LUCKY NUMBER 13
Those who know me know of my constant intersection with the number 13. I was born on the 13th (A Friday, what else?) and many important things in my life have happened on the 13th. I regularly get put in Room13 or seat 13 - and my Austria journey started, when else, but on the 13th of March.
Tuesday, March 13 - Up at 3:30, and I was ready when the cab came. For those who may not have had the experience lately, I‘m here to tell you that at 4 in the morning, it is still dark outside. Train to Clapham - train to Gatwick - train to north terminal - checked in, got an exit row seat, and was through security by 6:15. Got a newspaper, had something to eat. Boarded - and found my exit row seat wasn’t - in fact it was just in front of the exit row, and so had no reclining in the seat. I was not happy and let the attendant know and she did nothing. Later in the flight they passed out survey forms and pointedly did not give me one. I will write the company. (Grumble, whuffle, snort. I did write the company, and of course, nothing happened.) Took a bus into the city and with a phone call to the hotel, and some walking, found the hotel. Simple - nice room, not luxury but comfortable, view of the mountains out the window. My own shower and toilet, and my key opens the outer door. Breakfast included. There is a television - two channels in English (CNN and BBC news) and two or three in Italian and the rest in German. Nope, no stations in French. Some things do NOT change. Unpacked and did a little organizing and out for a walk.
Here is the view from my hotel room window. What can I say?
I discovered that I have done well in finding a place to stay. The hotel is right on the river, across from the Congress (a large convention and arts center) and the State Theatre, and the old city and very close to a lot of things I am interested in. I did get a map, to help re-acquaint me with the geography.
Traveling with a priest, even when he is traveling alone - I cannot claim to be responsible for the weather but today was breath-takingly beautiful. The sky was absolutely clear, a brilliant blue, and the mountains still have snow on the peaks, but the snow is off the lower slopes, and in the city, flowers are out everywhere and the grass is green. It was supposed to go the 60's today, and I am sure it made it.
I went out and spent about four hours just walking, trying to see what I remembered from the days when I was here as a student. One of the things I did discover was that I have not lost the knack of blending in - in the space of three blocks, two different couples asked me directions, in German - and I was able to answer one of the questions. Several weeks ago I went ice skating for the first time since 1992, and after a couple of shaky rounds, the old techniques came back and by the end of the session, I was starting to feel relatively comfortable - rental skates (in other words practically no blades, very dull) and a heavy crowd which meant heavily scored ice - but all in all, I was fairly proud of myself. The same thing is true with speaking German. I find myself struggling for words, but the accent is good and I was able to shop, ask directions, have a conversation with a woman who sat next to me on a bench while I was smoking a cigar (her late husband smoked a cigar and she wanted to enjoy the aroma. It was a good Cuban cigar I had bought in London.) The people in the hotel talk to me exclusively in German, and the exchanges I had when a student (where the clerk would figure out I was not Austrian and spent the whole transaction speaking to me in English, while I spoke only German) never took place. I started out in German, and apparently it sounded good enough so that anyone I spoke to stayed in German.
Here is the view of my hotel from the park across the river where I would go to smoke a cigar. See the pink building in the center of the picture? To the left of it is a brown building, and if you look closely, you can see writing on the wall. That's my hotel - my room is on the other side.
Idle observations - lots of dogs not on leashes in the city. They walk along near their owners and seem very well-behaved, and no one seems terribly worried about cleaning up after them. In one of the squares near the university there was a street musician playing an accordion, and this guy could play with any orchestra I have ever heard. A very accomplished musician. The tourist souvenirs in the old city seem about the same as when I was here, except the quality is a little lower and the prices are a lot higher. Obviously things have changed - the last time I was here was 1966 - but in a city like Innsbruck, a lot remains the same. I suspect that someone from the 1800's would still be able to find their way around much of the city, certainly the center section.
Later in the afternoon I walked through a park that is near where I am staying. Lots of kids playing - on one lawn area, there were about eight teen-age girls, all lying on the ground, with the head of one on the stomach of another, and so on, forming an interesting and attractive design. Lots of young art students were out with their pads, capturing different scenes in the park. In one area, two men were playing chess - with pieces larger than usual. The king was a little over 3 feet tall, and the other pieces were proportionate. And there was another set about twenty yards away not being used. They had an audience of about twenty. I wandered over and was immediately accepted - someone offered me a seat, and I watched for a while before continuing my walk. (Maybe it’s the beard? Or the hat?)
I ended the afternoon with a cigar, smoked along the bank of the river, watching people and the mountains. A young mother on roller blades went back and forth with her son, who was learning to use the blades. Lots of older people out, walking with younger people, walking with wheeled walkers - a couple of old women were pushing the wheelchairs of other old women. (This is where the woman sat on the bench and joined me for a talk.) Along the walk, just as I left the river walk to return to the hotel, there is a large crucifix with a life-size corpus and lots of flowers at the base, both planted and loose flowers.
Another view from slightly farther down the river. At sunset, the white on the mountains (that would be snow) turns pink and then golden. Rather takes your breath away, even if you haven't been smoking a cigar.
I stopped at a local market and bought a couple of drinks and some nuts for munching. Part of the goal for this part of the trip is to lose a little weight, so I will not be reporting on a whole lot of eating, although I will include favorite dishes on my trip of reminiscence.
It was a strangely emotional day. Some things I simply do not remember. Others I recognize when I see them, like the streetcar that I used to take to get back to the pension where I lived. I could not have told you the name - but when I saw the streetcar on the avenue, I recognized it. I found slivers of memory, a place where we had a drinking party, a store where I bought clothes
I called Mr Reading for his birthday - when I was here I hadn’t met him yet - and then went out for a stroll in the evening. Found an internet connection at the laundromat and did email for 30 minutes, went for a walk in the cool night air - the city is so quiet where I am - one cannot hear traffic or any other noise but the occasional rush of water in the river. Back for Mass and a shower, some nuts and a crossword, the evening hours - I will sleep well tonight.
Wednesday, March 14 - And I did. Lights out around 11, and slept until 8. Deep and involved dreams, although as is the way with dreams, most have dissolved. Said Mass, dressed and down to have breakfast (which is included with the room). Cereals, with milk or yogurt, fruit, ham and salami and cheeses (yes, plural) rolls and dark bread (three kinds) and butter and honey and jams (yes, plural) and sour cream and a dessert cake and eggs (hard-boiled, in the shell - I even remembered how to eat them) and juice and coffee and milk - one can make a breakfast of this. All fresh, good quality, sitting at a lovely table, looking out the windows at the mountains - and “When I’m 64" playing in the background. Globalization.
