Vienna

Vienna has been warm, apparently unseasonably, with most days reaching 30’C.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I really enjoyed the light operetta, Grafin (Countess) Maritza on Wednesday.  I went to both Siegfried and Gotterdammerung (Twilight of the Gods) by Wagner and so fulfilled a dream of seeing all of the Ring Cycle in the Theatre.  They are not for everyone and I would not quickly go again, with Siegfried taking 5 hours and Gotterdammerung nearly 5 and a half (each with 2 half hour intervals) but the music is glorious. I was lucky in timing, as each was presented just twice this year.
That was on Thursday and Sunday.


On Friday I went on a round trip to the Wachau-Danube Valley. The train took me to Melk and the huge Benedictine Abbey sitting up above the town. Photo 1 is in the Abbey church, Photo 2 is part of the extensive gardens and Photo 3 is a view from the Abbey over the countryside.

After lunch, I boarded a ship for a 2 hour journey down the Danube through the Wachau Valley.  The photo shows the castle at Durnstein above the town. This was the castle where King Richard of England was held captive on his way home from the Crusade. There were a number of castles along the river.

I left the ship in Krems and returned by train to Vienna.  On Saturday I went to Schonbrunn castle but just spent my time in the extensive gardens.

That evening I again went to the VolksOper (Light Opera) and saw Carmina Burana, ancient poems set to music to create a cantata by Carl Orff in 1936.  This is usually a recital by Symphony and Chorus but this performance was put on by the Vienna City Ballet.

On Monday I went hiking in the Vienna Woods but chose a short hike, probably just 8km but up 300 metres, due to the heat. The views over the city were not very good due to the heat haze. That evening I went to the much shorter but bloodthirsty opera, Salome by Richard Strauss.

Yesterday, I flew to Dubai where the temperature was 40’C. Today I found my way to the Historical museum at the Al Fahidi Fort, not easy when you make a wrong turn in the heat.

However the underground and airconditioned museum told the story of the development of Dubai. Then I wandered in the huge Dubai Mall, apparently the world's largest but only bought a much needed juice and lunch then a book for the plane. Outside I took a look at the world’s tallest  building, Burj Khalifa but did not pay the $50 to go up to the top.

Tomorrow I will make the long flight back to Sydney and then it will back to Dunedin on Monday.

Salzkammergut

The weather has certainly improved for me, thanks for your good wishes. Sorry if I sent the bad weather to Dunedin.
As you can see from the photos it gradually got better during my 5 days in the Salzkammergut region of Upper Austria. It is now quite hot in Vienna but I know I must not complain.
The blue skies have made it hard to choose the photos to post.

I fell in love with the town of Hallstatt when I stayed there back in 2008. It is a UNESCO heritage town on the edge of a lake with wonderful mountain views. However to get there you must catch a ferry over the lake from the train station so this time I chose to stay in the bigger town of Bad Ischl instead and have easier travel to the various lakes and mountains.  I had an apartment right in the centre of town with shops and restaurants underneath and my window looked down on the river rushing below. However the bedroom and bathroom were up a narrow winding staircase from the lounge/kitchen which became a bit tiresome.

On the day after my arrival (Saturday) my departure was delayed due the panic caused by a misplaced credit card (I had hidden it from even myself). Once solved it was too late to do what I planned (left to Sunday) and probably just as well as there were still clouds and one or two brief showers.

I caught a bus to Bad Gilgen and waited an hour (over a coffee of course) for a ferry that took me along the Wolfgangsee to where a steam cog railway went up to Schaftsbergspitz at 1732 metres. I have included this photo showing a bit of the train and track.

On Sunday the bus went in the other direction to Obertraun and the Dachstein chairlift. Here 2 cable cars lifted me up to 2100 metres and a  20 minute walk (difficult at that height ) took me to the 5 fingers viewing platform.  This photo shows the platform and explains why I had to pluck up all my courage to go out on it

from where this photo looks down over the Hallstattersee mentioned above.

