Posted by: Robin Tennenbaum

21Sep / 2014

The Hills Are Alive …. With the Sound of Tour Busses

 

Gang, I cannot ever impress upon you all just how many tour busses there are in Salzburg. Filled to the brim with Chinese, (roughly two to one of any other nationality) American, and European tourists and all of them appear to be over the age of sixty-five.

Now I know there are two people reading this who are over sixty-five, one who is exactly sixty-five, and one young tiger who hasn’t hit the mark there yet (we love you and you are all awesome) but I can’t tell you how happy I am to be making this trip at the very young age of 40 and not some point after Jim retires. Thanks to some careful T-accounting (on paper thankyouverymuch) some tough decisions and the fact my parents would rather we spend my inheritance rather than, you know, have an inheritance, we have been able to start what we hope will be many more such Adventures in Dragging Down the Average Age of All Around Us.

As promised the “Ignore All Things Mozart” tour continued today in the Salzkammergut, the Austrian Lake District. We drove out to a little town called St. Gilgen with the intent of taking the ferry along the Wolfgangsee (Wolfgang Lake) to St Wolfgang (do you see how hard it is to get away from Mozart?) and then take the steepest cog railway in Austria to the top of a big mountain. (Schafberg – the train was the SchafbergBahn)

When we told the lady at the ticket office (both the ferry and the cog rail were official public transit lines for the Austrian National Rail) we wanted the combination ticket for the ferry and the ride to the top of the mountain she looked at us and said:

“Are you sure?”

 

The weather, you see, was godawful. I could write whole epic poems on how wonderful Gore-Tex and waterproof Clark’s are, but that would be boring. But while we waited for the ferry to come and get us, it actually broke and we were treated to some of the most wonderful and awe-inspiring scenery, which I will let speak for itself.

 

 

The rail line is a cog rail, which is necessary due to the steep trek up the mountain which, at times exceeded 20 degrees (we used a horizon indicator app on Jim’s phone to see how steep it was). The cog rail uses coal powered steam to spin a toothed cog which then bites into a track, pulling the train up the mountain.

The train was still wet when we got on it, sorry about the drops on the window

 

We got to the top of the mountain and were treated to some stunning views of the lake below.

Pretty, right?

I wouldn’t actually know. This was our view:

Yep the mountain is more than a mile up, and we were way above the good weather. It was foggy and pouring the entire time we were up there. I took those pictures from some postcards I bought. Surely you all didn’t fall for that trick again!

So we paid €88 to go and see the absolute worst weather in Austria (it actually started to hail wile we were hiking up to the hotel and restaurant at the very top of the mountain) and we LOVED every second of it. It was like our very own Amazing Race and we half expected Phil Keoghan to be standing on a mat somewhere in the worst of the weather at the top.

We had some very good Austrian food at the top of the mountain and then took the train back down, and once we got below the weather, the scenery again became incredible.

I took too many pictures and I wish I could share them all. This is a magic place, and I count renting our little land yacht of a Skoda as one of the best things we could have ever done. The Tirol and the Salzkammergut are some of the most amazing things we’ve seen on the whole trip, and to do them ourselves, in our own way, and to not be at the mercy of those damnable tour busses was the very very best thing so far.

Tomorrow we are capitulating to the charms of Salzburg and after we return the car and take care of some business at the Hauptbahnhof relating to our change of venue to Budapest on Tuesday we are going to take a walking tour of the old city and then ride the funicular up to the fortress and see what’s what.

Just a week to go now, and one more city on the itinerary. More tomorrow from our last day in Austria (and the absolute end of being understood, even in my mangled German.)

Tschüss!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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20Sep / 2014

The Worst Thing on This Trip … and Then the Best (day 13 1/2)

 
 
I apologize for the relative lack of pictures today. The internet here in Salzburg is VERY BAD and I’ve cut some to get this to upload.

Isn’t that beautiful? A really stunning piece of Swarovski art. It’s exactly the sort of thing you’d expect to find at Swarovski Crystal Worlds, right?

You and me both.

