Vienna, Salzburg, Eagle’s Nest
On our first night in Vienna, we went to a concert at the
Auerspurg Palace. The resident
orchestra played the Viennese classics, accompanied by some folk dances. A young American sitting in the front row
was herded up onto the stage to play the triangle, and took the maestro’s
celebratory drink at the end of the performance.
Early next morning, we took in the Schonbrunn Palace, beating
the tourist crowd. We found out that
many of the upper rooms are now rented out to commoners. Imagine having this palace as your
home! The rooms were spectacular as
expected. The most interesting items
were the paintings, especially one of a palace concert with young six-year-old
Mozart in the audience, as well as a seven-year-old Marie Antoinette in the
front row.
Here is the statue of Maria Theresa, the great Empress of the
Hapsburg Empire. The statue is flanked
by two identical buildings: the museum of fine arts and the museum of natural
history.
After taking in the sights of Vienna, we took a trip into the
Vienna woods. Winding through the dense
greenery, we eventually came to the town of Baden. This quaint town boasts the apartments of many famous composers,
including Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, and the perennial favourite here, Strauss.
After an evening of home-cooked country meal and lively music,
we made our way into Salzburg. The
Mirabell Palace and accompanying gardens is famous for being the site of some
of the carefully-choreographed numbers from The Sound of Music.
The Salzburg palace looms large across the river Salzach. Although the weather was a bit dreary, we
nevertheless found the narrow lanes and colourful buildings charming.
We also made a daytrip to the renowned Eagle’s Nest, the house
given to Hitler on his fiftieth birthday.
From atop the mountain, we could see some of the lush green towns and
meadows below, one of which is the spot where Julie Andrews twirled in the
opening scenes of The Sound of Music.
(For some reason, there seemed to be no end to the abundance of things
to do with that movie in the vicinity of Salzburg. Tourists regularly go on Sound of Music tours.)
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