When I went back to the room, another thing I had forgotten - the windows open two ways. They open in, like a door. But if you move the handle up, the whole top part tilts in, so you can get fresh air without letting the whole world look into your life, or let the rain in, or whatever. The day is as beautiful as was yesterday - I am going to try to go up to Aldrans. And today I am definitely taking my camera with me. There are two things I had meant to bring and have forgotten - gloves, which does not seem like a major omission unless I decide to go ice skating, and a carry bag. I have the computer bag but it is a little big. I may see if there is a small version I can get for cigar things, a note book, maybe the breviary, like a small purse on a shoulder strap.
Walked and did email, bought a 24 hour rail card for the city buses and streetcars and a newspaper, walked and found the Jesuit church and the Jesuit community, walked and - I can get more enjoyment just out of walking the streets of a city than anyone I know. I don’t have to see things, like tourist spots or tourist attractions, I just enjoy the people and the city and what’s going on. Eventually I came across the Amras line, and so I went out to the end of the line, and walked up the hill. Now when I was a student I walked up this hill many times - I am here to tell you, I am no longer a student. My little heart was pounding at the top of the hill. The pension I lived in is now a co-op, and has been painted an unfortunate mustard yellow. But I took some pictures, and some pictures of the valley, because the weather continues gorgeous and the view continues breath-taking. THAT hasn’t changed in all the years.
On the road up the side of the mountain from Innsbruck to Aldrans - in the foreground is Schloss Ambrass.
More things I had forgotten - Schloss Ambrass, a local castle along the way, and the names of local hotels and other little towns in the area - won’t mean anything to you, but very nostalgic for me. I kept remembering meals at this place, someone who came visiting and stayed at this place, a birthday party in another place. I missed a bus by about a minute - and the next wasn’t for an hour - and I was not in the mood to schlepp down the mountain. So I read the newspaper, wandered around Aldrans, and relaxed. Another thing I had forgotten about - Servus. It’s an informal greeting - what reminded me? About six different people in the course of the afternoon greeted me with it. I kept looking behind me to see if a friend of their’s was right behind me, and it seemed to be me. Maybe I look like someone? Maybe it’s the beard? Or the hat?
Here is the Pension where I spent a wonderful year as a university student. My room was the little window all the way at the top.
This was the general view out my bedroom window, except three floors higher up. There is one night in the winter when they light fires on the mountain tops all over the valley.
Pretty much every day after breakfast and dinner, we would go out to the front porch and look at Innsbruck down below us. Sometimes it was a quick visit, sometimes we would stay for a while, just looking at the view and the valley. Often, in the wintertime, we could only see clouds below, blocking the view of the city, and the mountains above. But it was a ritual moment, and one most of us observed most of the time.
The little town of Aldrans, looking down toward Innsbruck.
The bus from Aldrans stopped at the Olympic ice rink, and I remembered reading that there was public ice skating on Wednesday afternoon, so now I can add to the list that I have skated at the Olympic ice rink in Innsbruck. I’m here to tell you that the rental ice skates in Innsbruck are no better than the rental ice skates in Central Park. I went into the city center and bought a small bag for carrying things, and I got some money from a cash machine, and I listened to the accordion player again, and just enjoyed the people. Went by a book store where they sold English books, and they had Wicked, the original book for the musical which I had seen in London - so I went in and found they were asking 16 euro - around 22 dollars. For a paperback! Not this child. Finally the pain in the feet was too great to be ignored, so I went back to the room and sat down for a while, unloaded my pockets and rested my feet - and then the day was so gorgeous I went out again.
Other odd things I notice: young people have an extraordinary number of piercings. Not all, not even a majority - but enough that I notice. And I am talking four in the lip, three in the nose, and in the cheek and the chin and the ears - on one poor face, perhaps ten or twelve piercings. Shops here still observe the mid-day closing - not all, but many will shut from 2 until 4 or some variation thereon, so they can go home and have lunch and rest, before coming back to continue the day. There is a lot of American tv, dubbed into German - I’ve seen House and Monk and several films and many others. I haven’t stayed long with them, but it’s interesting. There are some shows where the American dialogue is so fast that the Germans really have to zip along in order to keep up. Which makes it REALLY hard for me to figure out what’s going on. But I watch some tv every day, just to help get the sound in my poor head. (By the way - there IS French television, it only comes on in the evening. So I can flip through the dials and watch German, English, French AND Italian programs and pretty much know what’s going on in any of them. The German tv has much more informational programming than we do - and some of it is very interesting. Some, of course, is terminally dull. The end of the ski season has been getting a lot of publicity, as does football/soccer. Cricket gets a passing mention.)
I figured out that one reason I have been doing so well with my interchanges is that for the most part, I initiate the conversation, and so people are responding, and I already have a notion of what the answers might be, and the arena in which the conversation is taking place. I am less successful at eavesdropping than I am in conversation, and I suspect that is at least part of the reason.
Going out again involved taking a short walk and ending up on the other side of the river, again in the park along the river, with a cigar and a book (short stories in German, translated from an Israeli author who is absolutely hysterical. I don’t know what the original language was but I laugh out loud at least once in every story I have read thus far.) I recognized several of the people also out walking - an old woman pushing another old woman in a wheel chair, a very distinguished older woman walking with a younger woman I assume is a daughter. Some new people - a striking blonde on roller blades using ski poles. Lots of roller blades, and very few skate boards. What that means, I don’t know. Lots of dogs - most not on leashes but some are. For the next several hours, both in the park and later in the hotel, watching the sun set on the mountains was lovely lovely lovely. (Yes, three times, it was that good.)
Back to the hotel for some prayer time, and a rest and dinner in the hotel dining room. Very Tyrolean. Goulash, a spicy Austrian sausage and sauerkraut and roast potatoes and beer, and hot apple strudel with whipped cream for dessert. Not haute cuisine, perhaps, but wonderful. There was an older woman who was in the dining room when I was there at breakfast - she eats alone, reads German although I thought she might be English, and is very precise in her dress and how she eats. Two younger men were there - just drinking, not eating - and another man came in for a beer and to read the newspapers. I had a book and had a lovely quiet meal. Back to the room for two lectures in my music course, and a quiet night. Watched a little golf on tv, and bed.
