Salzburg II

I took the overnight train from Zurich to Salzburg and arrived at 4am which is not fun. It was freezing cold and obviously pitch dark which made finding my hostel a little interesting. After arriving at the hostel they told me I could not check in until 10am (even though I made a special request for early checkin and ending up sleeping in the "chill lounge" until it was time to check in.
I've already been to Salzburg albeit for 2 hours in June in the freezing cold and rain. This time I at least had some sunshine (even if it isn't warm) and got to see the sights for a little longer this time around. I still love the gardens of Schloss Mirabell and they look spectacular in the sunshine. Something I seemed to have missed last time was the unicorns at the gates and the weird creatures on the flowerpots.

Walking in Old Town I explored the various platzs with an actual tourbook and discovered a few cool things. The statue of Mary in the courtyard of the Cathedral actually lines up perfectly with the church to look like the angels are crowning her.

The platz behind the cathedral was a giant chess set and board painted on the ground for people to play. The fountain there (which was used for horse bathing like modern day carwashing) has a sign saying something like "The prince built me" but the designer captialised the roman numerals that when added together are the year the fountain was built.





Walking through St Peters Cemetery that the Sound of Music's graveyard was modelled on I came across some really interesting tombstones. Another quirky fact: In Austria gravesites are rented in 10 year cycles, every ten years a rent bill is sent out and if the family doesn't pay the remains are destroyed.



My final destination was Hohensalzburg Fortress (festung) atop Festungsberg. There is a tour within the fortress with an audio-guide that was fairly decent. The main reason for taking the tour was in fact the viewing platform at the top of the tower with a 360 degree view of Salzburg. From here I could see Schloss Leopoldskron (Salzburg Global Seminar) that we attended in June.

The penultimate destination on my journey is Linz and I am going purely for the Arts Electronica Centre with its 3D virtual reality CAVE. Hopefully it lives up the hype on the website (and yes I know this is a VERY geeky reason to stop in a town).

Carinthia

This weekend I was fortunate enough to be invited to Wolf's birthday party in Pörtschach (which will henceforth to refered to as P-dorf as I cannot pronounce it). P-dorf is situated next to Wörthersee, the most gorgeous lake in Austria. About 3 hours drive away from Vienna, 10 of us trekked by car and/or train to check out what all the fuss was about.




The lake has crystal clear green/blue water and is surrounded by the Alps. We had a few hours free until the party started and went for a dip in the lake. The swimming area (which you pay to get into) has a supertube and diving board.

While posing for a group shot Avery decides to try the tactic used by the photographer for the new YSSP brochure. "Think of a wild science idea"..."Avery keep quiet and look at the camera"..."But..."..."AVERY!"



Then there is always one that messes up a fairly traditional photograph...In our case we have two, aren't we lucky :P

Wolf threw a spectacular Sushi & Saki themed event with some karaoke and loads of sake. I even got to try my sushi making skills again rolling maki (with holey Korean seaweed).





Wolf's friends bought him his first pair of lederhosen, which he proceeded to wear for the remainder of the evening. Being his first pair they required a little bit of explanation and help to put on.

The party raged on til 6am I'm told (I baled at 3.30am) and hence the car trip home was rather quiet...

Weinviertel and Lipizzaners

We continued our tour after a rather large lunch at yet another English Garden and some museums. The highlight for me was a tour of the Summer Riding School of the Lipizzaners from the Spanish Riding School. Its like Summer camp for horses, they certainly have an awesome life out there. Along the way I learnt how they name their horses, the training process and how they pair the horses with their riders.

Did you know that all Lipizzaners are born brown and that they changed to white from about 4 years, sometimes up to 12 years old. Some horses never change to white. These horses can still perform in the shows and they are said to bring luck to the school. There have been a few years that have not had a brown horse like 1938 but currently there are 3 brown horses performing which must mean they are very lucky :)

Lipizzaners start training from the age of 4 and it can take 6 years before they are ready to perform. Lipizzaners live well into their 30s and perform until they're about 28. We got to meet a few of the horses and man are they tall but absolutely beautiful.


