OK, so I scheduled this stop with the sole purpose of seeing this castle, built by royal nutjob Ludwig II of Bavaria, and in which he lived only 173 days, before his death under “suspicious circumstances.”

The king’s childhood home is right down the road; you know, on another mountain. It’s called Schloss Hohenschwangau. Notice in both castle names, there appears the word schwan, which is German for “swan” — the family crest.

Anyway, Neuschwanstein didn’t disappoint. Of course, we weren’t allowed to take photos (a member of castle security followed our group around for the entire 35-minute tour), but I did get a few photos of the exterior. Impressive…

It’s a mile-long walk uphill to get to the castle, and since I was tired already, I opted to take the bus up and down. Little good it did, as they let you off at a drop-off point, and you still have to walk a half mile uphill. Once you’re inside, there are at least 10 spiral staircases (I lost count) with 15 steps in each. Climb, climb, climb. With virtually no handicap access, you have to be willing to schlep up and down the stairs if you want to see it. It was OK though — after all this rich food, I needed the workout. And boy did I get it.

The bus back down was an exercise in sheer terror. The lunatic bus driver went 30 MPH around curves, I swear it, with people jammed on the bus in excess of twice the capacity. Here was my view, all the way down. Some guy had his butt on my leg the whole way. Horrifying. We all thought we were going to tip over and go head over heels down the steep side.

But on to my travel day…

In one day, I rode in a bus, a train, a plane, and a car. All that’s missing is the boat!

Looking like a couple miles of bad road…

It’s been a long haul over the last 12 hours, from Germany to northeast Italy, and I’ve been tired all day. But I didn’t mind; part of the fun’s getting there, right? And I knew I needed to drag it out bigtime for one day in order to make the final leg of the Odyssey.

Let me say first: I have ridden nine different airlines in my lifetime. I know that may not be many to some, but it’s a handful for me, and you know who’s #1 on that list? Air Dolomiti. Man…the Americans could take a lesson. Boarding is NBD — everyone was on the plane (which they opened at both ends — front and back — imagine that) in minutes, and take-off was a minute early. They gave all instructions in Italian, then followed with English. They were quick, friendly, and efficient, which automatically put the passengers at ease. A+, AD!

I started out the morning with breakfast at the hotel, and then checked out and walked a hundred yards down the street to the bus stop, where the #78 took me back to Füssen and on towards Munich. Fortunately, there was no one in 1st class with me for the first 2.5 hours of the journey, so I had some quiet time.

Goodbye, Alps — hello, Dolomites

Things went sideways a bit when my second train was rerouted and I had to get off and find another one, but I found one, and went the rest of the way into enormous Munich Airport, where I caught my plane to Trieste.

Tomorrow, I take a train to Venice and check into my hotel. I’ll wander the canals solo until Thursday, when I meet up with Kay and Bob. We’ll have lunch, and then Bob will drive the rental car to Slovenia (right across the border), and Kay and I will have a day to ourselves in Venice. We plan to go off the beaten path and hopefully find some treasures to tell you about.

I was going to go find some dinner here in Trieste, but it’s already going on 9 p.m., so I’m having hot tea and cookies and calling it a night. Early train in the morning — I’m out. See you tomorrow!

Much love…

Hello everyone – once again, thanks for following this little adventure along with me.

Suzanne and I finished our time together yesterday, and it was wonderful. The only bad part was saying goodbye; she caught a train back to Vienna, then got on a plane for home in the Netherlands, and I went north and west to Germany.

But before we did, we had a fantastic day. We started at the Mozarthaus, and we both learned quite a bit not about Wolfgang, but about his father. Photos weren’t permitted, but we saw letters and music he’d written, and originals of famous paintings of the Mozart family. Very interesting.

From there, we took a taxi out of town to Untersberg Mountain, part of the Alpine range that straddles Austria and Germany.

Truth be told, I wasn’t crazy about the idea, but Suzanne really wanted to see it, so I thought why not… What’s the worst that could happen if that thin cable snapped and we plummeted a thousand feet to the rocks below? So, up we went.

When we reached the summit (alive), we got out and walked around. Man, it was cold up there! They had a cute little café, so we had lunch there. The beef and noodles was spectacular, even though I secretly worried it would be my last meal.

