The Council of Vienna

You're probably thinking that the Council of Vienne was in France during the 14th Century and I've clearly mixed up Vienna, Austria with Vienne, France, but I promise that my title references a different event entirely.  The Council of Vienna is the name I've given to the "come to Jesus" (as the Southerners say) moment we had as a family where events and attitudes converged in such a way that our only two choices were completely switching our approach to traveling together or going home.

I'm pretty sure any group of people living and traveling together for 10 weeks will have a "come to Jesus" moment at some point.  I'm not sure why ours happened in Vienna except that it has a history of some pretty good fights. For example, during World War II, Churchill ordered Vienna bombed because he thought the Viennese were too enthusiastic in their support of Hitler.  Then, Hitler ordered it destroyed when it was clear that the Allies were in a position to overtake the region (I guess loyalty wasn't his strong suit).  Vienna wasn't destroyed (by us or them), but it was hit by an Allied bomb or two, and we dropped a few verbal bombs ourselves (at each other, not the city).

So, part of the reason Vienna almost made it onto the "Places we were too tired, grumpy or cold to appreciate" list was my fault, the boy can share some blame, and the rest will go to McDonalds and Last Minute Travel.

Last Minute Travel:

Although tents are fine in the country, there is no way to see Vienna--or any other city in Europe--in a tent without joining a protest movement.  Because the travel books (Fromer's, Traveling Europe on a Shoestring, and Rick Steves' Europe) are so popular with Americans, it's difficult to find an available room at a place mentioned in one of these books without booking far in advance.  Partly out of laziness and partly to remain flexible, we generally book places less than 24 hours before we get there--sometimes not finding lodging until we've arrived in a city or town.  So, the travel books are not as useful as they'd be in the off-season or with a more scheduled traveler. 

The solution for us so far has been Expedia.  For discounted prices on nice hotels in Europe, Expedia is your friend.  For example, every place we contacted in Salzburg was booked 24 hours before we arrived.  We sent out at least seven e-mails and called two or three places (another annoying thing about lodging mentioned in travel books is you generally need to book them on the phone or through e-mail), and no luck.  Salzburg was about to make it onto the "scrap it" list when we found a room via Expedia at a hotel called the Star Inn which was separated from the old town by only one block and a pedestrian tunnel, and cost $120/night.

Last Minute Travel, on the other hand, has been no help at all.  There is an LMT app you can download, but it more often than not tells you that they have nothing available in the city in which you are querying.  When it does work, it tells you that the hotel is within a certain geographical region, but won't be specific until you book.  This works fine when you're in New York City because you at least know the hotel is in Manhattan.  But in Vienna, the difference of one mile east or west matters a great deal more and we ended up in an airport hotel which is separated from Vienna by an industrial area that looks like the Dupont Plants off of I-95 in Delaware, but smells like Staten Island (or Kaukauna for our folks joining us from Wisconsin).

If you don't find this appealing, it will appear less so when you tell the TomTom lady the address is in Vienna, she takes you into downtown, your husband says "Well done" because the neighborhood is lovely, but there is no hotel there by your hotel's name because your hotel is not technically in Vienna.

Once you traverse the city and the industrial area to find the soulless area that holds your hotel, brace yourself, because there is still room for disappointment.  There is no AC in many European hotels (this is one of them) and it is 91 degrees.  On a positive note, if you ever wanted to learn Hungarian or Czech, this is the time to do so because your room is above the outdoor tables outside the front entrance, and late arrivals as well as the hotel staff need their smoking breaks throughout the night.  So, you have the choice of boiling with the windows closed, or listening to the front desk lady fight with her boyfriend's voice mail--presumably because he wasn't home when she called at 2am--while wondering how much second hand smoke can actually give you cancer.  (I actually don't know Hungarian well enough [or at all] to say who she was fighting with or why, but one has a sense about these things.)

INTERMISSION (you probably want to get up and get a drink or stretch your legs now)

Now, you probably thought I was going to start ranting about the navigation system as soon as I mentioned the TomTom lady, but Vienna was not her fault.  However, if you don't trust your navigation system and you rely on the signs as much as you rely on her, you'll want to keep in mind that Vienna is "Wien" (pronounced veen) in Austrian/German while wine is Wein (vine), and if you enter Vienna from the west, you have to go through the wine region of Austria.  So, be carefully you don't follow the wrong signs and end up in a winery instead of Vienna.  Although, if you are having your own family council, wine might be completely appropriate.