After all the horses we finally had a chance to drink. We toured the Obenaus winery, a local winery in Glaubendorf. The owners son shepherded us through the various rooms. It was interesting to see an small operation with the cellars, bottling line and presses (the people here would probably be annoyed when I call it small, but I consider it small in comparison to Vergelegen, Welmoed, Spier etc where I've previously done tours).

Following the tour we got to taste the various wine the winery produces including Gruner Veltliner, Roter Veltliner and Muskat. The menu said a cold meat supper and that is exactly what we got, LOTS of cold meat and nothing else. We thought they were joking when they handed us each a plate of meats, eventually we begged for a vegetarian plate to split. The party table made a valiant effort to consume our months worth of meat in a hour but it proved impossible.

I asked a lot of questions about the growing conditions here, temperatures, grape types etc because they make such different wines to South Africa and Australia which is what I typically know. The grow their whites in clay soil and reds in gravel. The temperatures are below freezing (-18C) in Winter and they harvest white in the morning and red in the afternoon. The really interesting this is that they use acacia instead of oak as they don't like the favour it gives to the wine.

Disney and Dr Who

IIASA's staff association organised a tour of the Wine Tour and Cultural Sightseeing trip for the staff and YSSPers interested. For 15 euros it was definitely worth it. A group of us dragged ourselves out of bed at 7am to get to the bus in time as we journeyed to Graffenegg and Glaubendorf.

Our bus trip started with a buck's fizz, champagne and orange juice and choc-chip mini cakes, I could definitely get used to this.

We started our cultural excursions with a tour of Schloss Graffenegg (yes another castle), a Tudor style castle. Why is there an English style castle in Austria? The Count who owned the castle spent some time in England and loved the style and had his castle remodelled in the Tudor style of whimsy. From the outside it looks like you've arrived at the Disney fairytale castle complete with turrets, dragons guarding the entrance and drawbridge of the (drained) moat.

The side of the castle was over the top, we could have spent hours in each room exploring the tiny carpentry details, the artwork etc. The chapel in the church was a sensory overload with bright blue ceilings (complete with stars), dragons and dolphins carved into the seating area, gold paintings over the alter and stained glass windows.


The English garden that surrounds the castle was yet another interesting experience. Graffenegg is very proud of their musical reputation and have recently built a new open-air concert arena that seats 1750 people. What they didn't mention until we found it is that it looks like a firefly class spaceship ready for take off. This was the icing on the cake after discovering an abandoned TARDIS between the trees...I wonder if we should tell them the aliens have landed :P

Bathing in Baden

Summer in Vienna beautiful yet hot. The answer: Baden, home to the thermal baths, pools and the largest beach in Austria (more like the only). A few intrepid YSSPers trekked to Baden by train (we thought we were going on a bus but we got there eventually).

Baden is a picturesque town past Modling (which is past Laxenburg). We stopped off for a nibble before swimming. Coffee here is served with love. The nibbles turned into 1 giant pizza that we couldn't finish.

We wondered through Baden to get to the baths, which meant a few cute alleyways and a beautiful town garden filled with roses, flower beds, archways and a pond. It really was a little slice of tranquillity.

The historic baths are a heaving mass of people especially after walking through a mostly deserted town. The baths are split into warm areas and cool areas with connecting walkways. The one end also features supertubes which brought out the children in all of us. When was the last time you went down a supertube?


We finished off the day with scrumptious Greek dinner near Landstrasse. Today was meant to be a slow, relaxing day before another hectic work week. It certainly delivered but I did indeed learn something today as topics over food and in the swimming pools covered philosophy, literature, politics, public goods and trains. I seem to be learning more over coffee breaks than in seminars.

