Bratislava

We boarded a boat on the Danube in Vienna to cruise to Bratislava, Slovakia. Being the knuckleheads we are NONE of us realized we were going to another country until yesterday! We had an seats in the enclosed section of the boat and were kind of disappointed we couldn't go outside. Well...they announced 10 minutes in we could so off Wendy and I went. It was INSANELY windy and we learned why the boat was called a "speedboat". Wendy said "forget a Brazilian blowout...just cruise the river for a Danube blowout"!

Upon arrival in Bratislava we met our tour guide Eve. Here are bullet points from her (she talked SO fast I could only get so much and her voice was like a song):

• The city sits on the Danube which is 3,000 miles long
• The coronation church was built in 1460
• The country is 80% Catholic and unlike other European countries they actually attend mass regular. We can confirm this as we passed by one of many churches and it was FULL for Sunday Mass.
• There is a large modern bridge that was built in 1973 that connects the more modern side of the city to the older part of the city on the other side of the Danube.
• In 1918 the city was part of Czechoslovakia. In 1993 the two countries split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Bratislava is the capital city of Slovakia.
• Here is a shocker -- Maria Theresa of the Hapsburgs had a palace here. I think the Hapsburgs would give Scarlett O'Hara a run for her money on the acquisition of property :-)
• Slovakia is apparently famous for wine making and would supply wine for royalty but all we saw was "meal" wine or "honey wine" and it was NASTY!
• In the 16th century the city was occupied by the Turks but was never taken. They marched on to Vienna where they lost the battle to overtake Austria/Hungary
• It is only 20 minutes to Austria and 20 minutes to Hungary from the city. This was especially hard for the citizens during communism when they were so close to Austria but unable to reach it. Many tried but were killed.
• The name of the city means "Brothers of the Slavs"
• Communism started in the country in 1948. After 1989 and the fall of the Iron Wall it was very difficult for families to go back and claim their original residences that belonged to their family before the communist government took them. Some did but some still sit in disrepair.
• During communism no one was allowed to go to church yet the Catholic faith remained strong. Since 1989 the churches have been full for mass services.

Tonight is our last night on this wonderful trip. Randy asked me to do some calculations on what we have walked and because I have my Apple Watch I was finally able to do just that! MY stats (deduct about 25% for everyone but Wendy) are: 140,000 steps and 60 miles walked in 12 days. This was actually a mid range walking tour for me. I can't even begin to imagine what I have done on past trips with students!

It has been SO wonderful to travel with this group. The Mississippi group all had positive attitudes and even we some didn't they were at least comical about it! We made friends with the other groups from Idaho, California, Texas, Wisconsin, and Maryland. We all (well most all of us) look forward to even more adventures. 

I will end with an Irish blessing that I believe means that you have to see the world to truly understand what part of the world you have a hand in:

May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back. 
May the sun shine warm upon your face; 
the rains fall soft upon your fields 
and until we meet again, 
may God hold you in the palm of His hand.

Vienna

We started our city tour by visiting the Schoenberg Palace, which was one of the six summer homes of the Hapsburg family. As many palaces are in Europe it was modeled after Versailles. As like most buildings I personally believe each one of the "copies" I have visited are prettier than Versailles and this one did not disappoint! Bullet points from our guide whose name I didn't get as my "whisper"  (personal headset that ties to the guides microphone so we don't all have to crowd around to listen to them) wasn't working at first:

• The Hapsburgs only married their first cousins. The basically created a very sickly and ugly family. However they did this to keep the dynasty (which ruled 17 countries) in the family.
• The Hapsburgs believed they were ordained by God to spread Christianity and defeat Jews and Muslims. They had strong ties with Rome and the Catholic church.
• Empress Maria Theresa was the only female to run the empire 
• She invested all of her money in the military so that she would have good protection.
• She had 16 children two of whom she gave over to their enemy France, one of whom was Marie Antoinette...didn't end so well for that one.
• The Hapsburgs contributed to the start of WWI when Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated. 
• They did loose the war but it was a peaceful transition.
• Charles I (ruler at the time) was allowed to take around 1.4 billion in assets from Austria to Switzerland when the dynasty ended. So basically don't feel sorry for the family
• All of the buildings held by the family were turned over to the state for use.
• The palace is baroque but has some Rocco aspects brought to it by Maria Theresa.
• There are mirrored halls so that at night the mirrors would reflect the light from the candles and cause much illumination
• Thomas Edison came to the palace in the early 1900s and put electricity in
• A plane did crash into part of the palace during WWII. At the time it was the British headquarters and they paid to restore this part of the palace.