Thursday, March 15 - The Ides of March. Slept until almost 8, shower and down for my breakfast. (I could get used to this.) Same menu as yesterday, slightly different cast of characters, good book in English that I am reading in small sections, so as to make it last longer. Stark is the name of the novel, and the author is Ben Elton and he is a wonderful writer and I shall immediately go forth and see what else he has written. Not wonderful in the Charles Dickens sense, but certainly in the Jeeves and Bertie Wooster sense. Wonderful characters, great writing style, immensely complicated plot which one follows with ease and I can hardly wait to see where it is going to go. The weather is very good - not quite as crisp as it has been the last two days, just gorgeous without other adjectives.
Checked email and spent the rest of the day wandering - went to the Dom and found an altar to Peter Canisius and spent some time in the prayer chapel. Wandered through the university and enjoyed the students enjoying the weather. Browsed in shops with no idea of buying and sat in the sun and did a very hard crossword puzzle - definitely a Thursday or a Friday. Home, with a stop to get a pizza. Ate a little, and then I took a nap. Slept for about 90 minutes. Did some writing - said Mass and dressed for the evening concert and wandered over to the Congress Hall.
And what a night it was! The Hall is huge, a regular convention center with many rooms and apparently a rather nice restaurant. There is a sign - the police won’t let you take bags or coats into the hall, and then they charge you for the coat check! (How do you say racket in German?) But everything else was wonderful - as you entered a small child gave you a chocolate, the seats are easy to find. The hall itself is dark wood, a little larger than Alice Tully and smaller than Avery Fisher. The program was well-written, although they did list the players. The evening consisted of a Mendelsohn overture, a symphony written by the 74-year old conductor of the orchestra, and in the second half, Beethoven’s 4th. Before the concert, different musicians were on stage, warming up. But they all left, and the orchestra entered together, men in wing collars, white tie and tails. Some of the men wore cummerbunds, but that seemed to be optional. Women wore black dresses, although a couple had black tops and black slacks. All stood when the conductor entered.
The Mendelsohn was good. The conductor’s piece was interesting - modern in its tonal quality but with melodies and interesting use of the orchestra, including a trio of brass that played from the house. There were no movements with breaks in between, about 30 minutes of continuous music.
During the interval I got chatting with the man next to me (Sin of pride - that I can casually throw in that I was chatting in German.) He was from Switzerland, here on holiday, from Basil. And then the Beethoven. First movement was ok, second I rather forget about and enjoyed being reminded. The third was brisk, and as good a reading of that movement as I perhaps have ever heard. The tempo might have been right at the edge of the ability of the string section, but it was not beyond them, and they were crisp and sure and very fast. It was a wonderful movement - and the fourth topped it. Great way to end the evening.
I had scoped out the facility during the interval and so I managed to get to the coat check well before the hordes and had an almost instant recovery of my hat and coat and strolled into the park for the walk home.
When I go to a performance that is especially good, whether theatre or opera or orchestral, it almost always produces in me feelings of loss, of loneliness, of missed opportunity. When I was small, the first Broadway show I was taken to see was Peter Pan, with Mary Martin and Cyril Ritchard. When we got back to my grandmother’s apartment I went off by myself and cried and cried, dreadfully intense sorrow, because that magical thing was going to be going on again that night and I wasn’t going to see it. I think it is a shadow of the same thing. To not be performing somehow breaks my heart a little each time. Shades of that on the walk home.
I had left myself one piece of pizza for an after the show snack. I had thought of stopping in the bar in the lobby for a drink but there were several young and drunk and loud young men already in residence and that was not exactly the mood I was looking for.
Friday, March 16 - Have to remember not to have meat with breakfast. Good sleep, gentle morning. After breakfast I was watching tv and there was a CNN ad featuring a woman in Nigeria who has started a line of women’s clothes. I know her. She is a relative of someone with whom I am a good friend. (Earlier in the week I was watching Boston Legal - in German - and there was an old friend of mine doing a one-shot appearance. Dick Riehle spent a year in Austria as a student, and he could have done his own dubbing. Slightly weird feeling.) Another beautiful morning - although yesterday when I checked the weather on the internet, next week in Salzburg seems to be nothing but rain and snow. Took with me the CD lessons today, so I could listen as I walked.
Not every day can be an adventure and today was a quiet day with lots of time for reading and listening to the symphony course and prayer. I visited places. In the square in front of the Goldenes Dachl, the golden roof, one of the primary tourist sites of Innsbruck, there are signs hanging over shops, sticking out into the square. All are “old style” and some have probably been there in some form or another for centuries. And in the middle of all these beautiful signs, in somewhat the same style, but clearly indentifiable, is the Golden Arches of McDonald’s. There is another Mickey D’s about a block away in Maria Theresien Strasse and I’m sure there are others around. Doing a land office business, by the way. Smoked a cigar while wrestling with a NY Times puzzle. Home for a long shower and a sit down.
In a large city like Innsbruck, the river that runs through town is clean enough so that not only can people catch fish in it, they can eat what they catch.
And how should I spend my last night in Innsbruck? How else, but by going to an Irish pub? (Actually, I found two Irish pubs, but this one is having three nights of Irish music with a group from Galway.) And who could imagine me spending a night with Irish music and not ending up somehow singing? Right you are - for my last night in Innsbruck, nothing like Irish music and an occasional solo from the visiting American.
Saturday, March 17 - Good sleep, slightly earlier than usual for breakfast. Packed, checked out and headed to the train station. The weather was still very good although slightly less crisp than earlier in the week. .Got my ticket - had a conversation with the ticket guy and I was right about my numbers, one has to be 65 to qualify for the VorteilsKarte (for men - for women it’s only 60). Went to a local internet café and checked email and then went to the waiting room and did a lesson on the symphony series. Went up to the train and boarded - got a lovely cabinet with an older Austria man, and it looked like it was going to be a lovely trip. Then a group of football fans - young men with beer - boarded and took over the next two compartments - and seconds before the train was to leave, a British family crowded into the remaining four seats. I say crowded advisedly because these were very “American” Brits, very loud and expanding and each was physically large. I gave up any thoughts I had had of reading and simply plugged in and listened to two more lectures. It was a little strange - riding through the beautiful Austrian countryside, listening to lectures about Mendelsohn and Schumann and the French composers - while the English family chatted away at loud volume, and the football fans drank and sang and pounded on the walls pretty much the whole way from Innsbruck to Salzburg. Two hours.