Stift Melk

Stift Melk (Melk Abbey) is approximately an hour's drive from Vienna and can be seen from the freeway. It is a massive abbey built on top of a cliff reigning over the town Melk below and the Danube. Stift Melk takes its name from the river Milk that runs along the west base. Melk was originally a Slavic word meaning "slow-moving stream".

The site is believed to have had a spiritual community on it since the 11th century and was reconstructed in the 18th century in the Baroque style. There is some major reconstruction at this time which obscures some of the walls. There is an English Garden attached to the abbey with a Baroque Summer House. Much of the time you spend looking at the ceilings, there are the beautiful frescoes gracing the soaring spaces.


The photo above is the view to the Danube River (in the distance) from Terrace after visiting the Imperial Corridor. The Imperial Corridor is a treasure trove of religious relics dating from the 11th century. There is a book from the early 9th century in the library (transcription of works of Venerable Bede). The Melk Abbey library contains approximately 100,000 volumes (from 9th century to current date) of which only 16000 are on display in the library.

The staircase from the library to the church is unexpected artists delight, the small photo is from the top down and the larger taken from the bottom showing the art on the ceilings.

The church itself is an ostentatious display of wealth but it the atmosphere is one of peace and respect. Almost everything is coated in gold (my camera cannot capture the true spectacle. I would highly recommend an afternoon at the abbey (and buy the guide book).

MacDonalds goes classy

In one of the main walking streets of Salzburg the shop signs have been integrated with the old trade announcements. Its a very touristy street and the signs caused great amusement such as the one above. Who knew MacDonalds could be classy?

A glimpse of Salzburg

We had a very quick stop off in Salzburg on our way home from Zell am See and the Salzburg Global Seminar on Monday afternoon. By quick I mean an hour. I did manage to run around the "City Centre" as the tourists brochures describe it. There is a river running through the city, making for some gorgeous riverside views. Salzburg is nestled at the foot of a cliff/mountain and the castles at the top are definitely something I am going back to visit.

The gardens of Schloss Mirabell (yes I know yet another Schloss :P) are picture perfect with manicured flower beds in artistic patterns, a rose garden, sculptures to represent the elements and a statue of Pegasus with the biggest smile I've ever seen on a winged horse.

As you move from Mirabellgarten you get a glimpse of copper domes at seems to typify church architecture here. For a country that is not that religious they have an amazing number of churches per square kilometre.

As we moved into the official city centre we started noticing a few familiar buildings (at least if you're a Sound of Music fan). The fountain I'm sitting on the edge of is where Maria takes the children (that open square) and behind me is the Residence building. After the SGS Schloss and this I can state I've visited about 90% of the places the filmed in.

Salzwelten

Sunday we scrapped our hiking plans (drowned rat is not a good look) and visited the Salzwelten, a salt ("white gold") mine in the mountains near Salzburg. The group has the most amazingly humourous experience of climbing into white protection suits, shown in the pictures. We resembled the KKK with our hoods up or Smurfs depending on your school of thought.


After donning these highly fashionable outfits we were proceeded to the railway entrance into the mine. The railway benches encourage one to get very friendly with one's neighbours (in other words squished) as we journey deeper and deeper into the mountain and the mine. The temperature was meant to drop to 10C but seeing as the outside temperature was 6C it warmed up for us ice blocks.


The tour takes one through the history of the mine and the "new" process of leaching salt from the rock using water. One has to remember new is relative, the first mining by hand was started in 500 BC by the Celts. We even got a boat ride on the 'Titanic' over an underground lake (all of 70m long and 2m deep). The tour came complete with cheasy movies on the history of the mine owner and cut-out cartoon characters pointing to sights of interest.


The best part of the tour were the slide sections, one of which was called "Highway to Hell" (42m long). You speed down the slides at a fast pace with your legs up and leaning back. We started racing amongst the YSSP group (the normal tourists attached to our group were highly amused). Ben and I beat the YSSP Coordinators down Highway to Hell :)


This tour does come with a hefty price tag attached, 18 euros for adults or 16 euros for a group of 20 or more.