Final Salzburg day

A quarry turned theatre and arm-twisting of the Austrian government were two stories we learned to day as we looked for, and found, more Sound of Music locations. When we arrived in town this morning from our hotel, Phillip wanted to find the stage used to film the Sound of Music scene where the Von Trapp family makes their final singing performance and then slips away from the Nazis. A Google search told me that we were looking for Felsenreitschule. I was a bit confused because "felsenreitschule" translates to "rock riding school," and I thought we'd be looking for an old theatre location. I used Google maps, which took us to the side of the mountain, at the back of a building that was a mix of really old and new architecture.

Phillip looking for Felsenreitshule, but a locked gate was ahead

We went down a few dead end hallways and up this dead end stairwell until we came across a lady who said tickets for a tour of the Felsenreitscule were available around the corner.  Still not knowing anything about it, we found that the next Felsenreitschule tour was at 2 pm, so we proceeded on to our next stop, the Sound of Music Museum. 

I'm glad this museum was free with our Salzburg card, because it was only four rooms, mostly with movie stills and historical pictures of the real Von Trapp family. Several videos played of Maria Von Trapp (one of the daughters, not the Julie Andrews character) comparing the movie to her real life. One of the movie pictures, of the Nazis in Salzburg, had an interesting story.

Sound of Music picture

Apparently, the Austrian government did not want a Nazi flag placed on the Residenzplatz (a major building in a nearby square) for the movie filming in 1964. The movie people said they'd use archived news footage if they couldn't film the scene they wanted. Since the news footage showed the Austrians cheering the entry of the Nazis, the Austrian government decided to allow the flag. (In the 1930s, Austria, where German is the official language, just rolled over with a sizable number of Austrians welcoming Hitler.)

same building, today

After the museum, we noticed on our Salzburg map that the St. Peter's cemetary was near the catacombs that I wanted to visit. So, we walked to the catacombs and toured them. These catacombs date back to 1178, burial sites carved out of the side of the hill, accessible up cave-like stairs. From a window of the catacombs, we could see the cemetary. 

We walked thru the cemetary and, although we did not identify the exact "cage" that the movie characters hid in, we saw the burial vaults that lined the edge of the traditional in-ground graves.

Burial vaults, which look like cages, line the edges of the cemetary

Next, we went to Mozart's birthplace. This was pretty boring for Phillip, but interesting for me as Mozart is my favorite classic composer. It was a hot, crowded museum. Then lunch, (Cafe Mozart: mushroom rissoto and a salad for me, french fries for Phillip - he wasn't hungry) and on to our 2 pm Felsenreitschule tour. 

In 1693, the Salzburg rulers turned a rock quarry into a performance venue by hewing 96 spots into the wall where people could sit and watch equestrian events. It was not covered and they trained for the events there also, hence the name "Rock Riding School." Over the years, the seating was moved out of the wall and placed so the audience looked toward the wall. In 1926, the real Max Reinhardt (not just a character in the movie) did use this venue as a performance hall. 

Low on the back left is the stage exit. Also, three of the ancient seating alcoves can be seen on the left.

The 96 alcoves in the wall are still there, covered up unless needed for a performance. And of course, it has a roof and modern seating. Two other performance halls have been built to create a major location that hosts Mozart concerts and other musical and theatre performances. The tour guide showed us all three halls.

When we left the Felsenreitschule tour, it was raining, so we went to the Museum of Nature and Science. It had interactive exhibits in one area for kids of all ages. We stayed there till it closed.

Phillip using an air current to keep the ball suspended

Before heading for the hotel, we each bought a sausage with mustard in a roll (my favorite quick meal in Europe). And then Phillip had to stop for a chocolate pretzel!

Savory and sweet, pretzels of all kinds, 3.50 euros each

We've enjoyed Salzburg and saw just about everything on my list. We leave for Vienna with its palaces and a garden maze. On to our next adventure!

