(Europe trip, post 2 of 14) Salzburg, flooding, drive to Vienna

June 3, 2013

We woke up to the beautiful nearby church bells...ok, we woke up to our alarm, but we enjoyed opening our window and enjoying church bells that morning too.  Speaking of which here were the views out our window.  The fortress was directly above us - it's one of the oldest and best preserved medieval castles in Europe.

When looking out our window to the left we could see Stift Nonnberg (Nonnberg Abby) peeking over the buildings.  A woman who was a postulant at this abby (she later became Maria von Trapp) inspired the movie and musical The Sound of Music.  Of course it was here that the nuns in the movie sang the song "Maria".

If we come back to Salzburg I would likely stay at this same hotel again, and I would probably request the same room number just for the views.  I really loved just laying on our bed and being able to see that majestic fortress.

And while we're looking at views from the hotel...here are a couple shots of the hotel itself.  You can spot me in the window to get an idea of where our room was located.

Then we headed down to the breakfast area to enjoy our delicious breakfast!

Mark and I felt like kids in a candy shop with all the tasty cheeses and breads!  I love that I have a husband who shares my enthusiasm for those things!  We also enjoyed the veggies and even hot breakfast meat and eggs.  Everything tasted so delicious and it was the perfect way to start our day.

If it hadn't been such cold weather we could have even enjoyed our breakfast outside on their lovely patio...

Just a random shot of the hallways (showing how "cute" the hotel is) as we walked down to the front desk...

After breakfast we asked the girl at the front desk some questions and she went way above and beyond helping us make phone calls and look up information on road closures.  There was severe flooding going on in areas of Austria (as well as Germany and the Czech republic).  All routes to Munich were closed and some guests were being forced to extend their stays since they couldn't get to the airport.  Salzburg (already a very rainy city due to its location at the rim of the Alps) received the entire month's average of rain in just the first two days of June.  Rivers were already full from a season of heavy spring rain, and that storm system sent the waters over many banks.  In addition to entire towns being evacuated and flooded, major roadways and train routes for washed out.  Being in the area affected, we were unable to drive to Hallstatt, which was a HUGE disappointment for me.  I have wanted to take Mark back there ever since I was there 13 years earlier - it has got to be one of the most beautiful places on earth and I was so sad for Mark to not get to see it.

Nonetheless, the freeway heading east (toward Vienna) was open - so we made the 20-30 minute walk to the Hertz car rental location.  Here is Mark as we crossed the Salzach River on our walk to pick up our car.   Locals said they don't ever remember the river being so high or fast...

The river in both directions...

And here is a look across the river back at old town Salzburg with its fortress...

I didn't get a better picture than this, but I loved the cool trees lining the river.

We got to walk through the Mirabell Gardens, which for hundreds of years were private gardens for the palace, but were opened to the public in 1854 by Emperor Franz Joseph (who I will explain much more about once we arrive in Vienna!).  The gardens were lovely and I wish we hadn't needed to rush through them.  Oh - and the scene where Maria and the kids (in Sound of Music) sing the "Do Re Mi" song is filmed here.

Once we arrived at Hertz we were pleased to find out that with the increase in demand on car rentals (with trains not being accessible) our pre-paid rental got bumped up to a free upgrade.  Woot woot!  Finally we catch a break and it ends up being a big one for us.

Not only was the Mercedes much nicer than the economy car that we had paid to rent, but it included a built in GPS that interfaced with local traffic updates.  Due to the weather and increased traffic there were multiple car accidents, some including fatalities, that had traffic at standstills of up to 3 hours each.  Each time we neared one the radio would automatically click on with the traffic update for us to hear and "she" (the GPS) would automatically take us on a detour route through small (and scenic I may add) side-roads.  We would have really struggled to have come up with those routes ourselves, let alone to have been able to have executed them on our own.  It was a huge time (and stress) saver to have that option, and I will seriously consider paying for the upgrade upfront next time to have that convenience on hand.

However!  I digress!  Before we hit the road, we did take the car back to the center of town, park it in our hotel's parking (across the street and included as I previously mentioned) and we saw a little bit of Salzburg on foot before we had to check out and start our travels.

Luckily (with our limited time) walking out of our hotel we were already right in the middle of Altstadt Salzburg.  We could meander the quaint brick and cobblestone streets that Mozart did as a boy (this being his birthplace), walk through St. Peter's cemetery and admire the grandure of Festung Hohensalzburg (literally translated as high Salzburg fortress).