Now one could get upset - I just enjoyed the bizarre quality of the whole thing, knowing it would only be for two hours and it would be over. I got the bus from the train station, got off at Mozarts Square and found the hotel as though I knew where I was going. Dead easy. I’m in room 13 - what else - and when I got to my room and turned on the tv, what came up but the St Patrick’s Day parade from Dublin. I went out to see what the neighborhood was like, and what is about three doors down from the hotel but the Dublin Pub - which is where I will be spending the rest of the night. I went to the cathedral - I am about a five minute walk away and found that there is a guest choir for the morning High Mass - a high school choir from the US! I’ll go but I won’t be happy. There is also a sung Mass at the Franciskaner Kirche at 9, so I might do a double, for the music. Might even pray twice, who knows.
The hotel has wi-fi, which did not work in my room the first time I tried, and did the second. The room has a built-in radio, with a tuning to a classical station, a comfortable chair and the smallest bathroom in the world. I’ve been in showers bigger than the bathroom. The room itself is larger than a train compartment but not by much, yet there is lots of storage and it feels very comfortable. Which is good because if the weather report is right, I will be using it more than I otherwise might. I even found a washermat for doing laundry!
Another item I had forgotten from my student days - toilet design. Here (although it was not true in the hotel in Innsbruck) there is a shelf in the toilet, onto which you deposit your offerings, and then when you flush, a great rush of water pushes everything away. We often discussed why this design was somehow thought to be good. Other than giving you the opportunity of examining your contribution more clearly (and there are some whose health concerns make this a very real item in their daily schedule, God help us) I cannot think of a single reason why this is a good idea. Especially if, depending on what you have been eating, the contribution is particularly aromatic. In the design where things fall into a standing pool of water, the aroma is immediately checked. Or at least lessened. This is good. When one is living in a very small room, this can be especially good. And the contrary is also true - when one is living in a very small room, contribution of his aromatic quality, shelf design on the toilet - well, one day when I came back, there was water on the windowsill, a sure sign that the maid who was making up the room felt it necessary to open the window. I could not disagree with her.
So I am unpacked and I’ve walked around a little, I sent the piece about Ralph up to the blog site, and checked email, and in a little bit I will wander off to the pub for St Patrick’s Day.
Not much of a wander - the pub was fairly quiet when I came in, which meant I got to talk to people. The guy who owns the place is from Dublin, and we had a long chat. In addition to several pints of Guiness, I had their lamb stew - quite good. Interesting people - one of the waitresses is from Chicago, but her mother is from Austria and she is at the university. A couple from Hungary - I now can say slainte in Hungarian. Celebrated the saint’s day and at a propitious moment went back to the hotel. Not an inauspicious beginning for my first night in Salzburg, and looking at the things on offer, I don’t think I will be able to do everything I want even if I go out every night - and part of me doesn’t even want to go out every night. We’ll see how the weather cooperates.
I wasn't kidding - the flags on the left are right over the door to my hotel, and just beyond that down the street, you can make out green balloons next to the arch - that's the entrance to the Irish pub. Happy St. Patrick's Day.
Sunday, March 18 - Another good night’s sleep. For those who have been in this part of the world, you know about marshmallows. But just in case - I am not referring to the sweet soft candy but the large, feather-filled comforter that takes the place of upper sheet and blanket and pretty much anything else. There is a lower sheet on the mattress, and a pillow - and everything else is marshmallow. They are, for the uninitiated, WONDERFUL! Now this hotel, which is very nice in many things, has gone in for a commercial, non really made of feathers marshmallow - sort of a faux marshmallow, if you will. Comfortable and warm and probably easy to take care of. But not really the same thing.
The hotel is a fascinating place in itself. In 700 AD when Duke Theo built the fortress, he realized that there was some land left over at the bottom, which he gave to Saint Rupert who built the monastery of St Peter’s and St. Mary’s Convent. Some of that ground was later split and a quay (later spelled kai) was built to help prevent floods. (The hotel today is on Kaigasse - Kai street). The building where I am staying was built in 1305 and was called “the building next to the hospital.” The hotel can trace the change of ownership from then until the present, with the current family that owns the place having bought it in 1904. After the world there were some renovations and an addition was made to the rear. The son and daughter have been to hotel school and are now helping to run the place, the 5th generation. It’s a real rabbit warren of rooms, but it’s fun knowing the whole history.
Breakfast here is slightly more formal than my little place in Innsbruck - there is a menu, from which you order, and there is a little PS menu with other things you may order which are not included in the breakfast that comes with the room. The white rolls can simply be eaten alone, and the dark breads... yum yum. This morning were was a rye roll that was amazing and another dark bread likewise to die for. I love the sour cherry jelly that is pretty much anywhere you go. Even a small order brings out more food than one can realistically deal with, the wait persons all speak several languages and are delighted to do whatever you need. Lots of languages being spoken by the guests as well. Back to the room and got ready to go out. Despite the weather forecast, the sky was blue and the air crisp and I was off to church. I did not make it to the Franciscan church for the first Mass but I was in plenty of time for the cathedral. Service. I brought my breviary so I could get through part of it in church, and I wore my heavy overcoat - cathedrals are COLD! I would have worn a hat if I thought I could have gotten away with it.
When I was a student here, the church was just in the process of changing the Mass, and so the High Mass on Sunday morning was usually a concert Mass - Schubert or Mozart or Haydn - with orchestra and full chorus, and the priests were in the old vestments, lots of incense - and if you sat near the front, you could easily think you were back in the early part of the 19th century.
Some things have definitely changed. The Mass had a choir of six - now these were six very good, highly trained singers, but six. The orchestra was the organ. And there was guest choir from the US. There is a contemporary altar facing the people, but the three celebrants - celebrant, assistant priest and deacon - all wore the old fiddle back vestments. Lots of incense - at the beginning of the Eucharistic prayer, there was a great beam of light coming from one of the side windows just behind the altar - and the incense was spewing great clouds of smoke, so it was highly visible in that beam of light - very dramatic.
The director of the choir - yes, the six singers had a director - rehearsed the congregation for one song that we would sing parts of - and at one point, when I was singing, all six singers looked down directly at me - I think my voice carried. The homilist - not one of the three priests already mentioned but a ringer, sitting on the sideline - was terrific. He built his homily on the song we were helping the choir sing, and tied it in to the homily, to the Mass (today was Laetare Sunday) and shot it home at the end with direct personal application. Bravo! (I wonder if he was a Jesuit...) All in German, of course. Odd moment - I realized I had not brought my little German dictionary with me, but I hadn’t really been using it much.
After Mass I wandered outside, visited a little market next to the Cathedral, and since the weather was so gorgeous, decided to keep wandering, because according to all the meteorological reports, it can’t last.