Salzburg: Sound of Music, the Fortress, and other adventures

Phillip and I traveled to Salzburg, Austria, on Monday and checked into our next hotel, Pension Ballwein, a lovely small hotel on the outskirts of Salzburg. Salzburg has no subway, but has an extensive bus system...and a bus stop right in front of our hotel. Daniella and Simon, the owners, speak English and have made sure we know each day how to get wherever we are going that day.

our current abode, with a terrace with seating and a table

Salzburg is the birthplace of Mozart, my favorite classical music composer. I haven't yet gone to the Mozart museums, but did walk thru Mozart Plaza.

The City even has a candy dedicated to Mozart, a candy that has been made for over 100 years here and in Vienna (Mozart left Salzburg to compose and play for the Hapsburg royals in Vienna). With chocolate covering and a hazelnut paste core, these "Mozart balls" (that's what they're called!) taste like bites of Nutella. Yes, I've eaten a few Mozart balls.

The Salz River runs thru the middle of town, separating the Alstadt (Old Town) from the New Town. We walk mainly around the Aldstadt, although we've crossed this pedestrian bridge, with the locks of love (just like on the Charles Bridge in Prague and the Seoul Tower). Salz means "salt," not because the water is salty, but because of the salt trade that formed the basis of the economy here in the Middle Ages.

Yesterday (Tuesday) morning, Phillip and I went on a Sound of Music Tour. It was great because there were only six participants with our guide, Luke. Some of our stops included this view across the lake. This is the lake where Maria and the kids tipped the boat over. When they were filming the movie, the director wanted to do a second take on the scene, but Julie Andrews and the kids refused because the water was too cold for them to do it again. Some outside scenes were also done in the garden of the house across the water.

This is the pavillon that was in several scenes. Actually, three pavillons were created for the movie because one needed to have no glass so the cameras could film inside. This is one of the original three.

The movie made it seem like Maria and Captain Von Trapp were married in her abbey. Actually, the wedding scene was filmed miles away in a church in the town of Mondsee. The tour took us to Mondsee and we saw the location. And the steps, on which the kids and Maria sing do-re-mi, are in Mirabel Gardens, which we visited. We didn't sing, however. It was fun to see the movie locations.

After our tour yesterday, we decided to take the one-hour river cruise. Not like the cruise boat we take next month! This is the boat we took up the Salz River and back. The boat had a draft of 38 cm (only about 15 inches of it was underwater) because the Salz River has a lot of rocks. The river is not used for commerce today (except for this one tour boat service).

river cruise boat (note the sidewalk near the river, great walking)

Phillip and I had purchased "Salz Cards" to give us unlimited access to the buses (versus paying 2.90 euro each per ride). The Salz cards also included the river cruise and free access to many of the City sights. The city's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) had an elevator that took people to a great overlook spot (included on the card), so we went there. We tried out the panorama settings on our cameras, but I liked the plain picture of the Fortress across the way.

fortress on the moutain, picture taken from MoMA

While we were at the MoMA, I talked Phillip into going inside under the guise of "museum restrooms are always better than any others." Since museum entrance was included, we actually toured the entire building! I think this is the first time he has knowingly gone into an art museum. The most fascinating floor was the special exhibit of Salt Objects. The artist had taken regular items, shoes, ladders, clothes, a guitar, and left them in the Dead Sea. She took them out and when they dried, the objects looked like this:

Today (Wednesday), we went to the premier sight (no, not more Sound of Music locations) of Salzburg: the Festung Hohensalzburg, the fortress. It's 900 years old and considered the biggest and best preserved fortress in Europe. It towers over the city, visible from everywhere and on top of a small mountain. We rode the funicular up and walked down the hill after spending about three hours in its museums and ramparts. 