This lovely piece can be found not in Swarovski Crystal Worlds, but in the attached gift shop. (Yours for €14,000.) But I’m getting ahead of myself, aren’t I? When last I left you, we were in Munich, getting ready to head to Austria and my long-awaited trip to Swarovski.

The best laid plans of even someone as logistically inclined as me need only a little shove to be thrown out of whack, and the day got off to a bad start. We arrived at the Hauptbahnhof in Munich to get our rental car (a lovely half block walk from our hotel) only to discover the car rental was made downtown – a 20-30 minute cab ride away, and not the location from which we had printed offline directions.

Fortunately, I did something right, apparently I booked us a car with a SatNav (GPS) so that helped us get out of Munich and on the road to Austria.

I was really looking forward to going to Swarovski. I use the crystals in my work all the time, and I couldn’t wait for this, I was hoping to get some inspiration, see really magical creations or perhaps some insight into how the crystals are made.

Yeah, no. That’s not what happened. What we got was an avant grade art show which had very little to do with crystals. In fact think of some very out there art that you’ve seen in your life. Picture it in your head, the most contemporary, cutting edge, or just plain conceptual art you have ever seen. Now add a crystal to it somewhere — just one.

Now call Swarovski because they are expanding the joint and probably need new displays. To call me disappointed would be an understatement. It was, simply, the worst experience on the trip.

We left there upset and headed to a small town nearby called Hall in Tyrol (the Tyrol is the region of Austria south of the Alps between Innsbruck and the German border.) And there we were introduced to Sonja and her beautiful guest house Gasthof Badl.

That was the view from our private balcony. The river Inn and the Alps not far beyond. Sonja was amazing, arranging for us to see a Tyrolean folk evening in Innsbruck, and talking to us about her little town. We were going to see Hall, but the room was so nice and the view so wonderful, we instead planted ourselves right there and took some well deserved naps.

The Gasthof had a restaurant attached (a big draw for locals) and we had dinner there.

Which was awesome.

We found out at desert, when Sonja returned that our choices (pork roast for me with a large stuffing like dumpling, and pork medallions with bacon in cream sauce for Jim) were very traditional Tyrolean fare, and recipes her mother made for her. Dessert was an Apfelstrudel (the greatest I’ve ever had) with apples from her mother’s trees, baked fresh.

It was a lovely moment, eating local food and talking with someone passionate about where they live, who wants to show off their home.

After dinner and a cuddle with Morris, the most affectionate cat in the history of cats, we headed to our Tyrolean Folk Abend.

Yep, that’s slap dancing, Gang.

 

So the Folk Abend (evening) was an interesting affair. Tour busses disgorged their contents by the half dozen and the place became very full with (mostly American) tourists who were almost entirely over the age of fifty five. The audience was a boorish display of ugly Americanism at its worst and I was glad I spoke enough German to not have to speak English. But once it started, the show was good, cheesy fun.

 

We asked Sonja about the show when we got back to the Gasthof, and she assured us that the dancing is largely based in authenticity. The saw-dancing began as a way for men to show how strong they were, and the music and dance was very much based in Tyrolean folk history, and though it was shined up a bit for the tourists, when she gets together with people from town, or at the various fairs, that is essentially what goes on.

This morning, Jim and I reluctantly checked out of the Gasthof, loaded up the car, and walked into Hall, a picture postcard town that used to house the Hapsburg royal mint, and grew prosperous on the salt trade (Hall was a German word for salt in the years of the Hapsburgs.)

We wandered the streets until we found a Farmers Market complete with band playing music similar to what we heard at the Folk Abend. The town is extremely small and after we saw most everything there was to see, we took the English audio tour of the mint museum (Munze Haus) and climbed all the stairs to the top of the Munze Haus tower (above). At the end of the tour, I got to strike my own coin on a screwpress as a keepsake.

 

Hall, and the whole Tyrolean region was just magical to us, and we are sorry we didn’t spend more time there. (That’s becoming a theme.). But we will, definitely be back at the Gasthof Badl and in Hall. The place and the people are all just too special to never return.

I’ll leave Salzburg for its own post (yep another twofer, Gang!) so keep reading for the rest of today’s fun!

 

 

 

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