After the visit to the palace we headed to the city center by bus. First we road around a "ring road" that was built in the 1800s around the city center. Usually ring roads in Europe mean a road that surrounds the large city to allow for easier traffic movement....much like our "bypass" roads. This was is an older road though so it only goes around the center of the old city. I could give you pages and pages of history that was pointed out but I couldn't type on my phone during the tour that fast! If you ever travel to these same places I suggest you read up a little on the Hapsburgs! A few bullet points about Vienna:

• Vienna only lost about 30% of buildings during WWII
• The US paid to rebuild many parts of Vienna and fought to keep allies with Austria during the Cold War mainly due to it's strategic location as the last Western European city before the communist countries in Eastern Europe. We'll visit Slovakia tomorrow so we'll see just how close it is!
• During the 1990s lots of business moved into Vienna because it was close to the former USSR but was not in it. Many companies still didn't trust that Russia wouldn't fight to get the independent states back.
• The birth rate is declining in Vienna as it is in most of Europe. Small economics lesson -- if you have a declining birth rate that means you are not producing enough workers to support the retired ones.

Tomorrow we take a cruise down the Danube to Bratislava with is the capital of Slovakia. Exciting!

Mozart Dinner, Melk, and Arrival in Vienna

Last night the group from Mississippi (minus smart Wendy) went to a Mozart dinner. We had high hopes but alas it did not live up to expectations. We should have known it would be bad when Randy, Jamie, the tour director and I got into a fender bender in our taxi. We were all fine but Carla got so flustered she started speaking to Jamie and I in German. We just smiled and looked at each other.  The food at the dinner was fantastic but the music was quite sub par and it was a FOUR HOUR event.

Today we traveled to Vienna via Melk. There is a monastery there but to be honest we are all just a wee bit tired of castle/church/monastery/fortress tours. It happens on every Europe trip...maybe it is time to visit places that don't have those :-)

A few bullet points from Carla as I tried really hard to stay awake on the bus (I have a sinus event going on):

• Check out the movie "The Name of the Rose" starring Sean Connery
• The Melk Abbey was founded in 1189
• It is a Benedictine order
• She gave a bit of history about monasteries as she is Italian. Basically they all became corrupt until reformation was obtained with those such as St. Francis.
• A school was added to the abbey and still exists today with around 900 students.
• During the reign of Napoleon many monasteries were shut down but they were never able to shut down Melk. 
• In 1815 the Congress of Vienna occurred to determine how states would be run. Apparently it was a one month congress and an 11 month party.
• 15 monks live at Melk and 15 others live in parishes 
• The most troubling fact of them all -- the monastery caught on fire a long time ago in the winter. The water well was frozen so they used barrels of wine to extinguish it. Our group agreed we would have drank the wine and toasted marshmallows. This may be why we aren't in charge or really large, important pieces of property.

I'm going to take a personal note now -- crazy things have happened both home and abroad while we have traveled. Young teens were hurt/killed in an accident in our home county. The next day another fatal wreck occurred. There were bombings in Istanbul, Baghdad, and Bangladesh. Today there was a terrible attack in Dallas. It is clear our world needs healing. However I am encouraged by what I see with the vast majority of people in our world both on this trip and every other one I have been on. Bad things happen. People get cancer, accidents happen, and other such tragedies. It does not mean God is not there. It is simply life happening. If you truly study history this has been going on since the beginning of mankind. I think the 24/7 news cycle makes it seem like a crazier world than it was in the past. Watching CNN in Austria makes it seem like Dallas and the US are the most dangerous places to visit ever now. We know that isn't true just as those on this trip have learned the places we have visited are full of kind and wonderful people. PLEASE...I beg of all of you...spread love and not hate. Choose to be kind whenever and wherever you can. Rhetoric and hate (even in the name of Christianity) does nothing to solve the problem. 

God took the job of judgement upon himself. He called us to LOVE each other as He has LOVED us. 

Salzburg and Eagle's Nest

Yesterday we had a morning tour of the city of Salzburg. Our guide, although looking like a female Captain Von Trapp was not very good. I'll start with bullet points from Carla, our tour director:

• Salzburg means "salt village"
• Centuries ago is was ruled by bishops that were also deemed as princes. They were very rich because they owned the salt mines and traded with salt. Salt was considered white gold because it preserved food.
• Salzburg is known for its summer musical festival in late July and August and also has wonderful Christmas markets in the winter.
• Mozart was born here in 1756. Everyone in his family were musicians. He died at the young age of 37 from what they believe was an infection but because primitive medicine including bleeding a patient he died from that.