Center building is MoMA (yesterday's fortress picture from there)

lots of uniform exhibits, especially from 1800s

ramparts and towers

view southeast from a rampart

After our fortress visit and lunch near Mozartplatz (a panini and Coke), Phillip and I decided to visit an even higher mountain, Untersberg. Daniela from the hotel had recommended it for the views, it was a free bus ride, and the cable car was included in the Salz card. So, out of town we headed. I did fine for the first 2/3 of the cable car ride, taking pictures, looking out. When the cable car went over what I thought had been the peak and kept going over a really, really deep gorge, I just shut my eyes. I snapped a few random pictures, but mostly got pictures of the reflection of my arm wrapped tightly around the cable car railing. At the top, Phillip helped me out of the cable car and I stood by the wall for a few minutes while he walked up to the actual lookout point. He came back down and told me that the trail up was wide and walkable. So, having recovered from the cable car, I listened to him. Well, the trail went from 5 feet wide to 3 feet wide to a trail only a goat should use. The railing went from metal rods in concrete to what I call snare wire! 

Do you see any sturdy railing? Nope, not there!

I did make it to the top, slowly and hugging the uphill side of the trail. There were indeed beautiful views. Before I end this post, I will say that the ride down the cable car was a totally different experience. About twice as many people as we had come up with, we were in the middle of the crowded car, and the cable car had no air conditioning.  But, we did get great pictures from the top! Several of these Phillip took because I refused to get close enough to the edge to take what he knew would be excellent photos. 

Happy eggs, river surfing, and the Hoff

And now for something (almost) completely different.... The humorous things we have seen and experienced. First, our hotel, Schiller 5, half a block from the main train station is wonderful! This morning, the owner stopped by our table to chat. He is over 90 years old, a survivor of Dachau and Auschwitz. He spoke about 8 languages, including English. He wanted to make sure we were satisfied with his hotel, the service, and the breakfast. He offered me a beer (I declined since it was 8:30 am!) and conversed with us for about five minutes. I am now in the dining area typing this and we just noticed that the staff, including housekeeping and reception, eats the same delicious breakfast after the guests, before they put it away. The boiled eggs on the breakfast bar are just too cute for words.

Regarding food, traditional German food is delicious, but seems heavy in my American belly. Phillip and I trade off eating German and eating Asian. Yes, Asian. Thai or Vietnamese. Lots of Asian restaurant here. It works well because we'd be waddling around Europe if we ate sausages, fried pork, and potato dumplings all the time!

fried pork belly with potato dumplings

Friday afternoon, we walked to the English Park, Munich's version of our NYC Central Park. The Eisbach River flows thru it, with a spillway at the south park entrance, probably to control the flow. Water cascades over the spillway at the right speed and hits below just perfectly for... surfing! Surfers on either side of the river take turns, some wipe out almost immediately then float/swim downstream out of the way of the next person. The man in the following picture was the best one, he would intentionally wipe out after about two minutes to let someone else have a turn. About 10 people, but not us, were surfing.

Yesterday, we rode the subway to the Olympic Village and walked all around it. Munich has hosted the Olympics twice: 1936 and 1972. All the 1936 sites are gone, but the 1972 venue is still there. (Tragic note: 1972 was the Olympics when 11 Israeli athletes and coaches were kidnapped and assasinated by Palestinian terrorists.) Phillip and I visited the Olympic Museum in Switzerland but this was the first actual Olympic venue we've toured. Most buildings and facilities here were either closed or under renovation (it has been 47 years!), but the beach volleyball area has been kept up and was in use.

beach volleyball on Olympic courts

As we walked around, looking for a way to see over the fence into the main stadium, we saw a stream of people heading west on a path, so we followed them. I told Phillip that based on the signs, they were heading for the parking lot. Yes, because the entire Olympic parking lot was a flea market! Acres of people, regular Munich residents, at a huge garage sale! Only a few appeared to be making a business of it. Phillip, whose el cheapo Walmart sunglasses had broken, bought two pairs of sunglasses, 1 euro each. I bought a cross-body bag to use on the cruise for 10 euro. We didn't haggle as we don't speak German and the quoted price was fine with us!