Wiener Aside:
A Wiener (veener) is a person from Vienna, not a 1980s way to say that someone is socially challenged.  So, Wiener Schnitzel means "Viennese Schnitzel", not Schnitzel with a sausage, but there is some debate about whether the dish actually originated in Vienna.

McDonalds:
In the interests of full disclosure, McDonalds and I are not close.  I hate eating there and I don't allow the kids to eat there more than once a month.  In fact, when I leave my husband at home for any length of time, he collects all of his one dollar bills and heads to McDonalds instead of a strip club.  Then, he hides the McDonalds wrappers in the neighbor's trash can so I don't see them, and I never do, but his Catholic guilt causes him to confess on a regular basis. 

In Europe, I am willing to tolerate McDonalds because it is one of the few places you can feed a family of four for under 20 Euro. If you go to McDonalds near St. Stephen's Cathedral (where Mozart was married, his funeral mass was held, and Allied bombs blasted out most of the windows), and you see a kiosk which allows you to order in English (and, therefore, stop eating chicken nuggets because you can't figure out how to say "Plain Chicken Sandwich" in a way that will keep the mayonnaise away), don't get excited.  Once you input your order and press complete, it will tell you that it doesn't like your American credit card.  It won't actually say it to you in English.  Instead, it will say it in German on the receipt that prints out with your order.  If you want to annoy the lady behind the counter, take that receipt to the "pick-up kiosk order" line and ask if you can pay there.  You can't, and she'll yell this at you in Hungarian.

To be fair, American credit card problems pop-up at all kinds of machines--including train station kiosks (though they work at highway toll stations for some reason)--but not accepting American credit cards at McDonalds kiosks borders on treason.  Worse yet, McDonalds couldn't resist the European temptation to charge for their bathrooms (50 Euro-cents).  So, if you want no dinner and a show, you can go to the lower level bathroom after the kiosk and watch your child jump up and down behind the turnstile while you search frantically for a 50 cent coin.  Now, in McDonalds' defense, you can take the toilet receipt to the cashier and get the 50 cents off your meal, but you're assuming you can actually order.

We tried the kiosk a second time with a different credit card, but the same result.  We, then, went to a different cashier with the receipt and asked (in German) if she could just copy the order on the receipt to her register so we could pay.  She said "No", then continued talking in an aggressive way, and that's when my Wisconsin upbringing demurred to the last 17 years of living on the East Coast.  My "talk to the hand" hand went up while she went on and on about how difficult this request would be to fill and I started a sentence with "Go f", but pulled it back to "forget it", then walked out with two confused children and an amused husband behind me.

You may be wondering why my husband was amused and I'll tell you.  He wanted to skip Vienna.  He said it was too much city with too many museums we wouldn't be able to visit with the kids.  He said we'd be frustrated by walking past buildings that held major art work like Gustav Kliimt's, The Kiss.  He said it would be hot and crowded and no one would be happy, and he was right.

You may also be wondering what happened at the Council of Vienna.  It was a half-day walking event (a thunderstorm caught us in the end) where I agreed to trust my husband's judgement on where we should visit; he promised not to rush us from city to city without knowing where we would stay or giving us a bathroom break; and the boy promised to be civil, and stop asking to go home. 

The Boy:
This last part is important because the boy had already gone through a hunger strike; multiple punishments for bothering his sister; for speaking loudly; for saying the word "Sucks"; and for dropping, then walking away from his new filtered water bottle in the park because he didn't want to carry it anymore.  He had also asked to go home at least three times each day up until Vienna.  In fact, two days before we arrived, while walking through Melk Abbey gardens, he poked me in the arm while asking, "Can I go home, Mom?  Why can't I fly home?  Mom?  That's not a good reason.  Give me one good reason why I can't go home.  Why aren't you answering me?  Mom?  MOM!" I eventually smacked his hand away and said things that one shouldn't say anywhere near an abbey.  But that was before the Council of Vienna, and things are much more civilized now.

