On our way home

Amazing how quickly the time went by! Today we start the long trek home. Autobus has sent us some pretty nice coaches but today we got the creme d'la creme. We got the "conference bus" our driver told us. Along with the other amenities we found on the other Mercedes coaches, this one had a conference center at the back of the bus with facilities to do power point presentation, etc.
Traffic en route to Munich airport got very congested when we were almost there so our driver took a few back roads and got us there on time. The line at Lufthansa's group check in looked pretty long and full of students traveling, but it moved fairly quickly and we were all checked in in plenty of time.

Conference Coach - back of the bus!

The flight back was smooth and uneventful. Customs was the usual hassle but then we got outside the terminal and found our bus. Wow! What a difference from what we had gotten used to in Europe. But still, it was going to be good to get on the bus headed home. Not so quick GI! As we started to load the bus one of Massachussett's finest (State Trooper) comes over and starts yelling at us to "Move your F***ing bus or I'll give you an F***ing ticket!" Welcome home! Apparently we were loading in the wrong area. So we found the correct spot and proceeded to load the luggage into the rear compartment of the bus. The fun really began when we got back to Utica and we could not get the door to the luggage bay open! It looked like the latch holding the door closed was jammed by some piece of luggage that had shifted. Try as we might we just could not get the door open. In fact, the driver tried so hard he ended up breaking the handle. I call the bus company and told them we wanted the door removed first thing in the morning. This was finally done the next day, but being it was Sunday there was no one to deliver the luggage to us in Utica so I transferred it all into my SUV and brought it home so everyone could come to my house as the central location to retrieve their luggage.

Here's your luggage!

Salt Mine and Eagle's Nest

Today's tour is something different. We are off to explore one of the salt mines. Where they extracted the very substance that made Salzburg famous and its Prince extremely powerful and wealthy. Following that we will visit one example of Hitler's egotism, his "Eagle's Nest".
The drive to Berchtesgaden was through the beautiful mountains south of Salzburg. Arriving at the salt mine we first were given "miner's vestments" to put on over our own outer clothing to protect them. The seat  of the pants were padded. Later we would find out the reason for this.

Stylin' in our miner's garb

Movin' out on the train

But first we were taken to the "train" that would transport us deep into the mountain and inside a now expended vein of salt. Straddling the cars of the train and holding on to the person in front we took a long ride down a narrow tunnel on the narrow gauge rails until we finally came to a stop and dismounted. The rest of the tour would be on foot. Through a series of humorous movies we were introduced to the history of salt and how it was mined from the times of the Celts in 400 BC through the medieval times  to modern day. We were also informed on the many health benefits attributed to salt and why it was considered "white gold" in the past.

Now we know what the padding
was for! Hot seat!

 Two of the most fun parts of the tour were when we rode down the slides used in days gone by by the mines to get to the lower levels of the mine and the boat ride across the underground salt lake.

Is he for real??

Then there was the creepy part where we saw the ancient miner who had been trapped in the salt mine and his body perfectly preserved by the salt surrounding it. And this was just before we were to go to lunch! Exiting the mine we found many interesting salt related souvenirs in the gift shop. I would have loved to bring back one of the colorful large salt crystals but airline weight limits being what they are had to pass.

Our tour guide then took us to the Hofbrauhaus in Berchtesgaden for lunch, where we enjoyed typical Baverian fare for lunch washed down, of course, with that great German beer.

Then it was on to the Eagle's Nest. This was a gift to Hitler from Martin Bormann for his 50th birthday. It sits atop a 6000 foot mountain and took 13 months to construct at a cost of about 150 million Euros (2007 market value).It was to be a retreat for Hitler and a place to entertain visiting dignitaries.


But Hitler was afraid of heights and he only visited it about 14 times. Getting there requires taking a special bus from the base of the mountain up a very steep and winding road which interestingly only involves one hairpin turn. The road up and down is narrow and the two way traffic has to be closely coordinated as there is only one place were downward moving vehicles can pull over and allow upward bound buses to pass.We had a specific time and bus number assigned for both the up and down trips. The final 400 feet or so of the trip up is done by an elevator that was bored straight through the mountain rock. This is a huge bottle neck in both directions so it takes some planning and attention to make sure you are back down to where your downward bound bus is waiting without missing it.

View from Eagle's Nest

Clouds are moving in

Once up at the top the view is spectacular as long as the clouds don't start moving in. Once this happens the line for the elevator down quickly becomes pretty long. The ubiquitous hang gliders seemed to be everywhere at the top of this mountain. The clouds moving quickly up the mountain were a testament to the upward movement of air and the hang gliders certainly took advantage of it. My question was what do they do when the clouds totally obscure the top of the mountain. We didn't stay around long enough to find out.

Hang gliders every where

Dinner this night was in the hotel restaurant. It was our last dinner in Europe and was equally excellent as were all of the other arranged dinners.