You can see there were clouds but it was possible to get a photo with some patience and jostling as only 2 people can stand on each of the 5 fingers at any one time.  The next photo is the view from the path across the Dachstein Mountains

I returned back down the top cable car and took a tour of the Dachstein Ice Cave. This involved climbing 70 metres to the entrance where we met the guide who then told us it was 0’C inside but not to worry as we would be climbing 500 steps to keep us warm. I was probably the oldest and while I can manage the steps, I would prefer to take a bit more time. However I probably handled the temperatures better than the mainly Asian young people with me. The ice shapes were intriguing. I think this photo is the best of my attempts to show them.

On the way back I stopped for an hour in Hallstatt.  Being Sunday afternoon 31st May, I found it much more crowded than my previous visit in late April  2008. The views were still great and the town probably improves in the evening after the tourist coaches leave. I bought  an ice cream.

Monday I caught the train to Gmunden on the Traunsee and, again after an hour over coffee and cake, it was on a rather small ferry along the lake to Ebensee. It is a beautiful lake and the photo also shows just one of the many water activities even on a week day.

At Ebensee I walked a kilometre to another cable car (they get a bit addictive) this time only 1600 metres but apparently one of, if not the first cable cars in Austria. There were lots of ski chair lifts at the top but not in operation at this time. I walked about 35 minutes each way looking at the views one of which is in this photo.

On Tuesday I was again on the train past Hallstatt to Bad Aussersee then a bus to AltAusseer which is on a smaller lake and I was able to walk around it in about 2 hours (6 and a half km). The final photo shows one of the views.

Unfortunately rather than wait and catch the bus back I decided to walk not realising it was another 5 km although much was along the river bank. The bus passed me at the last stop before the town so only about 5 minutes quicker.



I never got round to visiting the museums and castles in Bad Ischl. Left that to a rainy day which never came.

Yesterday I again packed up and caught the train to my last stop in Europe, Vienna.  I have a lovely apartment and the owner has been most helpful. Opera is my main interest here and, after rushing to pick up the tickets before 5pm and then buy a few foodstuffs as today is a public holiday (Ascension day) and even supermarkets close on public holidays as well as Sundays, I went to the Volksoper  (Folk Opera) which was my 4th visit there.  I did not know much about the light opera Grafin (Countess) Marizka by Emmerich Kalman but the music, staging and dancing were delightful. Fortunately English is displayed above the stage although I found it a bit above my line of sight to see the action and I gather some contemporary jokes were added to the script but not in the English. Many of the songs are still running in my head especially ‘Komm Zigany (Gypsies)’ and ‘Komm mir nach Varazdin’ (I visited Varazdin in Croatia back in 2013.)

Today I am relaxing, as I have a much heavier opera (Wagner’s Siegfried) at the Staatsoper starting at 4pm this afternoon and finishing at 9pm

