A while back while internet-surfing for travel deals on the Cinque Terre (a popular hiking spot in Italy), I stumbled on a Rick Steve's tour called,
Alpine Adventure My Way. Several things about this trip appealed to me, including hiking in all the countries that touch the Alps (Austria, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, and France), and, being the independent control-freak that I tend to be, not having to trail after a flag-toting guide during the most tourist-congested vacation month of the year. I never dreamed what a breath-takingly beautiful trip it would turn out to be.
We started out the trip with a first class flight to Salzburg, Austria. It was probably the first and last time I'll ever fly first class internationally. For years, whenever Bruce and I flew on business trips for McDonnell Douglas, we usually flew American Airlines. While Bruce racked up frequent flier miles by the bucketful, mine accumulated much more slowly. But with all the reductions in airline perks these days, I got a notice in the mail that I had to use my American miles by the end of the year or lose them. So Bruce and I decided to shoot the wad on this trip.
In first class international, they assign you to your own "pod." It's got a comfy leather reclining seat with your own little TV, movie player, fold-down dining table, and tiny little closet. It was almost as big as our half-bathroom. For dinner and breakfast, they cover the table with a white tablecloth and real china. The seat folds down to make a bed (the flight attendants even put sheets on it). They give you a pair of pajamas, slippers, and a toiletry goodie bag. It sure beats being crammed into coach like a can of sardines. After a very smooth journey (no flight delays even though we changed planes 4 times), we arrived in Salzburg to no luggage. I've been on trips before where other people lost their luggage, but I've never had it happen to me. I can now say from experience that it is a royal pain in the rear to wash out your clothes every day in the bathroom sink. Luckily we both brought a change of underwear in our backpacks, and we were able to sleep in our pj's from the plane for the 5 days we were without luggage.
When we first arrived in Salzburg, it was raining. It seems to do that a lot in the Alps - rain one day and sunny the next. I bought an umbrella (since mine was in my lost luggage) and we walked across the river to the old part of town. Even though it was raining, it didn't seem to phase the tourists - they were out in droves. All of the shops have neat little signs over their doorways with symbols advertising the items they were selling like clothing or boots (even the McDonalds had to be compliant and hang one of these signs out their building). We found a little sandwich shop and I got my first taste of apple strudel - yum!
Friday dawned bright and sunny, so we headed up a mountain path to the Hohensalzburg Fortress. There were 2 paths to choose from. We took the western one - longer, but not nearly as steep.
Even so, by the time we got to the fortress, I needed a break so we stopped for a coke and pretzels (easy to order when you don't really speak German). We sat at an outdoor cafe with amazing views of the mountains.
I was really surprised when we went inside the castle. Usually all you see are stone walls and floors, but this castle had wood-paneled and tapestry-covered walls. They also had indoor toilets in the bedrooms - gravity style, meaning a wooden seat over a big hole in the floor, but each bedroom had their own. They had an interesting room displaying old-fashioned torture devices. The flowers on this pig's helmet actually had nails on the other side that punctured the skin when you turned the flower. The fact that it was a pig's head was also meant to add a humiliation factor to the torture. I'm not sure I'd worry about what people thought of me if I had nails poking into my skull.
We stopped at an outdoor beer garden for dinner. It was filled with very happy people - probably the beer and the fact that it had stopped raining. We ended Friday evening by going to the Marionette show. It was the Sound of Music, all done with tiny little puppets. The singing was wonderful (in English, thank goodness). When the show was over, they raised the curtain and we got to see how the puppeteers worked the strings on the marionettes. It's unbelievable how lifelike they seemed, and if you remember how many children were in the von Trapp family, it was pretty remarkable that the puppeteers only tangled up their puppet strings once.
On Saturday we rented bikes and rode out into the countryside. I'd heard about a castle that was only supposed to be 4 kilometers away on a designated bike path (all the locals use bikes to get around in Salzburg), but I could not find the path to save my soul. The streets in older European cities are like masses of spaghetti, twisting and turning with name changes every few feet. So after a harrowing ride through town (there was only a white line separating us from the cars), we finally stumbled onto the bike trail cutting across the road. I guess on the good side, by the time we found it, we only had another kilometer to go. The castle was located inside a beautifully, landscaped park. After that bike ride, it was nice to sit on a bench and look at the flowers for a while.
We took the bike path the entire way back to town. Surprising how easy it was once we found it. Then we returned the bikes and walked over to a little shopping area next to the train station. I needed a hat, because I was getting sunburned from the sunny skies and lack of pollution. Once again, however, on the walk back, we got to talking and ended up going the wrong direction. Salzburg is surrounded by mountains, but they all tend to look alike. We backtracked to a traditional Austrian restaurant - sausage, dumplings, cabbage, roast pork, and of course, beer.