Here are some photos taken from Residenzplatz - the square right in the center of the city.  If it looks vaguely familiar and you've never been there before, you may remember a scene in the Sound of Music movie where Maria crosses through there past the fountain (while on a bus from the convent to the Trapp villa) singing "I have confidence in me".  The square was built in 1587 and in the center of the square sits Residenzbrunnen - one of largest boroque fountains in Middle Europe.  It is made of marble and was completed in 1661.  Here are a couple pictures of that fountain:

Mark in the Residenzplatz with the Salzburg Cathedral behind him.

Here is a pictures taken from Residenzplatz with the Neue Residenz (clock tower on the top) on the left and the Salzburg Cathedral on the right, and the fortress between them in the background.

Close up of the fortress looming above us.

Mozart statue in the Residenzplatz.

This old Austrian woman saw me getting ready to take a picture of a row of parked bikes as she approached (one was hers), so I asked if I could photograph her and she was thrilled.  We went on the chat for about 5 minutes or so and she was such an interesting character.  I don't remember exactly what we talked about except that part of it was about the green party - interesting to jump right into talking politics with a stranger, but I guess I did the same thing except with religion when I was on my mission.  It felt good to use my German too.

We didn't have time to eat there (grabbed a sandwich for the road at a supermarket), but we did enjoy a brief break in the rain while we quickly explored old town Salzburg - and there were hardly any other tourists out it seemed.   I hope we get to come back and enjoy Salzburg a little longer someday.  You know a town is quaint when even their pharmacy is cute.

I wish I knew anything about this fountain, except that I thought it was beautiful with the weeping trees and view of the fortress behind it...

You can take a cable car up to the fortress, but we were very short on time so we just walked part way up on our own, enjoyed the views and walked back down.  Here is Mark with a view of Stift Sankt Peter (St. Peter's Abby) in the background.  This benedictine abby was founded in 696 and is one of the oldest, if not the oldest, in the German speaking area.

This is the Salzburger Dom (Salzburg Cathedral).  It was built in 774, rebuilt in 1181 because of a fire, and then rebuilt in boroque style in the 17th century.  As a side note - it still contains the font where Mozart was baptized. 

These are pictures from the beautiful Petersfriedhof (St. Peter's Cemetery).  Yes, it is recognizable from the scene in Sound of Music where they are hiding from the pursuit of the Nazis.  It really is a lovely, well kept cemetery that dates back to 700 AD and has a headstone from 1288.  Mozart's older sister (Nannerl) is buried here, as well as lots of other people whose ancestors are willing to care for the grave site and pay for it every 10 years.  Plots are not purchased, but rather rented and cared for by the deceased's family.  If they don't pay or care for the site then the body is removed.

A view of the fortress from the cemetery.

On our walk back to our hotel to get our bags we passed this statue near the cathedral and it stopped us in our tracks.  It is Die Pieta, Coat of Peace - a bronze sculpture by Anna Chromy.  After coming home I read that it is also called the Cloak of Conscience.  She has since created one that is 15 feet high from a slab of white carrera marble - that you can walk inside.

After grabbing our bags we had to get going on our drive eastward.  I should mention that beautifully preserved Altstadt (old town) Salzburg is a restricted driving zone and you can only get in and out with a pass code that is good for a short period of time.  We got one from the hotel when bringing our car in, and the hotel had to give us a different one when leaving so that the large metal barricades would drop down into the ground and let us pass.  Very different than anything I've seen here in the states, but practical.

Our drive was rainy, but scenic.  We enjoyed putting in my CD of Elisabeth (the musical) and explaining to Mark what was happening in each act to prep him for the performance the next evening!  That was a lot of fun.  We did also pull over at one unintended pit-stop to take a couple quick pictures.

And a quick shot of Mark with our rental car.

We must have been a bit of a silly mood while driving because we got a kick out of the big "Gute Fahrt" signs we saw along the freeway, and wished we could get a picture of one to post on my brother Chris' facebook page.  This isn't the sign, but it's as close as I can get.  Chris...this one's for you:

So...I mentioned earlier that we were so grateful to have the GPS that steered us around the traffic accidents (huge time saver), however we also found out that it diverted us from Mauthausen.  There is a concentration camp there that we planned on stopping at during our drive between Salzburg and Vienna.  I was disappointed to not be able to stop there, and I was particularly frustrated for Mark to not be able to go since I think everyone should visit one at some point in their life (I have visited on in Germany).  So that was yet another diversion from our itinerary.

Our next stop was the beautiful town and abby of Melk.  We exited the freeway and headed toward the town.  As we rounded the bend in the road before the city center we saw lots of police cars with lights and barricades.  We were anticipating seeing a car accident, not what we saw instead...horrible flooding. (Scroll down on the previous link to see pictures of Melk - I believe they are the 9th and 10th photos taken on the day we were there).  We turned around and as we headed back I snapped a couple of pictures very quickly.  In the second one you can see the Melk abby in the background.

