Friday, August 04, 2006
JULY 22ND THROUGH JULY 29TH, AUSTRIA
At 2:00 AM as we started to the train station Mary got some of the prettiest sunrise pictures I’ve seen. It seemed so strange for the sun to set at 12:30 and rise at 2:30 and never really get dark. We made it to our train and departed at 5:35. Our route took us to Stockholm, Malmo where we got a night train to Berlin. We crossed the Gulf of Bothnia again on a ferry. I think that our trip was about three hour and forty five minutes, so we went to a different port into Germany than the one we left from to go into Denmark. From Berlin we went to Munich, then to Salzburg where we rented a car and drove to Murau. We made it to our lodging on time. For the first time we did not have any train connection problems.
We had a great hotel, the Club Hotel at Kreschberg. The hotel was located in St. Lorenzen, which is in the region of Marau. Kreschberg is a ski resort. It evidently is world class; it is the host site for the 2006 Snow Board Championships. Our room was nice and it had a balcony which overlooked a mountain with a ski lift. Our bathroom also had a bidet.
I had never seen one and I don’t think that Mary had either. She asked on of the staff to make sure that was what it was. She even asked the lady how to use it. The response she got was; “I don’t know, I don’t use one.” The hotel staff was really nice, not all of them spoke English, but we managed to communicate. In the information which we received with our reservation confirmation they told us that we had to have a car to enjoy the area. We found that to be true. The nearest rail station was probably 75 km away. There were rail stations in every little village, but they were narrow gauge rail and didn’t go to the main rail lines without changing a lot from small company to small company. It is very likely the most scenic area we have visited.
We had beautiful mountains and valleys, rivers and small tumbling streams and lots of historic sites. One of note is a bridge which we had to cross to get to our place from the highway. It is the largest wooden bridge in Europe.
On Sunday, we visited some of the small local towns and looked for a grocery store and checked out the train schedules from the narrow gauge stations. The towns look like what I thought European towns should look like.
The streets are so narrow that you can hardly meet another car if you are driving. A lot of the market area and city center are closed to traffic and are strictly walking areas. The buildings face right up against the streets and usually have no porch on any kind of awning. It’s just a straight up wall with a door and windows in it. When you consider that some of these towns date back to the twelfth or thirteenth century then it appears to be a very efficient design.
These towns have car parks located on the outskirts of town where you can leave your car and walk into the center of town. When it got to be lunch time we stopped in a small town at a Pub which appeared to be the only thing open. The lady who came to serve us did not speak English. She went to a table near us and got a young woman from that group to come over and help us get an order together. Mary made a picture of her as we were leaving.
She is the pretty tanned, dark-haired lady in the white shirt. During the rest of the week we found that someone in every place we went spoke English and were willing to help. On Monday we went to a town named Tamsweg where there was a market festival in progress. We looked but did not participate. We had lunch at a hotel with a sidewalk café out front. Our server told us that their building was 500 years, but most of the building were older because there was a “burning” and some of the building had to be rebuilt.
On Tuesday we drove into Salzburg railroad station and got our reservations lined up for our trip to France next week. We traveled some distance on Austria’s Autobahn. There is a great picture of a castle we saw from the road.
We spent some time sightseeing and took a tour of the city. Our guide wasn’t sure how long there had been a settlement at Salzburg’s site, but the city was founded in 696 by Catholic Priests. It was ruled by Bishops, called “Prince Bishops until 1803. The wealth of the area which caused the settlement was salt mining. Today the economy is primarily tourism and white collar.
The influence of the Church is evident in the history of the city. The old historic district was all built by the church or by individual Prince Bishops. Today there are 150,000 population and there are 49 churches; 46 of them are Catholic.
We visited or viewed several things of note. The Fortress Ober Salzburg sits high on a point overlooking the city.
Its construction began in 1077 and it served in the defense of the city.
We saw the Palace of Arch Bishop Leopold Firmian which was built in the mid 1700’s.
The funding for this construction came from wealth left behind when Leopold forced all Protestants out of Salzburg but allowed them to leave their assets with him.
Hellbrunn Palace was built in the 1630’s and is most noted for its gardens and a water garden which has 20 fountains.
The garden has been the same since its origin. Plants are replaced by the same plants and in the same spot as the original.
Perhaps the highlight of the day was a visit to Mozart’s Museum in one of his homes. We saw original instruments, sheet music with Mozart’s notes on them as well as a lot of history of his life and the way he and his family lived. We had lunch at a restaurant on the bottom floor.
The next day we went to Vienna.
It is a beautiful, old city which is very confusing to drive in. Of course their main product is cultural, both in art and music.
We took a tour and we were very disappointed in the way they presented the city. The emphasis was on the modern instead of the history. We did see the Danube River
and also the Vienna International Center, which is their branch of the UN.