just one row of many. many rows of the flea market

I hoped to at least get a picture of the swim hall where Mark Spitz (the greatest US swimmer before Michael Phelps) won his medals, but it was totally under renovation. Just past it, we found the Olympic complex's lake. A paved walkway circled part of the lake and in the pavement were handprints of entertainers who had performed at the Olympic stadium. In keeping with the era, and remembering that two outta three ain't bad, here's the picture of handprints from Meatloaf:

And finally... I'm sad that we won't be in Munich on October 6. A "concert" was advertised for that day. I checked and we could get standing room tickets in the section next to the stage for just 85 euro apiece! Darn. We will miss seeing the Hoff!

Munich Third Reich locations and Dachau

Yesterday and today, Phillip and I visited several Hitler-related locations in and near Munich and took a Third Reich walking tour. Munich is considered the birthplace of the Nazi movement as many of Hitler's early actions occurred here. Our first stop yesterday was at the Dokumentation Center, a museum similar to the one we visited in Nuremburg last year.

The Dokumentation Center is free to visit, with free audioguides. We took over three hours, listening at each historical exhibit. This Center doesn't have things, like clothes or armaments, but pictures and explanations. It was a history lesson presented in a captivating format. Phillip stayed with it the entire time, so that tells the family how well-done it was.

Yesterday afternoon, we went on the Third Reich tour, quite reasonably priced at about $16 per person. Jake, our tour guide (a former teacher from Chicago), was entertaining, yet serious when he needed to be. Hitler came to Munich in 1913, possibly to avoid military service in his native Austria. He did serve in WWI for Germany, later using his military service during his speeches. Most of the locations we visited had either been rebuilt as something else or had very little signage about their role in the Nazi movement. For example, this hall is still in use, today as a dance venue. It was the hall wherein Hitler made the speech to create the Nazi Party, taking over a small (54 member) political party, renaming it the National Socialist German Workers Party (although there was nothing socialist about his policies, it was just a popular poitical word to use).

Jake describing the Nazi use of this hall

Some locations are forbidden to be used, for example this one, the Feldherrnhalle. According to Jake, one day a year, the symphony plays from here, otherwise, no one may speak from it or use it. This is where Hitler would stand to review annual parades of his SS troops on the huge plaza out front of it. His "Beer Hall Putsch" of 1923 had ended just to the left of the stage, so Hitler memorialized this site.

Feldherrnhalle

Today, Phillip and I took the train out of town to Dachau. Dachau concentration camp was the first one created, in 1933, by Hitler. It was liberated by the US Army in 1945. This was a site with partial original building, partial reconstructions. Entrance to this area was free, although we did rent the audioguide.

map of Dachau concentration camp

The sign at the gate translates to "Work makes you free." This is the same phrase we saw at the gate of Terrezin, the Czech camp we toured last year near Prague.

Several of the concentration camp buildings had been rebuit as the museum. Visitors could walk around alot of the grounds. The 32 prisoner barracks had been demolished, but one was rebuilt for historical illustration. Each building had been built to house 200. By the time of liberation, each one housed 2000.

reconstructed barracks, empty lots where others had been

The Dachau prisoners were used a laborers for the German munitions industry, but were barely fed and given negligible medical care. Dachau had a gas chamber late in the war, but according to records, it was not used except on a few prisoners. Most of the prisoners who died here, just like at Terrezin, died of starvation, beatings, and disease. A lot who came thru here were also taken to Auschwitz or one of the other death camps that made no pretense of being work camps. Enough died, 32,000, that Dachau commanders had to build a second crematorium.

crematorium

We finished our Dachau visit and returned to Munich this afternoon. Another two days here, possibly a visit to the Olympic Park. My next post should have some more upbeat information.