Beautiful, Beautiful Hallstatt

I have found a new candidate for the most beautiful place in the world, Hallstatt in the Salzkammergut of Austria.
Luckily I arrived in brilliant sunshine. Usually you have to travel to the town by ferry from the railway station but due to trackwork (doesn't that sound like home) we had to alight at an earlier station and travel by bus for about 10 minutes through a gigantic tunnel which cuts into the mountain behind the town. It was a fairly easy walk to the BrauGasthof where I was staying. This hotel has been built in the old brewery and had some strange knooks and corners and rather treacherous stairs. I had booked a single room but due to some mixup, the room was occupied and so Frau Lobisser gave me the double room next door with a tiny balcony at the same price. You can see my balcony in the middle. The view was to die for.
I spent the afternoon snapping photos in all directions thankful for digital cameras, as I am sure I often took the same photo twice just to be sure.
After a lunch of wurst and wine, I went on the ferry round trip and while I was waiting heard that distinctive accent and was able to enjoy the trip with a couple from Austinmer (just south of Sydney).
After we returned to the town, we went up to the Catholic church with its unique graveyard. Every 15 to 20 years, the bones are dug up, labelled and stored in the Beinhaus at the back of the yard. The ferry captain told us this custom has been discontinued but it was still being done in the 1990's. I will spare you the photos of the skulls. The graves are well decorated and cared for.
Luckily I took lots of photos as Friday soon turned grey and drizzling. I thought it was clearing a little and bought some fruit juice, fruit and chocolate and set off to hike up into the hills behind the town. However I was wrong and by the time I had returned 3 hours later, my trousers and shoes were soaked but the Kathmandu jacket I purchased before leaving Sydney protected the top half of my body. I was a little nervous as some of the path was slippery and there were no other silly fools to be seen but the scenery continued to astound especially a gorge into which several waterfalls came crashing down.
I returned to my hotel for a hot chocolate then to my room to change and eat the fruit in some comfort. After a rest I went to the town museum and discovered this small town has given its name Hallstatter era to a whole period of pre-historic culture. While salt mining, a huge gravesite was discovered with thousands of bodies interred with many artefacts that archaeologists are still studying. The museum is fairly new and one experiences the fire of 1750 and the landslide that destroyed the town.
That evening I had some of the Lake trout for dinner and again met some Australians from north of Sydney (Bateau Bay) who were staying one night in the BrauGasthof and so I also joined them at breakfast.
Saturday was still very overcast but there was little rain. It was the first day of the tourist season and the Seilbahn (cable car) began to run. I was in the third trip up and walked along an information path to the Salt Works. These are still in operation but some of the worked out levels are open to tourists and I joined 2 Korean girls and an Israeli couple for the first tour of the season. We had to wear overalls, walked through hundreds of metres of narrow tunnels, down two wooden slides (on the second we were photographed and clocked - I reached 28.4km/hr, faster than the others but they went in tandem, the guides clocked in the 30's.) I did buy the photo but it is hardly flattering. The processes of mining salt were explained both in history and today. Finally we boarded a little train in which we sat astraddle and were whizzed through the tunnel (the roof seemed to be just above my head) to the entrance.
I did not go down the cable car but walked down a zig zag path to the town.
The sun came out about 4.30pm but by that time the town was in shadow. However the next morning was clear blue sky again and as the trackwork was complete, I boarded the ferry to cross the lake to the station and travelled by train back through Salzburg to Munich and of course took a few last photos.

Austrian Adventure

The heavy rain with which I concluded my last blog was a portent of the week to come. At least I did not have any more heavy falls but the weather has been fairly damp all week.
Thankfully it was not actually raining as I made my way across Vienna by tram on Tuesday morning to the South Station. I was a little nervous before as it was 8am and peak time, not the best time with luggage, but I must have been travelling against the peak as the tram was almost empty.
I spent the day(over 7 hours) in two trains travelling south to Villach near the border with Slovenia then north -west to Salzburg. Fortunately there was some sun as we passed through a mountain range south of Vienna This is a world heritage area and was the first Mountain pass to be crossed by a mainline railway in 1854 with 15 tunnels and 16 high stone viaducts in 42 km.
However it was rather grey passing some lakes near Villach.
I then changed to a train coming from Slovenia to pass along the Tauernbahn with some spectacular valley views and the longest tunnel at the summit which is 8370 metres.
I arrived at Salzburg in rain so splurged on a taxi to my hotel in the Altstadt and did not appreciate the driver giving me a guided tour which often meant he had no hands on the wheel and was either looking at me or the feature he was describing rather than the traffic.
My full day in Salzburg was wet which meant more time spent in museums and less in parks which I prefer. The photo below shows the Fortress above the city seen from the Mirabell gardens. I left the fortress to the afternoon when the rain was lighter because there are good views from the top but the mountains, which I know were snow covered when I changed trains there the previous Sunday and again today, were hidden for my stay. I visited Mozart’s birthplace with some of his early instruments and details about the life in Salzburg at the time. The audio guide provided many samples of his music but I would rather sit and listen to such beautiful music rather than stand staring at a musical instrument with an audiophone to my ear. The Residenz was the home of the Archbishops who ruled Salzburg for many centuries but unfortunately the State rooms were closed for a special function and I had to be satisfied with the adjacent art gallery which had mainly Austrian artists, none of whom I recognised though I admit that does not mean much. There was an interesting display on the use of the colour red by artists through the centuries including how the colour was made at different times.
After visiting the Salzburg town museum which was very modern and having lunch, I went up the funicular railway to the Fortress and toured museums of marionettes, armoury and war as well as torture dungeons and the history of Salzburg and walking along the ramparts, climbing to the top tower before returning to the city and a visit to the cathedral.
It was great to see the sun return on Wednesday allowing me to take the trolley bus back to the station. I headed back by train towards the Austrian Alps and a region called Salzkammergut which I will cover in my next blog probably in a few hours.