We’re back in Atlanta, having endured a long train ride from Salzburg to Amsterdam, an unexpected opportunity to explore the charms of Schiphol Airport (thanks to mechanical difficulties), and (thanks to the same difficulties) the chance to spend yet another night in a hotel (near Dulles, after we arrived too late to make any connections). I’d bet that whatever profit margin the airline had on our flight vanished (and then some) in its attempts to accommodate a planeload of people with meals and rooms.
I’m going to try to put some (I hope interesting) thoughts on "Europe" into a column for the main site, once I can recover my energy and gather my wits. For now, it’s all I can do to keep from falling face-first into the keyboard.
Joe -
It seems we may have passed each other on the autobahn, as it were. I was in Southern Germany, Switzerland and, yes, Austria (Salzburg area) around the same time you were over. I'm guessing you must be waking up about the same time I've been arising, 4 a.m. or thereabouts. And, how about those 6 p.m. bedtimes?
I wrote up a few impressions of my visit here - impressionistic and anecdotal, of course, but perhaps different from the dominant Left-Right perceptions of "Old Europe."
In any event, welcome home.
As noted elsewhere, darn! We were in the Salzburg area August 9 - 12, and then again August 19 - 22. We prowled the old town on the 9th, 10th, and 11th, as well as on the 20th. Our home base was Seekirchen, which is about 14 km NE of Salzburg (on the trainline toward Linz). We were also in the Zillertal, just east of Innsbruck, the weekend of the 17th and spent just enough time in Innsbruck to have lunch and a nice walk (actually a characteristically Austrian way of spending the day).
If you were around Salzburg any of those days, I'm shocked we didn't cross paths, since we literally (and unexpectedly) bumped into my uncle near the train station. We also visited every major beer-drinking establishment, with the exception of the Augustinerbraeu. My favorite remains the Stieglkeller, on the way up to the castle. We wanted to patronize the Peterskeller (to give the Benedictines a little business), but it was too expensive.
A Salzburg recommendation for those who want something other than the old standbys: the graveyard of the St. Sebastian church (across the street and down a ways from the Mirabell Gardens) has the Mozart family plot (sans Wolfgang and Nannerl, who refused to be buried there because Constanze is buried there with her second husband) as well as the tomb of Archbishop Wolf Dietrich, who's most responsible for Salzburg's Italianate character. It backs up to the Linzergasse, which is the old south road from Italy and the least touristy of Salzburg's shopping streets. The Petersfriedhof on the other side of the river also features the catacombs where early Christians held services when Salzburg was called Juvavum.