Easy travel to Lupburg and Munich

Our travel to Europe was exacly the way we like: uneventful. Leslie took us to DFW Airport. Short security lines, especially for Phillip and me. We had TSA Pre-check, but Ryan did not. He's 14, so it was fine for him to go thru his security line without us. Although we had the documentation to allow him to travel with us, the only time we were questioned was at the initial check-in kiosk. It required a human attendant to come over to us. She simply asked Ryan who he was traveling with, he pointed to us and said "them" at the same time we said "us," and she punched in a code and that was it. He really enjoyed his business class flight (we used frequent flyer miles) to Munich and we all three were able to get a nap on the flight.

Ryan's mother, Becky, and his sister, Reese, picked us up from the Munich Airport on Monday morning and we head for "Casa Becky" in Lupburg, about an hour north of Munich. The weather was quite a change from Texas, cool and cloudy with intermittent rain. A high of 68 degrees! It wasn't too cool, however, for a visit Monday evening to one of our favorite nearby locations... the ice cream parlor, Prima Vera Eiscafe.

"spaghetti eis"

Becky's husband, David, was quite busy at work (US Army), but he was able to join us Tuesday evening for dinner. The Hale family was happy to be back together.

Wednesday morning, Becky took us to the train station in Parsburg and we headed for downtown Munich. I hadn't gottten that train ticket ahead of time, but I knew this one would be easy as Parsburg is a small station and the trains either go north to Nuremburg or south to Munich. The ticket agent spoke English, so it was wonderfully easy! 

After the two hour train ride, we arrived in Munich, easily found our hotel, and were very pleased with it and our room. This hotel, Schiller 5, is a Rick Steeves recommended hotel and we totally agree with him. Friendly, helpful staff; large room with great desk arrangement and comfortable bed; complimentary coffee any time we want it from the front desk; happy hour at 5 pm with free wine. Once checked in, we walked around a bit, heading for Marienplatz (Mary's Square) where we will meet a tour guide Thursday afternoon. Fairly crowded on the streets, street art like many other European cities.

boar statue near Marienplatz

We walked around the Marienplatz and nearby market, then headed back to the hotel. We had dinner at a nearby restaurant, good German food and a dunkel (dark beer) for me. 

We have 5 days in Munich, so we will have plenty of opportunities for more wurst and dunkel! 

Early Return to Europe

Phillip and I are deviating from our plan to travel every other year - we are heading back to Europe less than a year after our last trip. Phillip's niece, Becky, and her family are still in Europe but will be returning in early 2020 and they want us to visit

them again. During this trip, we are flying into Munich, seeing Becky and her family, then heading south and east, visiting Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, and Romania before returning to Germany. Our return from Europe will be an additional adventure. We will fly from Germany to England where we will catch a boat back to the USA. The boat is a Princess cruise ship, with a 16-day cruise from Southampton to Fort Lauderdale.

When we fly to Munich tomorrow, will will take Becky's son, Ryan, with us. Ryan has been in the States this summer, attending football and basketball camps, visiting family and friends, and helping us at the ranch.

2019 is a garden year for us, but by the end of July, we had filled our freezers and our canned goods closet with the harvests. The spring rains and cooler early summer temperatures led to lots of veegetables and fewer bugs. We set production records with our green beans, asparagus, and spaghetti squash. We left the garden on Thursday having harvested about 1300 pounds of tomatoes, with many more green tomatoes on the plants. I contacted a retired FWPD captain who lives on a ranch a few miles away. His garden had already burnt up in the late summer, so he will drop by to pick our remaning vegetables while we are gone.

I'm a bit anxious about our travel preparation. We decided not to get a Eurail pass because some of our transportation will be by plane, bus, and boat instead of exclusively train. I pre-purchased the train tickets for Austria as the Austrian train service website was easy to use. We know we can purchase train tickets at the station; many of our fellow train passengers last year had done that. It will be a new experience for us, and I hope the instructions will be available in English!

Packing has become easy for us as we do not overpack. No issues with Phillip over clothes anymore, i.e., no request from him to take blue jeans! Leslie will take us to the airport, picking us up at 6 am... We are very grateful for her, as she is also taking care of Zelda for us. So... heading out on another adventure.