One of the things I had seen on a listing of cultural events was Der Winterreise, which I assume to be the Schubert song cycle. But there was no time listed, so I walked to where the performance was to take place. Which was a monastery and museum, at the top of a large hill. With a tram car to the top. The guy selling the tickets knew nothing about the cultural event - rather had the feeling he didn’t think too much about cultural events - so I got a ticket and went to the top. No one there knew anything either, but I did walk about the top of the hills, took a few pictures and even stopped at a bench overlooking the other side of the valley and spent some time with the breviary. Atone point I was eavesdropping on a couple of guys, one analyzing in detail one of the Winnie the Pooh stories as a paradigm of anti-prejudice and anti-Nazi literature. When they started to move onto the Harry Potter stories as a parable about national identity, I moved on.
A note about prayer - which I don’t always talk about, but which has been a surprising part of this trip. Usually I carve a stretch of time out of the day which is given to prayer. (In addition to the Mass, and reading the breviary.) On this trip, there has been a spirit of reflection, and in many places, a sense of God. I visited a lot of churches in Innsbruck, and made visits to many I had previously visited. (Not simply a linguistic hoo-ha - to visit a church is to drop in and look it over. To make a visit is to drop in and actually pray. See, another bit of Catholic trivia for you to tuck away for future conversational quiet moments.) That sense of the presence of God has been very much part of everything that has gone on.
Things seen or thought about while wandering - street musicians are out today, because of the good weather. Next to the cathedral, a Mexican or Indean (someone from the Indes?) Playing a very good harp. A middle eastern chap with a very middle eastern stringed instrument, rather like a violin in structure but not at all in sound. Several guitar players who also sang, and who should only be guitar players. Lots of children, and as in Innsbruck, lots of dogs walking happily with their owners without benefit of leash.
It’s expensive. I keep looking at Austrian clothing and a jacket is E299, pants (well, lederhosen) even more. I broke my shoes - the grey shoes I wear all the time for walking and going through airports, one of the soles has literally broken. I am still wearing it but at some point a replacement is going to have to be found. I think I will keep them through Gaming, and abandon them - that will give me extra space in the suitcase for the trip back to London. Maybe someone would like to buy a poor priest a new pair of shoes. I had a wurst and a roll from a street stand, and it was $2.60, which is about $3.50.
Later in the evening, I picked myself up, dusted myself off, put on a necktie and a jacket, my overcoat and went out into the night to explore Salzburg. Not much happening on Sunday, but I went to St Peter’s Kellar, a restaurant where Rotary meets on Monday nights (I won’t be able to make that meeting because of the Mass at the Franciscan Church) and bought myself a ticket for the Mozart’s Dinner. This is one of those tourist things that is rather fun - big beautiful room, with wall decorations dating back to the 1700's and a really good 1903 restoration, musicians in period costumes, and a menu for dinner taken from Mozart’s time. There are tables of eight and ten, and the matresse d’ didn’t know where to put me - I speak German, and English and French, and I know a single at an event like this is always awkward, so I told her to put me wherever would be best for them. (All this in beautiful German, of course.) I ended up at an English table - a man and his wife from Canada, although British by birth, and an Irishman and his wife, and two women who were with the same tour as the Irish couple. The British guy was interesting, and delighted to talk about his travels and his work in retirement, which is travel and writing books (unpublished) about history and his family. Could have been dreadful and it turned out to be very interesting. His father was prisoner in a camp in Poland during the war, and he has a blog site with his father’s story and some photos.
The meal was very good, the setting was gorgeous and the instrumentalists were also first-rate. OK, I’m a singer, I am tough on singers - there was a bass-baritone with a pitch problem and a bad sense of theatre, and a mezzo who tried to sing an alto (and did quite well) and less successfully a higher soprano. She has some voice problems - I wonder if she was sick - but a very outgoing personality and worked very hard at being bright and cheerful and connecting with the audience. Most people probably thought the whole thing was terrific, so I (uncharacteristically) kept my critical mouth shut. When I went out to talk home, that bad weather that had been predicted had finally arrived in the form of rain, so by the time I got home I was if not soaked certainly extraordinarily damp in the extremities.
Details? You want details? OK. The first musical section was from Don Giovanni, and opened with the Salzburger divertimento in F, KV 138, allegro. Then “Notte Giorno” (Leporello), “Madamina, il catalogo” (Leporello, first part only), “Batti, batti o bel Masetto” (Zerlina), “Deh vieni alla finestra (Don Giovanni, first part only) and the duet between the Don oand Zerlina, “La ci darem la mano.” You actually would find much of this familiar, even if the titles don’t grab you.
Then we had a Lemon cream soup with cinnamon - to die for. Truly wonderful. And bread. Always this wonderful bread. (I wonder how you let out Lederhosen when you have had too much bread.)
Then more music, this time focusing on Le Nozze di Gifaro, KV 492 - the Susanna/Figaro duet “Cinquie, dieci, venti...”, then “Non so piu cosa son (Cherubino), “Non piu andrai” (Figaro, “Deh vieni non tardar” (Susanna), an interlude with the Salzburger Divertimento in D, KV 136, allegro and finally “Crudel! Perche finora” (the Susanna and Conte duet).
Those who know the music have by now figured out that we only had two singers, a mezzo qua alto and a bass qua baritone. Oh? I told you that above. Never mind.
Dinner was a roasted capon breast (very tender and juicy) with polenta and truffle-sage cream sauce (Yup, just about as good as it sounds) and vegetables from Father Prior’s garden. (OK, THAT is a little cutesy - vegetables are pretty much vegetables, no matter what you call them, and for all the atmosphere, they were vegetables.)
The final musical selection was from Zauberflote, but we opened with the first movement of Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. Then “Bei Mannern welche Liebe fuhlen” (Papageno/Pamina duet), “Ein Madchen oder Weibchen (Papageno), “Klinget Glockchen klinget” (Papageno, 1st part) and the famous Papageno/Papagena duet. They did one encoure - which I did not recognize, a duet.
And for dessert, we had a semi-frozen honey parfait with a two kinds of sauce.
Just an indication of prices - in addition to the dinner, if you wanted you could get a Coke for E2.90, a mineral water for E2.75, Beer for E3.10 (Multiply each of these numbers by around 1.32 to get the dollar value), a sherry E4.50, a bottle of wine ranging from E24 to E39.
Festung Hohensalzburg - the fort overlooking the city where I went for dinner and a concert on one snowy night. (Read on - it's coming up.)