After returning (alive), we hopped a bus and went back into town, and I did some laundry while Suzanne arranged her trip back. We decided we wanted to have dinner at the Fortress, where we’d tried the night before (they had it closed for a wedding reception, so we were out of luck). So we hailed a taxi to take us there. Trouble was, the driver didn’t know how to get there (!!!) and wasted 15 of our euro before we finally said, “never mind, just let us out here.”

Not knowing where to go next, we stumbled into a huge square, and I said, “Hey.. I think that’s the horse fountain that Maria splashes in while singing ‘I Have Confidence.'” Sure enough, that’s what it was! Another happy accident.

After having a delicious, leisurely dinner at an out-of-the-way restaurant, it was getting late and things were shutting down for the night. We went back to the hotel, sat on the patio enjoying some drinks, then hugged goodbye till next time. Looking so forward to seeing what our next adventure will be!

Having some connectivity issues with my laptop right now, so I owe you another post (I’ve done this one on my phone, and I have no idea what it’s going to look like, so sorry if it’s wonky). On to Germany!

Much love…

Shew, what a great day! It’s 8:50 p.m. and I’m ready to collapse, but I have to write to you about the beautiful memories and everything we experienced.

The train ride to Salzburg from Vienna was fun and relaxing, and as we traveled west, the mountains began to slowly creep into view. Pro tip: when riding the rails, book 1st class. It’s not that much more money, the atmosphere is peaceful, and in our case this time, we got to ride on the upper deck of the train, which really provided some fantastic views.

When we reached the central train station, we hailed a taxi to take us to our hotel, which is located right in the middle of the oldest part of the city. Score! We didn’t waste much time getting settled in our rooms and venturing out. We knew it was going to rain later in the day, so the Sound of Music stops were first on the list, as they are all outside.

The Dwarf Garden

Mirabell gardens is where several scenes from “Do-Re-Mi” were filmed, and it was surreal seeing them up close and in person. The palace and surrounding grounds are right in the center of town, so we started there.

Do you recognize any of these places? Of course you do.

Running a race through the garden tunnel

Around the fountain

Walking up the steps at the end of the song

We went to the Feldensreitschule, where the final festival concert was filmed, but were told at the gate that it was closed. Boo. Tomorrow, we plan to take the 40-minute drive out to Schloss Frohnburg, which served as the von Trapp family home in the movie.

Time and weather prevented us from seeing all the movie locations, but the ones we saw were fun and brought back some memories for me on more than one level. Suzanne said, “When you watched this movie as a kid, did you ever think you’d be standing in some of the exact places it was filmed?” No, I didn’t!

Perhaps the neatest discovery was the one we made totally by accident. After having a fabulous dinner at Steiglskeller in the old city, we walked down the steep cobblestone street to grab a ride back to the hotel (unlike tourist locations in the US, many cities in Europe close down at 5 or 6 p.m.). When we reached the bottom of the hill, Suzanne stopped in her tracks and said, “This is it! This is the place.”

Right in front of us was St. Peter’s Cemetery and catacombs — the medieval monastery to which the von Trapp family fled to hide from the Nazis before escaping to Switzerland. What a find!

Of course, the oldest working monastery in Austria wasn’t used for filming, but rather the production company built a replica and filmed the scene in Hollywood. Still, it was great to stumble upon this gem of a location around which the entire city of Salzburg was built. We stood on old, holy ground and admired the silence and beauty.

Tomorrow, we’ll take in some Mozart history and finish looking up Sound of Music locations, eat some more great food (oy I am going to need to go on a diet when I get home), and spend one last evening together before Suzanne and I say goodbye for another summer, and I continue on my journey alone for a few days.

It’s so wonderful having you all along — I promise I will respond to all your kind comments! More to come tomorrow…

Much love

Where yesterday went all wrong, today seemed like Opposite Day. What fun!

After a leisurely breakfast, we set out to the far reaches of the city to visit Central Cemetery, where many famous people are buried, not the least of which are some of the biggest names in classical music.

One of the most prominent headstones belongs to — of course, and rightfully so — Ludwig van Beethoven. We also saw the monument to W.A. Mozart (whose arguable “real” grave is in nearby St. Marx Cemetery, which we did not visit), and the graves of Franz Schubert, Johann Strauss, Czerny, Schoenberg, and others.

We looked and looked, and finally had to ask a tour guide where the grave of Mozart’s purported rival, Antonio Salieri, was located. Far, far away from the rest of the composers, in an unassuming row at the very edge of the cemetery, we finally found him.