We left the tour at the half way point and decided to cut our stay short and take a driving tour. I’m glad we went to Vienna. I told Mary that without Strauss and those guys Ernest Tubbs would probably never have sung WALTZ ACROSS TEXAS.
We spent the rest of day riding and looking at the countryside. The northern part of Austria is vastly different than down where we are staying. It is flatland with big farms which raise mostly wheat and sunflowers. The towns, even the larger ones, have entire blocks of houses connected like a big row of townhouses or condos. We crossed into three other countries. We went into the Czech Republic,
Slovak Republic,
and Hungary
on our way home. Our journey through the Czech Republic was uneventful. All we saw was towns and farms. In the Slovak Republic we got lost in a sizeable city named Bartislave. We wondered around for half an hour, finally came upon a cop. I stopped and asked directions. He just pointed and said keep going straight you are on the right road. I think that the God of the lost tourist is taking care of us.
We made it to the border of Hungary and were passed through. In the first town we reached we stopped and had dinner at a big yellow Hotel with an outside dining area.
Mary has come to the conclusion that most restaurants have outside seating because they have no air conditioning. For that same reason, most of the restaurants have doors open and flies coming in at will. After dinner, we turned back toward Austria and home.
When we were at the border, the policeman looked at our passports and said USA? I said yes and he called across to the guy in the next booth that we were from the US and his picture was going to be on the internet. So here it is!!
Mary took a picture of the speed we were driving on the Autobahn.
Keep in mind that this is KM per hour not miles per hour. After we got off the four lane road and back into farm country it was mostly rolling hills and grape vineyards. We drove in wine country until well after dark.
The next day we went down south of our hotel about two and a half hours and went into Slovenia.
It was a beautiful drive up and over a big mountain the last 30km before the border. It took a long time to cover that distance on hairpin switchbacks.
When we got to the border crossing we were not allowed to cross.
The guy asked for our rental contract and Avis did not allow us in Slovenia. We made a U turn and went home. We did have a nice Bavarian lunch at a small town on the back to Maura.
We stayed up late that night and called Bill to try to get some help loading pictures up to our blog. We are a month behind now, but we are sending pictures to Bill and he will upload them after I post the text.
We loved this area. It is the most scenic place we have been. It has a lot of towns with castles and a lot of history. The main industry is dairy farming and skiing. Anything to do with wood from lumber to carving is big. They even have wood museums.
We would like to come back here sometime and rent a small RV and just tour. There are a lot of very small trailers and motor homes. We see a lot of camping parks. Maybe another time. It has gotten to be Friday and it’s time for us to go to France.
At 2:00 AM as we started to the train station Mary got some of the prettiest sunrise pictures I’ve seen. It seemed so strange for the sun to set at 12:30 and rise at 2:30 and never really get dark. We made it to our train and departed at 5:35. Our route took us to Stockholm, Malmo where we got a night train to Berlin. We crossed the Gulf of Bothnia again on a ferry. I think that our trip was about three hour and forty five minutes, so we went to a different port into Germany than the one we left from to go into Denmark. From Berlin we went to Munich, then to Salzburg where we rented a car and drove to Murau. We made it to our lodging on time. For the first time we did not have any train connection problems.
We had a great hotel, the Club Hotel at Kreschberg. The hotel was located in St. Lorenzen, which is in the region of Marau. Kreschberg is a ski resort. It evidently is world class; it is the host site for the 2006 Snow Board Championships. Our room was nice and it had a balcony which overlooked a mountain with a ski lift. Our bathroom also had a bidet.
I had never seen one and I don’t think that Mary had either. She asked on of the staff to make sure that was what it was. She even asked the lady how to use it. The response she got was; “I don’t know, I don’t use one.” The hotel staff was really nice, not all of them spoke English, but we managed to communicate. In the information which we received with our reservation confirmation they told us that we had to have a car to enjoy the area. We found that to be true. The nearest rail station was probably 75 km away. There were rail stations in every little village, but they were narrow gauge rail and didn’t go to the main rail lines without changing a lot from small company to small company. It is very likely the most scenic area we have visited.
We had beautiful mountains and valleys, rivers and small tumbling streams and lots of historic sites. One of note is a bridge which we had to cross to get to our place from the highway. It is the largest wooden bridge in Europe.
On Sunday, we visited some of the small local towns and looked for a grocery store and checked out the train schedules from the narrow gauge stations. The towns look like what I thought European towns should look like.
The streets are so narrow that you can hardly meet another car if you are driving. A lot of the market area and city center are closed to traffic and are strictly walking areas. The buildings face right up against the streets and usually have no porch on any kind of awning. It’s just a straight up wall with a door and windows in it. When you consider that some of these towns date back to the twelfth or thirteenth century then it appears to be a very efficient design.
These towns have car parks located on the outskirts of town where you can leave your car and walk into the center of town. When it got to be lunch time we stopped in a small town at a Pub which appeared to be the only thing open. The lady who came to serve us did not speak English. She went to a table near us and got a young woman from that group to come over and help us get an order together. Mary made a picture of her as we were leaving.