Monday, March 19 - St Joseph’s Day. I slept until a little after 8, and when I opened the blind to check the weather, snow. Heavy flakes falling in a very determined manner. When I went out later in the morning, the mountains were lightly dusted and the roofs had enough snow to be pretty. The hotel has a great stack of umbrellas by the front door - I wish they had shoes. Remember I said I had broken my shoes? Well, the rain on the ground soaks up through the crack in the shoe, and my right foot was cold and squishy in a very short period of time.
I went out and bought a ticket for Carmen for Wednesday, a ticket for the fortress concert on Tuesday, and did some shopping for presents (although no buying). One beautiful little park, the trees had all bloomed, and there were lovely pink buds on a whole row of trees - and of course, everything was covered with wet snow. I ran into the guy from the dinner last night and his wife - they are heading off to Vienna this afternoon and then a train to Paris from there. I had a couple of ideas for presents and did not find what I was looking for, and resisted the temptation to buy just to get it done. I still have two days and I will use them carefully. So I went back to the hotel, took my laptop to the lobby where the signal is strong and constant, checked email and tried to find a plug adaptor - and when I asked at the desk, they had exactly what I needed. I also bought a Monday Herald Tribune, just for the sake of doing the puzzle. (It is really quite expensive.) Did some writing and some reading and some praying in the room for the afternoon - the snow had turned to rain, and then the rain stopped. And came back. And stopped.
I went out a little before six, so I could get to the chapel and do some praying before the evening Mass. Feast of St Joseph. So the Franciscan Church was doing a special Mozart Organ Mass for the feast. I read through the breviary hours, and then everyone was standing up and a voice was coming over the loudspeaker, and we were doing the stations of the cross. OK, when in Rome, so like the Germans do. So I did the stations of the cross, and then the Mass started. Choir, organ (after all, it was one of Mozart’s organ Masses) and horns and kettle drums - nicely done. Once again, old style vestments (and I saw part of a celebration on television that leads me to belief this is the style here.) The priest was not outstanding - not bad, but he had an ending in his homily and didn’t realize and went on for another full ten minutes after he should have started. Unfortunately he did not get better with time.
And cold? I want to tell you about old churches. They hold onto cold something fierce. Even at the end of the Mass, with a church filled with people, I could still see my breath in the air. One would think that the crush of human bodies and certain amount of breathing would have warmed things up. Nope. Or at least if it got warmer, it was still cold enough to see your breath. And it seems that here the tradition is NOT to have communion under both species, so there is not even the hope of a little sip of wine along the way.
When the Mass was over, I headed to the pub for a whiskey (to warm my innards) and a beer and a hamburger. I won’t say the place was quiet, but I have been in morgues that were livelier. True, true. I had my beer, ate my burger, and went home. Not your typical Irish place. My friend from Dublin was not around and the guy who was running the bar was more interested in his paper and the soccer match on television than conversation.
Tuesday, March 20 - Good sleep, and when I awoke I looked out the window to see what the weather was doing and guess what? Snow!!! Heavy, wet snow. Not as pretty falling as yesterday’s effort, but when it hits it sticks and was rapidly transforming the landscape into Christmas card visions. I ate lightly at breakfast - I usually don’t eat breakfast and when there are other meals in my future, stocking up at breakfast doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense. I did some email and internet stuff, and headed out into the wet and the cold. I still have that shoe problem, so I wrapped my foot in a plastic bag - and that worked pretty well. My feet were cold when I finished my wander, but I was mostly dry.
I walked and walked and walked. I went all the way to the railroad station and bought my ticket to Gaming. I rode the bus back and rode several stops beyond where I would usually go off, just so I could walk back. Unfortunately, without my noticing it, the bus had gone around the mountain, and so when I set out walking, I was heading in a direction that did not go where I wanted to go. Rather one of those, “You can’t get there from here” moments. It was a lovely walk - heavy wet snow falling, and I was dressed warmly enough, so aside from a slight nagging worry that I might get myself into a situation where there wouldn’t even be a bus, I had rather a nice time. I quickly found myself walking through more country than city - at one point there was a road crossing warning, and the image was a frog. Yup, a frog crossing sign. (And me, once again, without my camera in my pocket.)
Eventually I found myself at a bus stop and almost didn’t care where it was going, as long as it went through the mountain. It did and got me back to a place where I actually knew where I was. I bailed, and went shopping again, and ended up buying several small things for people. At that point I was cold and wet and went back to the hotel, where I spent the rest of the afternoon, some email and internet exploring and some writing. And along the way a shower, just to raise the body temp.
Around 5 I dressed, put on my suit and clean underwear (hey these little moments are important) and off for the evening. I walked over to the train that goes up to the fortress and up I went. (For the uninitiated, Salzburg means city of salt, and above the city sits a large fortress. Called the Festung, it is open for tourists and concerts and dinners and stuff like that.) Grey sky, snow falling - the view was limited but pretty, and this time I DID have my camera and did take some pictures. I had gone early to see something of the fortress before dinner, and I discovered that up it was snowing more heavily, blowing more strongly and COLD. (Gee, John, you sound surprised that it snows more on TOP of a mountain than in the valley. Sheesh.) So I explored for about three minutes and retreated into the dining room. Unlike the Mozart dinner, no one worries about seating, and so I had a table to myself. (Just in case, I had a book in my pocket.) I was still cold, so I started with a Mozarts Kaffee, which is an Irish coffee with a different kind of whiskey. Just what I needed. A nice Austrian wine, and the first course was a meat pate in an aspic with a vinegar salad. Potato soup was next, and was simply delicious. I chose a grilled pike, which turned out to be beautifully cooked - the fish equivalent of a medium rare, so the meat was not just flavorful but still juicy and tender - and accompanying vegetables, which were pretty much just vegetables. Dessert was called Mozart Variations, and consisted of a slice of chocolate ice cream with nuts, resting on a bed of raspberry puree, a baked pastry with a kiwi inside (and it was hot!) And a couple of fresh strawberries. One whole side of the very large plate was covered in powdered sugar, in which a musical clef had been created. All very elegant.
During dinner, of course, the city of Salzburg below us gradually grew dark, and lights starting shining through the mist. At one point the clouds were so thick one could see nothing - at other times, the lights of cars and the lights of the city came through. It was really very pretty and I could only imagine what it must be like on a clear summer evening.
From the Festung, looking down over Salzburg. There was a gap in the snow so I could take a quick picture but it quickly resumed and I went inside. Snow is cold.
