June 23
Batteries charging away, we drove the 50 miles from Vienna to Melk, a small town on the Danube River with a massive Benedictine abbey towering above it. We stopped in a small campground on an island in the river. Usually campgrounds run a small snack shop or restaurant, but this time the popular restaurant was running the campground. It was simply a grassy field (the campground, that is) with a few electrical posts and water faucets. The weather was very windy and threatened rain, so we abandoned any idea of long bike rides along the river and instead just rode our bikes into the town and climbed up to the 700-year-old abbey.
The guide books told us that the abbey’s chapel is an extreme example of Baroque architecture. Well, shoot. . . . We overheard a guide telling her group that baroque church architecture tries to convey the artists’ impression of Heaven. Well put: it was full of garlands, angels, flowers, and statues, all painted in shining gold. Above the altar, the gilded Sts. Peter and Paul shake hands for the last time before going off to their individual martyrdoms. Very definitely over the top. The abbey’s two-story library was a movie set marvel of dark wood and hidden windows covered by moving shelving . . . and we were told there were six other stories.
The place was packed with tourists who arrive by river cruise ships at a pier right outside our campsite, are bussed up to the abbey, where they meet a tour guide, and then get on the bus to go back to the ship, pretty much avoiding the cute little town below. “Why aren’t there any places like this back home?” we heard a tourist (American, college-age) ask a friend. He was able to point out that the US isn’t old enough to have places like this. So American history education batted .500 for the day.
In the morning, quite early, we awoke to the sound of a weed eater. Someone was trimming around the electrical posts and water faucets in the campground. Within a few minutes everyone was standing outside their tents and trailers glaring at him. Soon he was joined by a man on a riding mower, who surveyed the acre or more of grass awaiting his attention . . . and chose to drive directly to our space where he mowed around Rover, maneuvering carefully to avoid our door mat and electrical cord. We saved our electrical cord from catastrophe and got out of there as soon as possible.
Then it was on to Linz. The owners of the campground there had chosen to erect a scary overhead at the entrance, but Rover cleared it with a good 6” to spare.
It was a nice place, but a bit time consuming to get into town: a long walk to the bus stop, then a 15-minute bus ride to a 30-minute tram ride to the center of the lovely city. We stayed two nights and did the usual walking tours and riding the steepest electrical railroad in Europe to the top of their highest hill for a great view of the city, as well as a cup of coffee with a piece of Linzer torte. We also visited a fun interactive technical museum. It rained every night, but we were lucky to avoid it during the day and especially on our long walk to the bus stop and back. The weather has turned quite cool and we have been using the furnace occasionally to take the chill off. (Had it really been 90 degrees in Graz?)
When we left Linz we had to add more money to our Austrian toll road vignette. We have now spent € 255 ($330) on Austrian tolls! (However, we are told they will refund any money we do not use.) So we made our way on these expensive roads to Salzburg, Mozart’s birthplace, where we joined swarms of other tourists to visit the bedroom where--we are assured--he was born. Salzburg is just a lovely small city on the edge of the mountains, and there is just too much to see and do. We bought the tourist’s Salzburg card that allows unlimited transportation and free admission to almost all the museums, palaces, a river cruise, and the huge 400-year-old fortress watching over the city.
Included in the price was a cable ride up the Unterberg, a mile high mountain: scary but with a great view even among the clouds. Susan was able to throw a snowball at David on the day of the summer solstice. We also visited the Hellbrunn Palace, where the highlight was the tour of the 400-year-old trick fountains. (The trick is on the visitors, who have several opportunities to get wet.) We walked all over the gardens, acres and acres, and eventually found the unusual natural stone theatre.
Still, Salzburg primarily sells itself as Mozart’s Birthplace--conveniently overlooking the fact that he seems to have done everything he could to get to Vienna--and the town does Mozart Mania about as well as Stratford-on-Avon does the Shakespeare Industry. Signs abound: here Mozart was born; here he lived; here his longsuffering wife lived with her second husband. . . .
And, just as Stratford does Shakespeare’s plays in a Globe-ish theatre, so Salzburg does Mozart in period costumes, with instruments of the period, in (more-or-less) historically appropriate settings. Lucky Salzburg can also claim to be the home of “The Sound of Music,” and they ride that one for all it’s worth, too.
(Pedantic digression: David has often thought it unfair that musicians can choose something out of their vast repertoire--including solos, if their friends are busy that night--and whip up a satisfactory evening’s entertainment of 5 to 105 minutes’ length at a moment’s notice. They can even read from their musical scores while they perform! Theatre people, on the other hand, almost always have to have other actors join them, usually rehearse for days, if not weeks, and can hardly find something worthwhile to perform that takes less than an hour. And they have to memorize their lines and leave their scripts offstage.)
Anyhow: we splurged on a Mozart dinner concert that helped pay the rent for a lucky string quintet and two soloists. It didn’t start until 8:30 pm and, although our eating pattern has changed to later evening meals--most restaurants don’t open until 7:30 (when we do eat in restaurants)--still, not being fed anything until after 9 pm had us pretty hungry. And because of the late hour we missed the last bus back to the campground and had to take a taxi (driven by a young man who clearly had learned to drive in Italy.) We will have to eat in Rover for the next TWO weeks to pay for that musical event.
We have decided to head towards Rotterdam by going west through Austria, into Switzerland, and then up through France . . . probably ensuring that we will have to add even more money to our Austrian vignette. It is impossible to get from Salzburg to Innsbruck on autobahns without going through a bit of Germany, covering some of the same roads we drove on eight weeks ago, which bothers Susan a great deal. But we are surrounded by real mountains again, the sky has cleared, the sun is shining, and our laundry is flapping in the breeze outdoors.
PS--for all you fans of “Things We Have Learned,” there are new entries posted today!