I took this one out the car window while we were driving across the bridge, but you can kind of see how extensive the flooding was (how high up it comes to the town's buildings).  There were helicopters flying overhead, I'm assuming news stations taking footage and photos of the horrific damaging floods.  Terrible anytime, and double tragic when it's an old historic place like this that can't be replaced by just building something new.

The abby itself was built way up on a hill and was unaffected so we drove up to it to take a peek from outside.  All of these diversions and now seeing this flooding made us feel anxious about getting back on the road to make it to Vienna in time to turn in our car (we had no arrangements for anywhere to park the car that night and needed to return it before their rental office closed).  So!  Amidst everything I didn't even get a nice picture of the beautiful abby - just this one.

And one of Mark taking a leak European style.  At least he took the time to find a bush a little ways off the road (I couldn't help it, and you can't see anything)...

And while I was waiting for Mark I couldn't help but snap this picture of the pretty poppies while I waited in the car.  They didn't seem bothered by the rain at all.

So, none of our planned stops (Hallstatt, Mauthausen, or Melk) for our roadtrip happened that day, but it was kind of hard to feel too sorry for ourselves considering the dire circumstances of the people living in these areas.  We did manage to get the car returned just as the Hertz office was closing (whew) and I tried not to be too sad that I accidentally left my Elisabeth CD in the car (we checked with them the next day and they didn't have it).

The only thing to write about from the rest of our evening was checking into our hotel in Vienna and dinner!  We stayed at Hotel Pension Suzanne right next to the famous Vienna Opera house.  Hotels right in the center of town there are very expensive and I feel like we hit the jackpot with this place.  If you are looking for something with impressive curb appeal or a lobby with prestige, this isn't it, but it was just what we were looking for.

The rooms were clean, well appointed, breakfast was fantastic, and as mentioned the location phenomenal.  The staff was helpful giving dining suggestions,directions that we needed, and holding our luggage after check out until we were ready to depart Vienna.  The website boasts of authentic antiques furnishing their hotel (including a couch of Freud's, a bench of Klimpt's, and a chair of Mahler's)...and I meant to have staff point those out to me and explain the furniture in our room, but shamefully I never did.  I will say that I felt that it was tastefully done and I felt it "fit" the city that we were in perfectly.  Here are just a few pictures of our room.

We stayed in room #11.

I liked how big the windows were and we were surprised how large and quiet the room was (and we appreciated the room being void of any smell of smoke).  Here is the view out our window to the left (toward the Opera), and then to the right...

The bathroom was good sized also and included a hair dryer which I appreciated.  The only complaint I had was that the bathtub/shower was raised up quite high so it could be precarious getting out of it, especially with wet feet on tile.  I stumbled once and caught myself, but it really could be a problem for an older person.

It was at this point, Monday evening (so Monday morning in Utah), that we were finally able to connect with someone at the credit union who mentioned that ATM's abroad withdraw money from savings (not checking, to where we had transferred all of our money) - unless they specify otherwise.  Wahoo!  That was an easy fix to transfer money back to savings and run across the street to an ATM.  Problem solved, and after a couple days of sweating having no cash, we were good to go.  I should mention that in our 2 weeks using ATMs in Europe, every single one withdrew from savings - something I wish I had known sooner!!

Now that we had cash in hand we walked to somewhere close suggested by our hotelier.  I wanted to eat at a Gasthaus for a traditional no-fuss meal.  He steered us right and sent us to Gasthaus Reinthaler.  It was the authentic experience that I was looking for - we were the only English speakers in the place, the menu was only in German, and the waiter spoke hardly any English too (mind you, this is what I wanted so it was a good thing).  Of course it does help that I speak German too.

I ordered schnitzel and a plate of mixed salads. 

Mark had wurst, kraut, and potatoes.

The food was simple and delicious.  We shared a table with a single, older Austrian man who requested his meal in courses and took his time eating it and reading a newspaper (not talking much).  They accepted cash only (glad we had it) and after we were done eating we were done for the night and we walked back to our hotel.

(Europe trip, post 1 of 14) Drama getting there and our first night in Austria

Perhaps our rantings about just getting to Europe should be their own post, but I don't want an entire post of complaining when such awesomeness followed soon thereafter!  That being said, to leave out the drama that was our flight itinerary would be an incomplete summary of our adventures - so here we go!

To start off I should mention that I got very little sleep the few days leading up to our departure.  In fact, I slept less than 8 hours in three nights combined before we left - so that sets the stage for how I already felt going into this "interesting" section of our trip.