In the end, Vienna was spared by the Council, a gelato, a theme park, and two cemeteries.  We also followed our newly patented, "If you're having a bad time in a European city, you need to do the following things" formula which I've listed below:

1) Stop talking.
2) Walk to a town square that doesn't allow vehicle traffic and order a gelato for everyone  (There will be a vendor nearby.)
3) Sit in the shade against a 500 year old building and eat your gelato.
4) Still no talking.
5) Walk into a church (there should be one on the square) and sit down.  The kids can walk around while you sit there, or they can sit while you walk around.  You're always visible to each other which is good for security, but you have your own space.  More importantly, the silence is enforced by church authorities, not you, which is good because now you're feeling bad about being grumpy... but not bad enough to let anyone talk to you.
6) Cancel whatever plans you had and find the nearest park or play area.  This is your penance for being crabby.
7) Don't talk about why you were crabby.  Never mention it again.

So, this is how Vienna turned out.  The Council, gelato, the church where Mozart got married/had his funeral mass, and the Prater Amusement Park saved the first day (though a lot of Euros were lost for the cause), and the cemeteries where Mozart and Beethoven are buried saved it on the second day, because (and this is important) cemeteries are big parks to kids and full of art that should be in museums to adults. 

(Above):  The McDonalds you want to avoid.
(Below): Proof that McDonalds charges for its bathrooms.

(Above): St. Stephen's Cathedral

(Below):  The square outside St. Stephen's

(Above and Below):  The interior of St. Stephen's Cathedral

(Above):  Outside Mozart's Vienna home.

(Above and Below): The streets of Vienna

(Above): Taking a reading break

(Below:) The most famous picture of the Prater is of the Ferris Wheel, but I don't have it on my phone.  It's on the other camera and I can't find the adapter.  So, we took one picture of the kids in a boat at the Prater before my phone went dead.  I will load the Prater pictures when we get home.

(Above):  Beethoven's Grave

(Below):  Johannes Brahm's Grave

(Above):  Franz Schubert's Grave

(Below): Johann Strauss' Grave

(Below):  A momument to Mozart near the other composers, but not his actual grave.

(Above): The exterior of the cemetery where Mozart is buried.

(Below): The grave of Mozart.  The girl decided to decorate it with pine cones to spruce it up a bit.

© 2012 Nicole Wirth
Author of:  Letters to Salthill 

Dürnstein, Enns, and Krems, Austria

Dürnstein:
There are at least a dozen reasons why you would love Dürnstein, Austria. Vineyards and a ruined castle stand above it on the hillside; paddle boats stop here while taxiing tourists up and down the Danube River; the old town businesses and homes have well preserved rock facades; the streets are nearly traffic free; and narrow passages lead down to the river front; but the most important reason you would love Dürnstein is because it is where Richard The Lion Heart was held for ransom in 1192 by the local duke and the tourist bureau has a wry enough sense of humor to note that "Richard was among the first to enjoy the hospitality of the local people." Now, they might be sincere, but it's still amusing--as are the circumstances around Richard's capture and release--and you can reflect on this as you hike up the hill past all of the art students sketching the ruins.

See, Richard had escaped his mother's constant nagging to get married and have kids by joining a crusade (who among us can't relate?), but Eleanor of Aquitaine wasn't the type of mother to be easily put off. So, she chased after her son who must have been truly mortified in front of his crusading buddies when she caught up with him in Sicily.

Word has it that Eleanor was also concerned that Richard's minstrel buddy, Blondel, wasn't just a good friend and the future of the family line was at stake. Now, I'm not starting a rumor here.  This one is over 800 years old.  I'm just telling you what everyone else has been saying. I also don't want to suggest that this has anything to do with Sean Connery's sexual preferences. No one would expect a guy named "Richard the Lion Heart" to enjoy the company of men over women, and I'm sure the Robin Hood script made no mention of it.

Anyway, while running after her son, Eleanor found a suitable daughter-in-law in France and brought this woman to meet her son in Sicily where all three must have had a very interesting conversation.