The people in my part of the dining room were interesting. One couple I had talked with earlier were from France, there was an English student who was by himself (but I did not learn he was English until after dinner) and behind me in a corner was a very elegant Austrian and his wife. I assume she was his wife. She had a red jacket over a black skirt with a black hat and a diamond (I assume faux diamond) belt and huge buckle. Somehow it worked. She had one of those faces that could have 30, could have been 50, hard to tell. But I don’t think she was his daughter.
After dinner, I strolled through the snow - heavy, wet and slippery snow - through the castle to where the concert was to be held. Had a nice chat with one of the workmen, very thick Salzburg accent and I managed to hold my own. The concert was in one of the large rooms - candleabra in the ceiling, weapons on the walls, chairs arranged on three sides around the stage area. Four chairs on the stage - string quartet. Each instrumentalist must be good, no place to hide.
The program was interesting - A Schubert piece, then a horn piece followed by an Alpen horn piece by Leopold Mozart, complete with Alpen horn, the twenty foot long horn used in - well, the Alps - for calling between mountain villages. And of course, a night in Salzburg would not be complete with Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. When in doubt, the Chamber of Commerce seems to have decreed, play Eine Kleine. The trip back down the mountain was dangerous and gorgeous and a lovely way to end the evening.
The outdoor cafe at the Festung -we continued to have snow for the next several days. And more fell outside the city than in Salzburg itself.
Wednesday, March 21 - the first full day of spring, and when I opened the window, there is that snow again. When these guys say snow, they’re not just kidding around. I had had problems with the internet connection last night, and again this morning - nothing. For reasons known only to God and perhaps Bill Gates, the system can find the wireless connection and doesn’t connect to it. I have opened every window and tried every combination I can think of to no effect. I used the computer in the lobby to check email but it is a nuisance suddenly to be deprived of the connection.
Morning television here (and in Innsbruck) is interesting - several of the channels have remote tv shots of different skiing and city scenes, with temperatures and forecasts. Austrian music is played underneath, and if you want something soothing as you putter around, that is certainly it. Of course, the last several days, many of the screen shots have been just grey, since the clouds and snow have rather taken away the option of actual scenery. Light breakfast - in spite of lots and lots (and LOTS) of walking, I seem to be gaining weight. Not this might be caused by eating breakfast every morning - might be my body reacting to all of this cold by storing up fat. But it is NOT how I planned that dimension of the trip to go.
Out in the morning, with my foot again wrapped in a plastic bag, to re-create a moment of my youth, the salt mines in Hallein. I went with friends and there is somewhere in the archive a picture of several of us after the tour, it is the first picture of me with a beard. I thought it would be fun to do the tour again (this is where you put on a canvas suit with great leather patches and slide down wooden rails in between the different levels of the mine.) I had a vision of the two photos side by side, 1965 and 2007. Bus to the train, bought a ticket and caught a train by about 30 seconds.
And that was the last bit of luck I had all day long. I got to Hallein - the trip was gorgeous, heavy wet snow coming down with Christmas card strength, and the trees and mountains are stunning. I, who take a book with me to the bathroom, didn’t even read, I was so entranced by the scenery. By the amount I see on tables and benches, we’re talking an accumulation of up to six inches. When I got to Hallein, I looked around and saw a sign - Saltzwerk, with little crossed tools - and off I went. Asked a couple of people on the way and the kept pointing me in the same direction as the signs, so I felt fairly confident. Nice walk, really heavy snow but I had an umbrella and a plastic bag on my foot and life was good. After a while I started to feel a little less confident - and then I came to a sign which confidently directed me to a highway, with the note that Bad Durnerg was 4 km away, and it seemed that the saltzwerks sign was pointing the same way.
Yup - first I had to find someone to ask, but once I went back (I HATE going back) and found people, they were fairly unanimous in telling me that the salt mines where you take the tour are in fact in Bad Durnberg, and I can take a bus. Which, I discovered, runs once every hour. And - you guessed it - I had just missed it. I did pay a visit to the Silent Night church - I skipped the Silent Night Museum - and I did walk around Hallein a little. But when I looked at the time and schedule and cost - well, I ended up getting back on a train and heading back to Salzburg. Another slice of my youth not to be revisited. And as I returned, the snow stopped, the sun came out, bits of blue sky appeared - is this a sign from God or what? And saying what?
When I got back to Salzburg, I wanted to stop in a little antique shop I had seen a day or two ago, which had a reliquary with what seemed to be a relic of St Philip Neri in the window. St Philip was a great friend of Ignatius, and while I am quite sure I couldn’t afford the thing, I was interested to see what the cost might be. I could NOT find the store. I was fairly sure I knew where it was - and it had disappeared. The little shop that wasn’t there. Brigadoon. I walked up and over and back and forth - nope. Where I thought the antique shop should have been was a clothing store I swear I had never seen before. At that point (with a quick visit to St Peter’s Church since I happened to be there and I have got to find out why they have an altar to St Aloysius there) I went back to the hotel.
My luck absolutely holding, I had no luck at all trying to figure out what is happening with my computer. I switched from the wireless access program I had been using to the Microsoft Access program, and it too found the hotel network and it too could not connect. No reason given - and again, no matter what configuration combination I tried, nothing happened. So I used the lobby hotel to send an email or two, and then went back upstairs to warm up my feet and get ready for the evening. In the middle of Mozart’s city, with Mozart candy and Mozart cookies and Mozart t-shirts everywhere you turn, in a theatre named “Mozart’s House” - I am going to see a performance this evening of Carmen, sung in French. Went out again in the afternoon - still could not find the shop with the relic in the window, enjoyed the scenery - the blue sky and crisp weather, a last look at the festung and the Dom and other parts of the city - that “this is probably the last time I will see this in this lifetime” moment. (I had a lot of those on this trip - not that I am expecting to die soon, but there was a sense that I will not see these place - and in some cases see these people - again.) I bought a couple of small presents for the children of the Mortensens - don’t know what to bring them, since they are packing to leave in a couple of months, and it is Lent, so even the usual chocolate and liquor option doesn’t seem quite right. I’ll give them an IOU for a house-warming gift at the other end. Tried a full reboot on the computer - didn’t change a thing.
Went out to the opera, and it was great fun. I had never been in the House for Mozart - it was only opened in 2006 - and it shares part of the structure of the Festival Hall. Beautifully built, well designed, and well run. The coat check is very efficient, and after checking the outer garments, I wandered into a huge hall, wood -paneled, old, with a painting on the ceiling. And a cat at the other end. Yes, a live cat, sort of sitting watching the people eat. Because in this hall is a very large bar with food and drink. I wandered farther and found the rest rooms, several other small bars, and a wonderful view out onto the plaza in front of the Festival House. I bought a program - something to read on the train tomorrow - and wandered the house. Very modern, no central aisles, comfortable seats, good acoustics.