June 1, 2013.
We did get to the airport with plenty of time to check in clear security and have a nice cushion of wait at our gate before our flight departed.  As sometimes happens, we started being told that there would be slight delays due to mechanical issues, but those delays kept being extended until the plane was actually grounded and our flight cancelled.  Everyone got in line with the poor guy at the desk there at our gate and the line was not moving.  Mark and I were getting nervous about things and decided to go back through security and have the person at the United desk there help us.  It was good timing too because that line ended up getting really long after we got there.  After a lot of figuring things out good ol' Jim with United was able to get us out on another flight and also get us on a different connecting flight (in Chicago) with their partner Lufthansa.  He said that there was only room in 1st class and that because of our troubles there would be no charge for the upgrade.

So, with 1st class seats over the Atlantic we were not minding the wait so much, except that we'd be getting in just before 6pm instead of early that morning - therefor missing our day in Salzburg, but nothing could be done about that.

We sat and waited for quite some time at our new gate until they started announcing that this flight too was going to be delayed due to mechanical issues!  Seriously?!  It also wasn't going to get us to Chicago in time for our connecting flight now!  So back through security we went again to the front desk where we re-booked yet again our flights.

Eventually after 3 times through security and 1/2 the day in the Salt Lake airport we finally did get to Chicago...only to find out that the earlier connecting flight that we thought we couldn't catch ALSO had been delayed!  So we went to that desk to see about changing our flight again to take it since it would leave a few hours earlier and could give us a bit of time to still see Salzburg that way.  The people at the United desk were very helpful looking through our information and assisting us.  They even noticed that amidst all of our changes that our luggage hadn't been put on past Chicago, so we would have gotten to Austria and had no luggage, so they took care of that there and verified our confirmed seats on our upcoming flight.  They did say that they could get us on their flight in 1st class as well, but that because of the mechanical issues with the flight their departure time was unknown and that we could move our tickets over to that plane and ultimately end up here longer than if we just stayed with our original flight that we had confirmed seats on.  We decided to play it safe and stay on the flight we were booked with on Lufthansa.

So!  We did end up hearing that previous flight leave around the time check in was opened up for our flight, but we were leaving soon so we weren't too concerned...until we got to the front of the line to get our boarding passes.  The woman looked up our information and informed us that United did not have the authority to upgade us to 1st class from economy and that the rest of the flight was full so we would have to take another flight out the next day.  Whaaat the???  Needless to say we were NOT happy.  We were basically told that we would be put on stand by (for economy class of course), but that our chances were not good to make the flight.  At this point, besides not wanting to wait yet another day to get to Europe, I was picturing us missing out completely on Salzburg, our expensive pre-paid dinner concert there, our non-refundable hotel room, our pre-paid car rental, and our visit to Hallstatt.  I was really frustrated at how difficult this had all been, especially when I had booked these tickets 4 months in advance and even paid a little more to get the itinerary that I wanted.  *sigh*

We did end up making it on standby, and didn't have any problems catching our following flight after that.  We arrived a bit tired to a very cold and rainy Salzburg, Austria (at this point it is June 2).  We had missed our day of touring that city, but we were rushing to try and at least make our Mozart dinner concert that night - so we rushed to get our luggage and ran to the ATM to get cash for our cab (dumb not to have at least brought some money with us)...only to have our card be denied at the ATM!  What??!!  I had transferred all of our money over from our travel savings account to our checking account before the trip, so I knew we had funds...but it was Sunday so we couldn't even call our financial institution (even if we had a way to call).  We felt stuck, but thought we'd try our hand at finding out if a cab could take credit cards.  After 1/2 hour of jockying other people for arriving cabs we finally got one to find out that it didn't take cards and we begged them for any information about what we could do.  The cabby took pity on us and called another cab that took credit cards and he came to get us.

So!  Then the race to make it to the concert...the cab took us to our hotel where we asked him to wait while we dropped off our bags and checked in.  Of course we got behind some people that literally argued for 10 minutes with the lady at the desk about something on their bill before we asked if we could just check in.  We quickly did so and rushed back out to the taxi not having thought about that our cab would be running his meter that whole time *sigh* so we then rushed to our dinner concert, coughed up the expensive cab ride fare, and made it to our seats literally as they closed the doors.  Everyone else was seated except us.