Now, sometime during the crusade, Richard and  the Dürnstein duke (not his official name) exchanged words.  I imagine it started with, "Hey, Richard, I think I passed your mom on the way to Jerusalem the other day."  I also imagine that Richard was smart enough to expect a comment like this, so he would have prepared a good come back.  Whatever Richard said to the Dürnstein guy made him so angry that he went home with a grudge and everyone around him knew about it. This was unfortunate for Richard because he would later need safe passage through the Austrian Alps after shipwrecking off the coast of Croatia. (You can just hear him trudging up a mountain in the middle of winter saying, "Stupid, stupid, stupid" to himself.)

Although disguised as a peasant, Richard was uncovered, given to the duke, and held in Dürnstein Castle. Soon after, his minstrel buddy went looking for him, traveling from castle to castle playing their favorite tune. When the person in Dürnstein's Castle finished the tune from a window, Blondel knew he had found his king.

Out of war fatigue or a lack of Navy SEAL-types in 12th century England, Richard's mom opted to pay the ransom and Richard arrived home in time to save his crown.

Well, as I said, the castle is in ruins now, and it has nothing to do with Richard's stay.  Apparently, the Swedes destroyed it in 1645--which is a lot later than one may have thought the descendents of Vikings were a threat.

Enns, and Krems:
On an episode of Frasier, Niles, Frasier, and their father go on a cruise where their father schools his sons on the art of the buffet line. He tells them not to take the breads and pastas from the beginning of the line because they're just filler.  They should hold off until further down the line where they keep "the good stuff."

Now, I am no fan of pasta (sorry, Mom [she's Italian]), but I've filled-up on good bread, then regretted it when I didn't have room for the steamed shrimp at the end of a buffet line. You may be wondering what this has to do with Enns and Krems, so I'll tell you: Filler regret is not just for the buffet line. It's also for the time you spend in a lesser town when a better town was one town back or the one that awaits you down the line.

I hate to insult perfectly lovely people and towns, but Dürnstein is steamed shrimp while Enns, and Krems are just filler.

Now, to be fair, there are at least four outstanding aspects to pasta and bread on a cruise ship buffet line:

1) You're on vacation.
2) You can eat as much as you want.
3) You can eat whenever you want.
4) Breads and pastas generally taste pretty good.

In the same way, there are at least four good things about Enns and Krems:
1) Enns is reputed to be the oldest town in Austria which is both good if you're a tourist who needs to say publicly that you were in the oldest town in Austria, and hard to believe since there is a place in Hallstatt where you can walk on an old Roman sidewalk under a sporting goods shop. (They don't charge admission to see this....yet.)
2) Enns has a lovely old town built around a tower in the middle of a cobble stone square with outdoor cafes lining that square and narrow streets darting out in all directions.
3) Krems is also along the Danube and reachable by paddle boat steamer or a bike trail that connects the towns along the river. 
4) Lodging in Enns and Krems is pretty reasonable (about 86 Euro for a guest house for two children, two adults, and breakfast [no charge for parking]).

Also, if you transported Enns or Krems to anywhere in the US, it would quickly become overrun by tourists between Easter festivities and Christmas Kinder Markets.  But this is Austria, and a town needs to bring it's "A" game to stay on your list of places to see, otherwise you're missing steamed shrimp, the carving station, and the guy who will make you a crêpe any way you like it.

Below are pictures of Dürnstein Castle, Dürnstein, and one lonely picture of the tower in Enns.

© 2012 Nicole Wirth
Author of:  Letters to Salthill 

Berchtesgaden, Hallstatt, and Mondsee, Austria

After leaving Salzburg, we went to Berchtesgaden, Hallstatt, Mondsee, Enns, Krems, Vienna, Graz, then into Slovenia.  We’re in Croatia now, so I am clearly pretty far behind on my blogging.  In my own defense though, up until Slovenia, my husband approached this vacation like a season from the Amazing Race so there was little non-driving, non-hiking, non-sleeping, or getting-a-bite-to-eat-and-keep-walking time.  A tactical shift occurred Slovenia, but that is for another post.

So, I mentioned in my previous blog that Berchtesgaden was the guy I didn’t want to date.  Well, I’ve thought a little more about it and decided that this characterization is probably uncharitable.  In fact, Berchtesgaden is probably a place where paying for a Sound of Music tour would come in handy. 