Now for the opera. Carmen. Bizet and Halevy and someone else I can never remember. I missed the first part of the stage setting because I was so fascinated with the one woman playing double bass (along with three men). I was in the first balcony section - GREAT seat - and so could see into the orchestra pit. This lady really gets into her music, and in the strong opening section of the overture, she was sawing and swaying and generally dancing with the instrument. Throughout the evening, she had more fun than any three people. She is either really into her music or perhaps had a drink before the show. Whatever, it was fun to watch.
And the set was fun to watch. There was a curved wall that ran the total width of the stage, and there was a space on top for people, which is where the chorus - in top hat and tails and long evening dresses - spent most of the evening. Spectators at the bull fight, spectators for much of the action. And when the chorus was not needed, a wall came down from above, which matched the wall below, and turned the whole back of the stage into a curved wall.
In the center of the stage, taking up about 90% of the floor space, was a huge circle, angle so that when it faced forward it had about a 30% slant - and it could revolve. At the back side - the tallest - there was a door, and a ladder, and when the high end was upstage, there apparently was a p ramp so people could enter directly onto that level. Very clever, very stark but it worked fairly well.
There was no other scenery. In her first act Carmen was in a red dress - pretty much everyone else was in black and white, or darker earth colors. Escamillo entered in a white suit (rather like a Colombian drug lord) with a black cape with a bright red satin lining. That was pretty much it - a production that focused on the singing and the acting and the basic plot of the story.
As we started, someone came out on stage and greeted us, and explained that the woman who was singing Carmen had been sick all week. She would sing that night, but she wanted to apologize because her voice was still not all it should be. Usually that is a bad idea - in this case, the lady was quite good, and if this is her level of performance when she is not 100%, I hope some day to hear her at full voice. She had a couple of shaky moment in the middle of the first act - but her first aria, the famous Habanera - sung sitting down - was dynamite.
The Micaela was very good, and a great favorite with the audience. Her arias got applause - many others didn’t - and she received far and away the loudest acclamation at the curtain calls. Then there were the men. The Escamillo was competent - the Don Jose was in over his head, and was not comfortable with the high notes. He missed the high b flat (It’s only a bflat) at the end of La Fleur and it was painful - he worked hard at it but never got it up on pitch. The men’s voices were tight, pinched, constrained - they never rang free. I know German voices can, but these didn’t. The evening definitely belonged to the women. Maybe because of where I was sitting but I did not thing the voices were carrying very well. The Carmen and the Micaela had no problems - but the men were weaker, and even the chorus got drowned out on a regular basis. Unfortunately the children’s chorus could be heard loud and clear. I would love to ask some composers why they feel it necessary to put in a children’s chorus. It would be the first thing I would cut in an opera production if I could. Pretty much true for any opera. Well, maybe not Hansel and Gretel.
Some nice bits - a rose was thrown onto the stage before Carmen entered, and it landed on the stem and dug into the stage. When she threw it to Don Jose -same thing. Nice image. In the third act when Carmen foresees death in the cards, there was a red ring along the back of the stage.
I was sitting in my seat, watching people come in, and there was excitement, anticipation, they were really glad to be there, happy. Unfortunately that is NOT the response in too many churches in too many places. We have the greatest message in the world, and we can’t give it away, and people are willing to pay $100 a seat for musicals and opera - because what happens there influences them, it touches them and moves them, and church doesn’t. Theatre (in general) has respect for the audience, and church doesn’t. I’ve made this speech before, and I have a nice long version all written out - and it is still valid.
I am equally fascinated by the intermission. After 95 minutes of sitting down, everyone dashes to the great hall to fight their way through a crowd, wait in a line, so they can get something to eat or drink. Now most of these people were eating and drinking less than two hours before, but you would think they were gonna die if they didn’t get their highly overpriced sandwich or their equally overpriced glass of wine or lukewarm beer. Starving these folks ain’t. And having finally achieved the food and drink, what is the ultimate achievement? Why, to find a place to sit, of course, to rest up from all that other sitting. I confess - I don’t get it, I just don’t get it.
There was no announcement to turn off phones, so I guess everyone is pretty considerate. Or well-trained. Because there are certainly a bunch of them, before and during the intermission.
I did fairly well getting my coat - on the way out, through the great hall, the cat was at the far end, down on the ground level now, sitting and watching these silly humans dashing by. When I first saw him I thought, “The opera cat.” There is a children’s story in there somewhere, if it has not already been written.
All in all it was a good evening. But I did not anticipate it well enough in my own circumstance, and after it was over, again, I was filled with - sadness. Nostalgia for things I never had. I had thought about going to the St Peter’s Kellar and having a Salzburger Nockerl - it takes 25 minutes, but I could have a drink and a Vorspeise. I haven’t had one in 42 years and it was one of the things I had told myself I really wanted to re-experience. I would really have liked one. But I was simply not in the mood - whether because it was my last night in Salzburg, or the opera, or the usual after a performance sadness - or maybe just a low sugar level since I hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast. But I was lonely and slightly sad and not in the mood to spend the money or spend the time or eat alone - so I went home. A number of the orchestra musicians passed me on the way, on bicycles with their instruments strapped to their backs. Not unusual with a violin, but definitely worth watching for the cello players.
At the hotel, there was someone on the computer in the lobby and when I went down later to check he had turned it off and it has a different password than the wireless access. On the Salzburg leg of my trip, I didn’t get to the salt mines, I never had a Nockerl and I never got out to see Schloss Klessheim where I used to live. So much for oft-vaunted Sheehan efficiency.
And yet - it was a good visit. I had good times and did good things, and I can’t do everything a second time. The last full day was not the best, but walking home, even with the deep melancholy, I looked up and there was the Festung illuminated above me, and that’s not a bad vision with which to end the day. Tomorrow will be breakfast and packing and off to the train station. Four changes to get to Gaming - the last leg a walk from the train station to the bus and a bus for the last bit. I’m thinking of splurging for a cab to the station, just to save the hassle of the walk to the bus.
And here I am going to close this chapter - not for any logical reason except that apparently this blog site will only handle a combination of text and photos of a certain length - but there is no way of knowing that, until you look and discover that a whole lot of text has disappeared off the end of the blog. And the last 25 minutes you have spent has been a waste of time. (Grumble. Sigh.)
So - here we are in Salzburg, and in the next episode we will go to Gaming.
