Linz

Linz has the unfortunate distinction of being Adolf Hitler’s favorite city.  He was born in Austria, went to school in Linz but was a very bad student. He also lived in Vienna and then Munich where he tried to be an artist then architecture but he was very bad at both.During the war Hitler wanted to redesign the city so he had over 200,000 workers cutting stone at a nearby granite quarry where conditions were horrendous and half died.  Now one building is a museum.  

The city square is unique as it was not built around a church.  A column in the center commemorates those who died from the black plague, fires and wars. Mozart wrote the Linz Symphony in three days while staying here in 1783, he was 23 years old and the music was for 15 instruments.

St. Mary’s Cathedral, also known as Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, is comparable to the one in Vienna but is one meter shorter by law.  Truely beautiful.

Wachau Valley

Wachau (va - how) Valley runs along the Danube for 26 miles and is filled by vineyards and apricot orchards.  Only two bridges cross the Danube in the 26 miles so a ferry that is attached to a cable runs people across at this location.

One location is Durnstein (pronounced dur-n-stein).  The fortress overlooking the town and valley once held King Richard the Lionhearted of England as a prisoner after he was captured during a raid.  He was held for 18 months before Queen Elizabeth of Austria returned him to England for the ransom price of 20 tons of silver (todays cost is several billion dollars). It was a win-win for both countries.

A tunnel runs under the town to keep traffic off the narrow city streets. A nunnery is now a granary, we walked the old city wall and walked to a nice vineyard .

Our next stop was in the city of Melk, the former capital of Austria one thousand years ago.  The Melk Abby, once a Benedictine monastery, is 935 years old and was once the home for over 100 monks.  Today only 21monks live in the Abby that claims 500 rooms.  The Prelate courtyard, the largest of seven in the complex, is surrounded by buildings that were used like a hotel by royalty.

We were not allowed to take any pictures of the inside of the Abby nor of the Cathedral but John did manage to sneak one in secret.  The rooms we toured were more like a modern museum until we entered the library which holds a collection of 100,000 books including two Gutenberg bibles.

The last stop of the day was in Greinburg, the summer home of the Sachaen-Coburg-Saalfeld dynasty. Or in modern language the Saxe-Coburg and Gotha family.  We were invited to walk through the private quarters as we learned about the history of the family.   The palace is over 500 years old and was purchased by the current family in 1923. The 3 most interesting rooms were the Chapel with a Christmas Altar, a solarium made from pebbles collected from the Danube and a room called the diamond vault.  No one is sure of its purpose but it has a unique three dimensional diamond ceiling.

The City of Music

Vienna, Austria, the city of music, home of Mozart and Straus, capital of Austria, and the center of the Hapsburg dynasty.

Our bus tour took us past many historic monuments, parks, and large buildings including the Vienna Philharmonic, St. Charles VI palace, the Opera House, the twin buildings housing the art history museum ad the Museum of Natural History.  We also drove by the Parliament with Athena, the goddess of wisdom, in the front.

Our walking tour took us past a Roman Temple that once housed the head of Napoleon, it’s not there anymore. A statue of Queen Elizabeth, Sissi, is in a garden since she was queen of Austria and beloved by them as well as by the Hungarians.  The Winter Palace of the Hapsburgs is 650 years old and has been added to by several other royals and is now filled with museums.  A statue of King Frank Joseph is surrounded by women representing religion, peace, justice and wisdom.  We walked past a building that housed a church but until you saw the back of the building you would never know it was a church.

The Lippizan Stallions were having lunch so we did not see them.  A museum and monument were built over a Jewish synagogue.  The monument represents the over 200,000 Jews who lived in Austria with 65,000 killed.

After lunch we returned to the St. Peter’s Cathederal where we enjoyed an organ concert of Vivaldi and Mozart pieces.  

Another large church is the St. Stephen’s Cathedral, first constructed in 1220.  The entrance is the only original part of the building. Mozart’s funeral was held here but he is buried elsewhere.

Villach and Landskron Castle

Again the rain has changed some of the plans for the day.  It was only about a 30 minute drive into Villach (pronounced Veel - lack) and since it was too wet to hike we had a coffee then visited the City Museum.  It was interesting but just a stop gap to kill time until the rain let up - finally!

Villach is at the south end of Ossiach See (lake).  A pretty waterfall feeds into the lake and was a short but nice hike up to see it.  

We then drove up as close as we could to Landskron Castle where we ate in a very nice restaurant with the ambiance of olden days.  We finally got some exercise on the hike down from the castle.

Upon our return to Tarvisio we walked thru town checking out shops and restaurants before walking back up to the hotel.  The sky is clearing and the sun is showing off the mountains peaks!