See, the Sound of Music driver would probably know that the recommended route up the mountain was closed a third of the way up due to construction (a sign at the bottom of the mountain would have been really helpful).  He would also know that trying a secondary road off the first would be too narrow for a donkey, much less two way traffic and eventually end at the closed section of the main road where turning around would present a few challenges.  He may even know that at this point all people in the car (I mean, bus), especially the driver, would declare they were done (that’s a polite way of putting it) and determine that going immediately into Hallstatt was in order. 

After descending the mountain, and joining the main road south, all people in the car would then fly abruptly to the left when the driver decided to reverse a 120 second old decision and turn right onto a different road labeled “Berchtesgaden”.  See, the clincher isn’t that the Eagle’s Nest is at the top because I (the driver) have very little patience for Hitler.  The problem with passing by Berchtesgaden in a huff is that the beginning scene of Maria twisting around was filmed here as was the ending scene when the family escaped over the mountain.  It seems strange that the family would escape in the direction of Hitler’s house, but that is why you don’t hand people maps when they enter a theater…..that and they wouldn’t shut off their flashlight iPhone app to watch the movie (I’m speaking of myself here) .

Anyway, we drove up the mountain, paid for the privilege of parking on gravel (it was only a Euro or two, but I wasn’t in a paying kind of mood), then looked around to find Maria and the family.  We didn’t ask anyone (we weren’t in an asking kind of mood either), but all we saw were pine trees and clearings on distant hills that could have been the opening scene, but again, this is why you’d pay for a Sound of Music Tour.

The tour bus might also take you up to the Eagle’s Nest (20 minutes further up the mountain than they allow cars) which would save a family of four about 60 Euro for the shuttle. 

We opted to get lunch at the restaurant, take a little hike, then head toward Hallstatt. 

You may think that I regret not going up to the Eagle’s Nest, and I do, but sitting on a shuttle bus for a total of 40 minutes while my daughter says her head hurts (code for “I’m car sick”) and my son won’t stop commenting loudly on the Nazis and Hitler is not something for which I’d pay 60 Euro.

Hallstatt:

We brought our bad attitudes with us to Hallstatt, but they didn’t stay long.  It was raining, 3pm, we were hungry, and we didn’t have a place to stay yet, but we were tickled pink to be there.  See, I have a theory that it’s impossible to be unhappy in Hallstatt.  In fact, I think a man could serve his pregnant wife with divorce papers there and it would go swimmingly. 

Hallstatt is pressed between cliffs and a beautiful turquoise lake.  It used to be accessible only by boat, but they blasted a tunnel a few decades back allowing car traffic through.  According to my husband (though his source is surely Rick Steves), it used to be said that one could only die in Hallstatt from drowning or falling rock.  I imagine they also died in the Salt mine (the word “salt” is the source of the town’s name) 4/5^ths of the way up the cliff….or by wandering out of the mouth of the cave before their eyes fully adjusted.

There are swans on the lake and plenty of boats.  Some of the centuries old houses are perched on the side of the lower cliff with covered bridges/sidewalks connecting front doors, and you sometimes see sleeping cats in the low rafters.  We’ve seen a few places where you had the sense you were walking through a post card, and this is definitely one of those places.  In fact, according to the locals, the Chinese sent an architect to Hallstatt to get the exact dimensions of every building and natural wonder so they could duplicate it in China.  I Googled “Hallstatt China” and some pictures came up but I didn’t research further than this.  The streets looked very similar to the Austrian version, but there is no way you can duplicate the landscape without a cliff isolating the city, poised to push it into a lake. 

My pictures are not very good because of the rain and because I could never get the proper perspective (being squished between the cliff and the lake and all), but if you go to the book store or on Amazon, find the DK Eyewitness Guide to Austria.  Hallstatt is pictured on the cover.

Mondsee:

If you missed the yellow Sound of Music tour buses since leaving Berchtesgaden, you’ll see them again in Mondsee since this is the location of the real and movie Von Trapp wedding.  I expected to see the attached abbey gates and maybe I expected to see Mother Superior on the other side as well, but it’s just a church.  In fact, it’s a cathedral with the skeleton of a long-dead saint behind glass over the altar, but I didn’t see abbey gates or anyone wearing a habit.  What we did see was the picture of a woman in the front on the nave whose funeral mass was about to start.  She looked to be only 55 years old, and she was wearing a dirndl (the traditional dresses you associate with the Alps). 