We started out Sunday morning looking for a geocache before all the tourists came out. My goal on this trip was to find at least one geocache in every country we visited. This was a really easy one in Mirabell Gardens. Since we hadn't seen the gardens yet, we ended up killing two birds with one stone.
Then I walked over to the Cathedral and found out they were just starting the 8:30 mass. It was really wonderful with 4 different organs, a full choir, and a whole contingent of priests (including the Archbishop). The mass was mostly in German, but every once in a while they slipped into Latin, just like they do in the states. I found out later that Mozart was the church organist when he was first starting out as a musician.
I took a day off from mountain climbing (it's exhausting traveling with the Fitbit king). Instead I did some sketching near the river while Bruce went off to find a new hiking trail. Lots of people were looking over my shoulder, but they don't tend to bother me in a foreign country, because they never know what language I speak.
Sunday evening we went to a Mozart dinner concert. In between each of the 3 dinner courses, a group of musicians dressed in period costumes played music and sang. I recognized a few songs like the
Flight of the Bumblebee, but mostly I don't listen to classical baroque music. We sat with 3 couples from England who were on holiday together. One lady who was particularly chatty reminded me of my mother's friend, Phyllis.
We got absolutely drenched on the walk back to our hotel on Sunday night, so we broke down on Monday and bought a second outfit for each of us at a sporting goods store. We weren't looking for fashion - our goal was to buy clothes that dried very quickly. The reports from the airline about our lost luggage kept getting weirder and weirder - first saying our suitcases were in Dusseldorf, and then saying they were in London. It seemed to me like they were going the wrong direction and we'd probably end up finding them sitting on our front porch when we got home. Newly outfitted, we did the formal walking tour of the Old Town before the crowds got too bad. I'd downloaded an audio walking app onto my phone before we left. I thought we'd seen most of the sights by this time, but I was surprised at how many places we'd missed. Bruce thought this sign was funny ("Schmuck Passage") though we found out later that "schmuck" means "jewelry" in German and this avenue was lined with expensive jewelry stores.
Afterwards, we hiked up the Kapuzenerberg Mountain. We were heading for a little mountain chalet that Bruce discovered on Sunday, but unfortunately it was closed on Monday. So we headed back down the hill to Old Town in search of lunch. We ended up in the market square where lots of different vendors were selling souvenirs, flowers, cheeses, and pretzels. We bought beer and wurst (sausage) sandwiches from one of the street carts. I can't remember the names of the sausages, because there were 12 different kinds and all the names were in German (luckily they had pictures on the sign).
We had the most interesting dinner on Monday evening. We walked over to the Augustiner Beer Garden. It's a huge outdoor patio where everyone sits around talking or playing cards, and mostly drinking beer. There was a food court in the building next door where we bought roast pork, sauerkraut, and dumplings to go with our beer. I was able to snag a table near the back with a great view of the mountains. Then a very charming couple asked if they could share our table since it was so busy. He was German and she was Austrian, but they both spoke very good English. We shared stories about jobs, where we lived, and things we liked to do in our spare time. It was really an enjoyable conversation. As we were leaving, I kept thinking if this were my mom, she'd be adding these two to her Christmas card list.
On Tuesday, I got up early to do a little sketching in St Sebastian's Cemetery. This is a very unique cemetery in that the people rent a tiny little plot of ground. The headstones tend to be made of decorative wrought iron rather than stone (takes up less space) and the graves are totally covered in flowers. If the heirs don't pay the rent each year, they take away your headstone.
When I was looking up geocaches to do on the trip, there was one high above the city. Unfortunately, without our luggage, the only GPS we had was the one on Bruce's phone, which wasn't very good at pinpointing the actual location of the cache. I had the coordinates for a second geocache right outside a beer garden just 3 blocks from our hotel. We went over there for lunch, found the geocache, and had the best food we'd had yet - cheesy noodles (it looked like spaetzle noodles) and weizen (wheat) beer. They made all their own beer on the property, and if I could buy it in the states, I would.
When we got back from lunch, surprise, surprise, my suitcase showed up. I had to laugh at all the "rush" stickers attached to the handle. Five days isn't exactly rushing it, in my opinion. Bruce's bag showed up at midnight. Good thing, because we were meeting up with our tour group on Wednesday and heading out to our first stop on the Alpine Adventure.