We breathed a deep breath and proceeded to really thoroughly enjoy dinner in this historic restaurant with some very talented musicians and pleasant dining companions.  The restaurant is called St. Peter's Stiftskeller and it has been open since 803 AD, making it the oldest restaurant in Europe!  I remembered eating in the courtyard of a really cool restaurant in Salzburg with my dad back in the summer of 2000 when we visited.  After looking through pictures and doing some research I figured out that it was this restaurant!  My dad and I really enjoyed the food and ambiance, but didn't know what a historical gem we had stumbled upon also!  Here is a run-down on some of the history and documentation of the people who ate at the Stiftskeller.

As mentioned, we were attending their Mozart dinner concert.  I wasn't able to get spruced up before the concert like I would've hoped, but at least we were there!  There were singers and strings, and the courses were served during concert breaks.  It was a set menu for this event, consisting of: White Cream Soup with rosemary-quark-dumpling (delicious!), breast of roasted capon on top of port wine glace with potato/pumpkin dumpling, semolina strudel and vegetables. The dessert was a Semi-frozen parfait of honey.

While the food was enjoyable, the real treat was the concert and just dining in the oldest restaurant in Europe!  Listening to the music Mozart created in the city where he was born and began his career.  His family even dined at that very restaurant.  Perfect way to officially kick off our trip!

I don't have great photos to show from our experience due mainly to the dim lighting in our romantically candle-lit room during performance time...and also because I was still figuring out how to use my new camera!  Here are a couple pictures of the ceiling in the boroque hall where we dined...

We zoomed in on a section of the ceiling that stated "Erbaut (built) 1803"

I didn't know Mark took this of me.  The room was lit as we dined during concert breaks, and then dimmed to just candle light during musical performances.

The two vocalists of the performances - the strings were behind them.

This video clip doesn't do things justice, but it's kind of fun to see...

I forgot to take pictures of our meals - something I'd set out to do for every meal on our trip (hmmm...sleep deprivation and a day and 1/2 of crazy travel can cause you to forget a few things, right?), but I did get a photo of our tasty dessert with their clever profile of Mozart (made from cinnamon?).

Friendly mother/daughter pair who we were seated next to (from back east in the U.S. somewhere)... 

We didn't get a picture of the two German girls from Munich that sat across from us.  They were Asian and we were expecting a different accent when they opened their mouths, but they were definitely German.  And not overly social - hence the lack of picture.  The couple sitting next to them were really sweet and social though, I'm pretty sure that they were from Latvia.

Us.  Tired, but thoroughly enjoying ourselves.

Before leaving I snapped this picture of their courtyard area where my father and I dined 13 years earlier!

Mark in the entry way to the Stiftskeller.

"Seit (since) 803" above the entrance to the establishment.

Because we didn't get any time to get our bearings in the town before being dropped off at our dinner concert, we weren't even sure how to get back to our hotel (and in our rush hadn't grabbed a map).  Luckily Mark does pretty well with navigation and he got us to our hotel without much of a detour.  We just walked in the right direction and we were there before we knew it.  We were glad that we had our umbrella with us though because it was really raining.  It was kind of romantic wandering through the wet cobblestone of Salzburg at night with my sweetheart though.  I wouldn't change it.

We got to the hotel and had to snap a shot of how small the elevators are...just wide enough for our (small) open umbrella.  You're not fitting more than two people in there - comfortably anyway.

I can NOT believe that I didn't get a picture of our hotel room for documentation purposes.  The decor wasn't anything to show off and it smelled of stale cigarette smoke, but the smell is really the only complaint that we had about the hotel.  Hotel Kasererbraeu has been operating since 1342 and also operates the Mozartkino cinema, which is one of the oldest cinemas in the world.  Our room (#329) was larger than we expected, and the bathroom was roomy and provided a blow drier.  The bed was large and comfortable (if you ask me - I like firm beds) and the hotel location was great and we enjoyed a view of the fortress right out our window!  Also, the breakfast was fantastic (I'll talk more about it in the next post).  We even found out the next day that they have parking spots across the street for their guests (quite a commodity).  I believe this was the only hotel room of our trip that had a mini-fridge - not necessary, but nice to chill our drinks for sight-seeing the next day.  There were hotel amenities that we just simply didn't have time to enjoy, but would have if we had been there longer - the sauna/steam room are included amenities as part of their onsite wellness spa, and they sell tickets to their onsite cinema which I would have loved to have enjoyed just for film history's sake.  Alas, one night in this beautiful city is all we were able to enjoy.  And, as a side-note, I loved waking up to the nearby church bells.

We were able to skype with the kids before we went to sleep for the night and it was good to see their faces, but Max's big, pouty sad lip came out at one point and my heart broke just a little bit.  I was glad that I knew he was in good hands with grandparents though, and that he'd cheer right back up once distracted from our conversation.