Outside, I forced everyone to stand around for a while because I wanted to see how many people would attend, what they would wear and how they would greet each other.  Since there is no visible parking near the church, it seemed like people emerged from every road in every direction that led to the square in front of the church.  Because they were wearing mostly black, you saw them distinctly from the tourist crowds before they approached the square.  Many of the men wore the short-collared wool coats you associate with this region, fewer women wore the Dirndls, but most carried a single rose with a wine-colored wide satin ribbon around the stem.   We didn’t wait to see what they would do with these flowers, since my family has less patience for people watching than I do, and the boy declared it a “downer”. 

In case you’re curious, there was little display of overt emotion.  One woman turned away to wipe tears off her face, then turned around again to be seen.  There was definitely pain on people’s faces, but they pushed it down into the cobblestones as they walked. 

Below is a very bad picture of The Eagle’s Nest (I had to zoom in with my phone), what could be a meadow used for the movie (but who knows), Hallstatt, and the Cathedral in Mondsee.



© 2012 Nicole Wirth
Author of:  Letters to Salthill 

Salzburg, Austria

Let me start by saying that no one wanted to leave Salzburg. The night before we left, in fact, the kids staged a sit-in in the middle of a street near the Residence Platz (don't worry, there's very little traffic), and refused to get up before we agreed to stay at least one more night (picture below). We walked a block or so away and they eventually followed (they hid around the corners of buildings so we wouldn't know they were following us, but they're not CIA material).

In any event, everyone was heartsick when we drove away from the hotel the next morning.  Really.  It was like the first time you break up with someone and you realize it's a mistake, but you already have a new date to Homecoming, and so does he, and she's someone you hate.  I'm not speaking about my personal experience here.  This is just an analogy.  In it, the boy is Salzburg, the break-up is leaving, the new boy is Berchtesgaden, and the rest is just gratuitous story telling.

You may be thinking that we've watched The Sound of Music too many times, and this is the reason we loved Salzburg so much, but this doesn't explain the kids because during a forced viewing of the movie before we left the US, one child fell asleep right before they determined how they would solve a problem like Maria, and the other labeled the movie not worth his time as soon as Julie Andrews started singing.  In fact, he asked so many times why he had to watch the movie that we told him he could go to bed instead, and he accepted.  It was 7pm. 

If you're thinking that another reason we loved Salzburg is because it's the birthplace of Mozart and my husband has been nuts about Mozart since the 6th grade (yes, I'm his first girlfriend), again this may explain my husband and I, but it doesn't explain the children since they haven't built their lives around admiring the same music as their father. In fact, unless Mozart tours with the Black Eyed Peas soon or hits the Top Ten in the near future, he's not on their radar.

As you probably know, when you're in a city with kids, expensive admissions to beautiful buildings and museums are largely out of the question since you always have to have an exit strategy, and there is no exit strategy when you just paid 60 Euros for admission, there's just "we're walking forward, be quiet, and don't touch anything."  We've tried the whole game of "The first person to find these ten things in the paintings (a dog, a duck, a row boat, etc) wins," but the first time they see something nude nobody cares about the list anymore, because you're whisper/yelling to them that if you hear them call the artist a pervert one more time, they'll be sorry.

So, outdoor activities really matter and Salzburg has all kinds of great outdoor spaces where the sounds of bells tolling and violins playing is abundant.  Music is also pretty common indoors as well.  We weren't there for the Mozart festival (it is going on now), but most churches have free organ concerts or choirs from around the world performing for free.  In a strange coincidence, upon entering the Salzburg Cathedral (pictured below), we were handed a flier for the choir which was performing a Mozart Mass in the front of church (fitting since this church is where Mozart was both baptized and played the organ), which stated that many of the singers were from Rhodes College which happens to be my husband's alma mater.  No light beamed down from Heaven at that moment, but the kids and I were surprised it didn't.

