I'm Back

Yes, I have been back from Austria for over a week now, and yes, I realize that I am yet again running late with this blog. (Just to let you know that I am aware!)

My trip to Austria was a lot of fun. I enjoyed seeing the sights in Vienna and Salzburg, resting and relaxing, getting some non-Roman fresh air, and being in the company of a couple of good friends. You can see photos from my trip by clicking on the "Travel Photos" link to the right. I have them in a couple of different folders: Vienna, Langenisarhofen, Sound of Music, Marktl and Salzburg. Feel free to browse through them.

There are all kinds of sights to see in Vienna. In the main streets there are people dressed up in costumes selling tickets to concerts that are happening around the city. Every night there must be tens of concerts performed in the city. Of course, with this being the 250th birth year of Mozart, you see Mozart memorabilia and special exhibits all over the place. We didn't end up going to any concerts in Vienna, but we did in Salzburg.

Vienna itself is a very nice city: clean, quiet (there's a law against honking your horn!), spacious, and slow-paced. I guess it's an Austrian tradition - or at least a practice - to sit in the cafes for three or four hours reading the newspaper and talking to the other customers there. Don't ask me how they get anything done.

Beethoven, Schubert, and a host of other composers are buried in a cemetery on the outskirts of the city, but I didn't have the chance to go there and see their tombs. No major loss, I guess. You could say that I left a lot of things to be done the next time I go to Vienna, if there is ever a next time.

On Wednesday, we picked up a rental car at the Vienna airport and drove across the country to Salzburg (it's about a three-hour drive). It's a very pretty country, but since I was the driver I didn't get much chance to just sit back and enjoy the scenery going by. Driving on the Autobahn is much like driving on any US interstate highway, only instead a 70-mph speed limit, it's closer to 80 (130 kph). And, since you can always push the limit a little without being pulled over, you find that most people are driving about 85 or 90. Whoa.

Salzburg is a really neat town. The historic center (it was founded in the 7th century) is quite small and easily walkable. There are several big churches in the center, and lots of fountains and fancy building facades. There seem to be more horse-drawn carriages filling the streets than automobiles. If you're not careful, you might step in a pile of "exhaust"!

We stayed in a little bed-and-breakfast that was just a 15-minute walk from the historic center. The place was near a lake, some fields, a forest, and had a great view of the snow-capped mountains (the very ones where Maria was running at the beginning of "The Sound of Music"). Almost immediately after checking in on Wednesday, we went to the Mozart Dinner Concert I mentioned in my last post. It was very enjoyable. It was held in an 18th-century equivalent of today's parish centers, attached to St. Peter's Church. There was a string quintet which played a couple of Mozart's pieces and then accompanied a handful of singers who sang songs from three of Mozart's operas. They'd sing for a while, then stop and one course would be served. Then they'd sing again and after they finished the second course came out. This happened three times altogether. We were at a table with a couple from England and a couple from Paris. Very interesting.

The next day we went on the Sound of Music tour, which involved a four-hour bus tour not only through Salzburg, but also into the surrounding area where various scenes from the movie were filmed. I won't go into too much detail -- you can check out the pictures on my photo site -- but I will say that we had a very funny tour guide, without whom the tour would never have been so enjoyable. If any of you know who John Lovitz is.... our tour guide was a lot like him.

That evening we decided to go to a production of a Mozart opera: La Finta Giardiniera (The Fake/Impostor Gardener). Our seats were in the top row of the balcony, on the far edge of the theater, so we could only see half the stage!! Plus, the songs were all in Italian and the subtitles were only in German, so it was tough to get any idea of what was going on. Another problem was that although all the music and lyrics were the same as in the original Mozart opera, the producers at this particular show decided to take a bit of artistic liberty, and make the costumes and scenery modern. So, the whole opera took place in what looked like a modern-day Home Depot garden department. That part was definitely disappointing. My two friends gave up and left during the intermission, but I stayed and moved to a different seat (where I could see the whole stage) for the second half, and although I still didn't catch a lot of what was going on, it was better than the first half. All in all, the opera was a letdown, but I did enjoy the music and I intend to read a synopsis of the opera just so I know what I was missing.

On Friday we took a day trip into Bavaria, stopping first at the Holy Father's birthtown of Marktl am Inn. We saw the church where he was baptized and the house where he was born. The town has already built a visitors' center and giftshop. There were some tourists in the street outside -- maybe 40 -- but the place was definitely not overly busy. You can see these photos on my "Travel Photos" site.

The destination of the trip into Bavaria was Langenisarhofen, as I mentioned in my last post. I only had one name and address from Grandma and Grandpa's address book (one in Langenisarhofen, that is). Once we found the town, we drove in, turned right onto the main street, and found that after about half a mile we were almost out of town already! So I turned on the next street possible and lo and behold! it was the street from the address book. Anyhow, to make a long story short (you're probably already suffering from eye strain), we met a woman who was a good friend of Grandma's, way back in the day. She told us stories (one of my friends did the translating) about Grandma and her brother, Karl, and her sister, Augusta. She and her husband went on a short tour around the area with us, pointing out various significant places. We visited the parish church in the nearby town of Moos (which served three of the local towns), and the Schwaiger family plot was in the cemetery just outside the church. Great-Grandma and Great-Grandpa Schwaiger are buried there, as well as Great-Uncle Karl and his wife, and Great-Aunt Augusta. We also went to the site of the Schwaiger home, although it was torn down and a house and garage were built in its place.

One interesting point of the trip is that Grandma's friend said that the son of one of Grandma's cousins (who lives in Moos) looks just like me. In fact, when she first saw me, she thought it might be he. I guess he is a little older than I, though. I didn't get to meet any relatives, as we were a bit short on time, and they were either out of town, or out on the tractor.

That evening we went to another concert in Salzburg: this time it was the Salzburg Symphony Orchestra, in their last concert of the season. They performed Brahms' Violin Concerto and Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony. Very enjoyable.

We returned on Saturday night (an hour and 45 minutes from Vienna to Rome, and two and half hours from the airport to the city!!) with a couple extra free days before school restarted.

Today is a national holiday in Italy, so there was no school. I went to the Spanish Steps with a friend and then did some work in the choir loft.

Well, I think that's more than enough for now. Perhaps I'll write again later in the week.