Sound of Music Tour

Breakfast at the Hotel Bristol was elegant to say the least. At 9:00 we were to meet our tour guide and board a coach to visit the most significant sites to the story of the Von Trapp family, both actual and those used in making the film.

Breakfast at the Bristol Hotel

Meeting our tour guide, Ursula, we boarded another very comfortable coach and departed for the first of several stops on the tour, Hellbrunn Palace, where we found the gazebo around which Rolf and Liesl sang  "Sixteen Going on Seventeen" in the film.

Ursula encouraged us to reenact that scene, but...  This we found was not the original location of the gazebo. It had been moved from Schloss Leopoldskron, which is now a private residence (nice to have that kind of money!) and the owners were tired of having tourist traipsing all over their property to look at the gazebo.

The Schloss  was actually our next stop. We saw it from across the lake, where the boating scene in the movie was filmed.
Next was the Nonnberg Abbey, which played a part in both the movie and in real life. In reality this is where Maria and the Baron were wed. In the movie the children come to the gates of the abbey to ask Maria to return to them and she is shown to run from the "hills" down to the abbey. In reality, the "hills" are some 20 Km away from the abbey which is at the base of the Fortress Hohensalzburg.

Next we visited the site of the movie wedding between Maria and the Baron, the Church of Mondsee. This was a bit of a drive so just to keep things entertaining Ursula played some of the tracks from the movie score and got us all singing along. Oh, my!

Ursula leading us in "Do Re Me"

Traveling to the other side of Lake Mondsee we came to the town of St. Gilgen, birthplace of Mozart's mother. It is also used in the opening scene of the movie.
Our final stop is right behind our hotel, Mirabell Gardens, where in the movie Maria and the children dance about singing "Do Re Me"

Mirabell Gardens

Returning to the hotel we had the rest of the afternoon to continue to explore Salzburg on our own with the aid of our Salzburg Cards.
We chose to see Mozart's residence, where he lived with his wife. And then on to the Museum of Modern Art. This sits atop a shear abutment high above the old town and provided an excellent vantage point to see and photograph the town.

View from the museum

Munich to Salzburg

After a great breakfast at Hotel Prinzregent, we were again on one of those magnificent Mercedes coaches headed to Salzburg. We loved the Prinzregent, but could the five star Hotel Bristol beat that?
It was a surprisingly short ride, just under 2 hours until we reached the birthplace of Wolfgang A. Mozart. This is one of my favorite cities. There is just so much to see and do in this compact, pedestrian friendly old town.

Hotel Bristol

Since we had arrived relatively early in morning and the rooms would not be ready for a few hours, we stashed our bags and with our Salzburg Cards in hand headed into the old town, only a short walk from our hotel.  The Salzburg card gets you free access to just about any attraction in Salzburg that you might want to see. It is a fantastic deal and very convenient because you don't have to wait in line to purchase a ticket.
 I wanted everyone to know where we were having dinner so I led them to Saint Peter's Stiftskeller, reputed to be the oldest continuously operating restaurant in Europe. From there everyone was free to explore and see the sights that would most interest them. I thought for this situation this would be preferable to a typical city tour where you are dragged from one place to another and see most of the sites only from the outside. Some were interested in the catacombs so I lead a group of folks to that and then on to the Fortress Hohensalzburg, the imposing castle which dominates the Salzburg area. Evelyn and I had lunch at a cafe adjacent to the castle with a beautiful view of the surrounding area.

Panoramic view from Hohensalzburg Castle

Then we visited Mozart's Birthplace. This was a very interesting exhibit with a lot of information about his lineage, his home life as a child and his sister Nannerl, who was a gifted musician in her own right. All this made us want to revisit the film "Amadeus". I never thought he was as goofy acting as he is portrayed in the movie, but from what we read, except for his music he apparently was quite child like as an adult.
Since the rooms were to be ready by 3 PM, most of the group wandered back to the hotel by then and got checked in. The hotel staff had delivered our bags before hand. We had a really nice, spacious room. The view from our balcony of the city was great. See the pano taken with my iPhone.

Panoramic view from our balcony

View of Hohensalzburg from our room

Downstairs we found the rest of the group had discovered "happy hour". Our Romanian bar keep was a real sweetheart and kept us supplied with wasabi peanuts, cashews and other snacks and made sure we didn't miss "last call" at the end of happy hour.
Wandering over to the Stiftskeller we found everyone had arrived and some were even already seated in our private dining room. Dinner consisted of Tomato consommé with basil dumpling, Chicken breast stuffed with herb infused quark, served on grappa risotto with a ‘Schilcher’ wine sauce, and for dessert Chocolate soufflé served with sour cherries and kumquats ice cream. It was delicious! After dinner we thought we'd just stroll back to the hotel. Wrong! We had had beautiful weather the whole trip. Even earlier today there was only a slight drizzle. But all of a sudden the skies open up and a deluge was coming down. A few folks who had beat us out the door got soaked walking back. Fortunately the restaurant ordered taxis for us to take us back to the hotel. I was surprised how inexpensive it was.