Salzburg is also one of those rare places whose new town area is almost as quaint as the old. The old town is mostly restricted to foot and bike traffic (except taxis and cars with special passes), and many of the sidewalks are under old buildings which open briefly into hidden courtyards which more often than not have outdoor cafes. Mozart's first childhood home, and place of birth, is on a pedestrian-only street in the old town which--according to my husband--is a better tour than that of Mozart's adolescent home in the new town (obviously, not very new) which happens to be just a short walk away from Mirabell Garden. 

This garden was commissioned by the Prince Archbishop of Salburg and opened by Franz Josef after the 1848.....you're thinking, "blah blah blah", right? So was I. You should go there because you'll recognize the Pegasus fountain. The children and Maria walk around the ridge of it singing in the movie (I believe they're singing "Do, Re, Mi", etc). There is also a very nice playground nearby in case your children are driving you nuts asking when they can get a gelato, and you need to be closer to lunch than breakfast to feel good about caving.

After you buy your gelato from the guy in the park (which happens to be the only food cheaper in Europe than in the US), then walk back over the bridges which connect old town to new, you may notice master-type padlocks attached to the side of the bridges with initials written in marker (pictured below).

According to my husband and his hero Rick Steves (I'm not using the word "hero" in a pejorative way, his admiration is warranted), couples place these locks on the bridge as an expression of their love. Periodically, the authorities snip and remove the locks, but more locks follow. 

Wild aside:
I assume couples remove these locks when they break up as well, but it would be important for both people to know about the breakup before walking across the bridge.  Otherwise, there could be a lot of frantic, angry people turning over locks in the middle of bridges in Salzburg.

It also occurred to me while crossing a bridge one day that setting up a camera to watch frantic lock checkers would be particularly interesting if you liked drama or didn't have cable. One hopes the lock cutter cuts all the locks in an area and doesn't pick and choose which locks to cut. If it were me, I'd be tempted to cut the tiny locks and the huge locks, but leave the medium ones alone. Not so much because I'm a middle child as because the small ones don't seem to have their heart in it, and the large locks are trying too hard. In case you're thinking that the owners of the small locks may be too young or poor to afford a good lock, I looked it up on Amazon and there is only a $3 difference between a small Master padlock and a medium one.  And if a couple can afford to blow $4.99 on a lock, they can put in the extra three dollars to make it a respectalble size.  BTW, you can also buy locks in bulk on Amazon ($23.49 for four), but you wouldn't want your girlfriend or wife to catch you with these.

Before you ask, we didn't take one of those Sound of Music double-decker bus tours. It's not that we weren't tempted, but one of the first things we saw upon entering Salzburg city limits was one of these buses with a child my son's age looking out the window, head in hand, clearly wishing he were somewhere else. Now, I'm not above making the kids suffer, but they hadn't done anything to deserve it that day, and I wasn't in a "picking a fight" kind of mood. So, we ended up visiting the sites individually and mostly on foot.

I could say a lot more about this city, but I'm beginning to bore myself.  Below are pictures of the sit-in (first picture), the Cathedral (second picture), Mozart's baptismal font (third picture), the many church steeples (next three pictures), St. Peter's Graveyard (reproduced by Hollywood for the Sound of Music scene when the family hides behind a tombstone) with an 11th century monastery on the cliff below Hohensalzburg Fortress (eighth picture), inside the monastery (ninth picture), Hohensalzburg Fortress (next three pictures), View of Salzburg from the Fortress (12th picture), the river (13th picture), the next two pictures are of streets in old town (one open, one under a building).  We particularly like the name of the enclosed street (BTW, "schmuck" means "jewelry" in German and there are "schmuck" signs everywhere, and it's just a matter of time before we catch the boy under one).

The next three pictures are from Mirabell Garden, after that is a picture of locks on a bridge.  Third from the bottom is a picture of a restaurant where Charlemagne ate in 803.  It is still a restaurant and claims to be the oldest, but my husband wanted to mention that it's under new management. 

The last is a picture of Leopold (Mozart's father) and Constantia's (Mozart's wife) grave.  Mozart is buried on Vienna...and this is a post for another time.

© 2012 Nicole Wirth
Author of:  Letters to Salthill