The gravestones weren’t the most impressive part of our visit to the largest cemetery in Europe, however. That honor goes to the St. Charles Borromeo Cemetery Church, located at the end of the long main parkway that splits the graveyard in half. Its large, domed ceiling, beautiful relics, and awesome acoustics had us sitting in the pews (and it was just the two of us there at that time), singing and speaking softly as the dome took our voices and magnified and elongated them in what I timed as close to a 15-second decay. I sang a G major triad on “ah,” and all three notes resounded throughout the space, until finally fading away as one. I can only imagine a choir singing there…

Leaving the cemetery took us to the adult home of Mozart, where he lived the longest and wrote some of his greatest works (Don Giovanni, The Magic Flute, Requiem Mass in D minor). No photos allowed, but we saw the space in which he, his wife and children, his father, their servants, and sometimes extended guests lived, all under one roof. When the tour was done, it was time for lunch, which we enjoyed outside, where a cool-ish breeze brought some relief from the 89-degree day.

After lingering over our lunch, we hailed a taxi to the immense Schönbrunn Palace, Vienna’s #1 attraction, and summer home to the Imperial Habsburgs throughout most of the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. We weren’t permitted to photograph the inside there, either (you can see hundreds of pictures by doing a search), but the words “ornate” and “Baroque excess” don’t quite do it justice. Every living space had beautiful fabrics on the walls, the windows, and the furniture — all in matching patterns. I can’t imagine heating that place in the winter, holy cats.

Following the tour, it was off to what ended up as a super-fun finale to a very full and informative day. We bought tickets to a demonstration on the fine art of strudel-making, put on by the pastry chefs of the palace. Delightful! The young chef did quite the show, effortlessly speaking one sentence in German and repeating it in English for the entire 20-minute demonstration. And the best part? We got to take home the recipe for the delicious apple-cinnamon-raisin strudel, as well as taste some for ourselves. 

We called it a night by skipping dinner and having a snack of coffee, sachertorte and cookies at a nearby cafe. Some Friday, right?

Tomorrow will be the culmination of Suzanne’s and my time together with a visit to Salzburg. Yay, Sound of Music tourists doing idiotic poses from the movie at all the iconic sites! That’ll be us.

Till then….much love.

Well now…

It wasn’t exactly the day we thought we’d have when we boarded our plane in Amsterdam, headed southeast for Austria. The fact that it was almost half over with by the time we finally got to our hotel in Vienna, combined with the oppressive temperatures (record highs this week there), and throwing in the getting lost/bad directions for finding our first sightseeing stop — I’ll admit that the whole day had us a bit out of sorts.

So what do you do when you’ve wasted the last three good hours of the afternoon, schlepping it around (and, in Suzanne’s case, on bad feet and a bad back — she is a trouper,  bigtime) from one wrong tram to another, in the suffocating, breezeless heat, just trying to go see dead people before everything closes down for the night?

Eat and drink, that’s what.

After returning from the Train Rides to Nowhere to Find Trams That Don’t Exist, we rested and freshened up a bit, then decided to venture out into the city again, but for a different purpose than finding Central Cemetery: Abendessen!

We turned left out of the hotel and starting walking. Strangely, miraculously, it wasn’t so hot, and there was a beautiful breeze blowing. We happened upon a restaurant with an open-air, covered patio, and after examining the menu posted on the outside door (Suzanne’s knowledge of Dutch helped her figure out some key German food phrases), we went in and asked for a table.

Great call. It was the best meal we’ve had so far, and that’s saying something because we’ve eaten like royalty on more than one occasion. Suzanne had beef and onions, and I had the schnitzel with parsley potatoes. Out of this world. But the best part was the two hours spent yapping over a dozen different topics. We see each other only once every couple of years, and we never fail to make good use of the time available. A disastrous afternoon turned into a relaxing evening, full of great conversation and miles of “catching up.” I’ll take that any day, in any city.

Today’s a whole new story, though. We’re meeting for breakfast at 7 (I’m writing this at 6 a.m., while you in the US are either snoozing or thinking about it, as I’m six hours ahead of you), getting cleaned up, and catching a train to the outskirts of town to start the day off at the cemetery. We will do this thing yet, because the women figured out what the guy at the front desk got wrong. Check.

Then it’s off to a tour of the beautiful Schonbrunn palace and grounds, among other places along the way. I hope to have a few more pictures (translation: more than the zero I had today) for you to look at then. Please come back!

RF, over and out.