She is the pretty tanned, dark-haired lady in the white shirt. During the rest of the week we found that someone in every place we went spoke English and were willing to help. On Monday we went to a town named Tamsweg where there was a market festival in progress. We looked but did not participate. We had lunch at a hotel with a sidewalk café out front. Our server told us that their building was 500 years, but most of the building were older because there was a “burning” and some of the building had to be rebuilt.
On Tuesday we drove into Salzburg railroad station and got our reservations lined up for our trip to France next week. We traveled some distance on Austria’s Autobahn. There is a great picture of a castle we saw from the road.
We spent some time sightseeing and took a tour of the city. Our guide wasn’t sure how long there had been a settlement at Salzburg’s site, but the city was founded in 696 by Catholic Priests. It was ruled by Bishops, called “Prince Bishops until 1803. The wealth of the area which caused the settlement was salt mining. Today the economy is primarily tourism and white collar.
The influence of the Church is evident in the history of the city. The old historic district was all built by the church or by individual Prince Bishops. Today there are 150,000 population and there are 49 churches; 46 of them are Catholic.
We visited or viewed several things of note. The Fortress Ober Salzburg sits high on a point overlooking the city.
Its construction began in 1077 and it served in the defense of the city.
We saw the Palace of Arch Bishop Leopold Firmian which was built in the mid 1700’s.
The funding for this construction came from wealth left behind when Leopold forced all Protestants out of Salzburg but allowed them to leave their assets with him.
Hellbrunn Palace was built in the 1630’s and is most noted for its gardens and a water garden which has 20 fountains.
The garden has been the same since its origin. Plants are replaced by the same plants and in the same spot as the original.
Perhaps the highlight of the day was a visit to Mozart’s Museum in one of his homes. We saw original instruments, sheet music with Mozart’s notes on them as well as a lot of history of his life and the way he and his family lived. We had lunch at a restaurant on the bottom floor.
The next day we went to Vienna.
It is a beautiful, old city which is very confusing to drive in. Of course their main product is cultural, both in art and music.
We took a tour and we were very disappointed in the way they presented the city. The emphasis was on the modern instead of the history. We did see the Danube River
and also the Vienna International Center, which is their branch of the UN.
We left the tour at the half way point and decided to cut our stay short and take a driving tour. I’m glad we went to Vienna. I told Mary that without Strauss and those guys Ernest Tubbs would probably never have sung WALTZ ACROSS TEXAS.
We spent the rest of day riding and looking at the countryside. The northern part of Austria is vastly different than down where we are staying. It is flatland with big farms which raise mostly wheat and sunflowers. The towns, even the larger ones, have entire blocks of houses connected like a big row of townhouses or condos. We crossed into three other countries. We went into the Czech Republic,
Slovak Republic,
and Hungary
on our way home. Our journey through the Czech Republic was uneventful. All we saw was towns and farms. In the Slovak Republic we got lost in a sizeable city named Bartislave. We wondered around for half an hour, finally came upon a cop. I stopped and asked directions. He just pointed and said keep going straight you are on the right road. I think that the God of the lost tourist is taking care of us.
We made it to the border of Hungary and were passed through. In the first town we reached we stopped and had dinner at a big yellow Hotel with an outside dining area.
Mary has come to the conclusion that most restaurants have outside seating because they have no air conditioning. For that same reason, most of the restaurants have doors open and flies coming in at will. After dinner, we turned back toward Austria and home.
When we were at the border, the policeman looked at our passports and said USA? I said yes and he called across to the guy in the next booth that we were from the US and his picture was going to be on the internet. So here it is!!
Mary took a picture of the speed we were driving on the Autobahn.
Keep in mind that this is KM per hour not miles per hour. After we got off the four lane road and back into farm country it was mostly rolling hills and grape vineyards. We drove in wine country until well after dark.
The next day we went down south of our hotel about two and a half hours and went into Slovenia.
It was a beautiful drive up and over a big mountain the last 30km before the border. It took a long time to cover that distance on hairpin switchbacks.
When we got to the border crossing we were not allowed to cross.
The guy asked for our rental contract and Avis did not allow us in Slovenia. We made a U turn and went home. We did have a nice Bavarian lunch at a small town on the back to Maura.
We stayed up late that night and called Bill to try to get some help loading pictures up to our blog. We are a month behind now, but we are sending pictures to Bill and he will upload them after I post the text.
We loved this area. It is the most scenic place we have been. It has a lot of towns with castles and a lot of history. The main industry is dairy farming and skiing. Anything to do with wood from lumber to carving is big. They even have wood museums.
We would like to come back here sometime and rent a small RV and just tour. There are a lot of very small trailers and motor homes. We see a lot of camping parks. Maybe another time. It has gotten to be Friday and it’s time for us to go to France.
