bready pasta) was the size of a large softball! He ate a little more than half, and was feeling a little green around the gills all afternoon. Shannon's food was the only reasonable sized one, and the rest of us really struggled trying to eat enough to be polite. It was delicious - just way too big! After lunch, we took the funicular train up to Hohen Salzburg - the castle overlooking the city - and explored before climbing/falling back down. By the time we got down, we were ready for some "snicky snacks" and stopped for sorbet and some juice and water. Then we walked back to our hotel for a quick nap before heading out to find something to eat. We finally settled on an Italian restaurant, since we were craving something other than traditional Austrian meat and potatoes, where we had a lovely dinner just as a family before heading back to get some sleep.
Our second full day in Salzburg (Wednesday) was our designated Sound of Music Tour day! We were able to finagle a private minibus tour with Edgar's friend Didi (Dieter) who, as Shannon said, "was so Austrian I could die." We saw it all - from Nonnberg Abbey where Maria was a nun-in-training to the festival hall where the Von Trapp family sang before escaping over the mountains to freedom. It was so much fun retracing the steps from scenes from one of our favorite movies (well the girls at least, if not Dad), especially with Didi blasting the soundtrack in the car! My favorite part was probably hopping up and down the steps in the Mirabell gardens where they sang "Doe, a Deer."
After the SOM tour, we left Didi and Stefen drove us to Obersalzburg (actually across the border in Bavaria) to see the Eagle's Nest. It was built for Hitler by one of his generals for his 50th birthday in 1938, but he never actually went there because he was afraid of heights. After the end of the war, the mayor from the neighboring town fought to keep it as a historical monument. We took the bus shuttle up from the parking lot along winding, very narrow, mountain roads, and then an elevator up to the actual house. While we didn't go into the house (it cost extra) we did climb all over the rocks like mountain goats while admiring the breathtaking views into the different valleys - we could see all the way back to Salzburg! Absolutely gorgeous.
After our mountain goat climbing, we headed back down and Stefen drove us to dinner where we met up with Edgar and his family and with Stefen's wife Birgit. While Birgit was nervous about her English, between Mom's German, Edgar and Evelyn's English, and his son Alex's translation help, we did just fine. We had a lot of fun, and a VERY long dinner (over 3 hours) before saying goodbye to everyone and driving back to the hotel to pack before taking a taxi to the airport the next morning, and flying back to Paris.
Phew! I think that's as updated as we can be for now - I'll upload a new post about our Paris adventures hopefully sometime soon...I can't believe our trip is almost at an end - yikes! In the meantime, we'll make the most of it and keep taking a ton of pictures. A bientôt!
No comments:
Post a Comment