Now on to the RANDOM bullet points from Liesl (at least she had a cool name):

• The town dates back to 700 AD
• There are 150,000 inhabitants
• St Peter's was the first monastery and the convent used in the Sound of Music
• The Von Trapp family actually started making their money singing well before they left Austria.
• They didn't leave via the mountain. They left by train to Italy where the captain (actually the barron) had money saved from WWI where he was a very successful submarine captain. They lived there for 2 weeks and then took a boat to London and then on to New York where they eventually settled in Vermont. 
• Mozart left 800 pieces of work in his small life. He did his most famous compositions while living in Vienna.
• The old town of Salzburg was mainly sparred from the bombings during WWII because the train station was outside of the city. The St Peters church did get a bomb dropped right down in the middle though. I didn't listen to most of what the guide said during the visit to the church because there was a amazing choir singing and it was better :-)
• During the bombing of WWII people went into the mountain to hide. Now there is a parking garage in that area.

For those like me who LOVE the Sound of Music I was a little disappointed however the movie plays 24/7 in our room and as I'm writing this we are watching it. I recognize a lot of the scenes now!

Today we went to the salt mines in the morning. After suiting up in our mining gear we took a mine train to a place where they began to explain the process. Really cool but no time to explain it all. I highly suggest you google it. The FUN part was the two slides we got to ride down as part of the tour. We also got to ride a boat through a salt lake in the middle of the cave.

After the mines we headed up to Eagle's Nest which was were Hitler had a home high in the mountains that was given to him on his 50th birthday as a place for retreat. It is 6,000 feet up high in the mountains surrounding Salzburg. It really does remind you of a place like the last scene of the Sound of Music where they climbed over the hills.

Tonight the Mississippi group is headed to a dinner that includes a chamber orchestra playing Mozart!

Munich

Quick note on photos: I have pictures I am posting from my phone to Facebook. If you want to see the pictures that go with these posts you can friend me or just look for me (look up ash525) and view the album for Germany, Switzerland, and Austria 2016 as I have made it public (so you don't even need an account to see them!). I say this for my Twitter friends and friends I have made on the trip that might view the blog without being on Facebook. I would add them on here but it's a quite arduous process right now with the Chromebook situation (officially NOT a fan of these things) and I am on vacation after all so my willingness to troubleshoot technology is limited.

We started the morning with a city tour of Munich. Our guide, Keith is actually an American but has lived here for 15 years. It was honestly a nice break to have an "American English" speaking guide! Most of the tour was done via bus which I think most of our group really enjoyed. Bullet points:

• Munich is the capital of the state of Bavaria. In case you didn't know BMW stands for Bavarian Motor Works and the BMW headquarters is here.
• The Whittlesbach family were the rulers of Bavaria until WWI. 
• In 1662 they built a summer palace called Nymphenburg 
• During Hitler's reign they would have Nights of the Amazon which were big parades that would end at this palace. I've heard there are videos of it on YouTube but it seems they are being restricted from showing up on YouTube here. Hmmmm.......
• Bavaria sent troops to join Napoleon in 1813 but 30,000 of them ended up dying from the cold. To uplift the public the Oktoberfest in Munich in 1814 included free food for all. This really began the popularization of the event.
• In 1913 Hitler did not want to serve for the Austrian/Hungarian military to he moved to Munich. He tried to make money selling paintings to tourist in the beer halls. 
• In 1914 he served in the Bavarian army in their campaign against Austria. He didn't believe Austrians were pure Aryans.
• After WWI there were communist groups setup in Munich. Hitler was paid by the army to be a spy for them and go to political meetings to see which groups were communists. 
• Hitler became involved with the German Workers Party which was very anti-semantic and started out as their recruiter and speaker, eventually becoming their leader.
• In 1923 Hitler attempted to stage a coup at a beer hall very close to our hotel. 16 of his followers were killed. Later hie built a Greek style temple (he believed the Aryan race were decedents of the ancient Greeks) and put their tombs in it. Every year he and his top leaders would visit the tombs and put wreaths around them.
• In January of 1933 Hitler became the chancellor but he really didn't like Berlin and spent most of his time in Munich and built his offices here.
• In September of 1938 France, Italy, and England met with Hitler. He wanted to seize a part of Czechoslovakia and needed their agreement to let him do that. They agreed but later he broke his promises and seized all of it. 
• In November of 1938 Joseph Goebbels made a speech in the city hall of Munich that called for the start of the Kristallnacht (destroying of Jewish property).
• After WWII many of the large firms in Berlin moved to Munich and has many tech related companies with offices here.
• Hitler hid lots of artwork and in fact the castle we visited yesterday was full of it. When the US began winning the war they put the Monuments Men headquarters in Munich for them to begin getting the artwork back.
• Munich is known as a great place in Europe to receive treatment for eye, cancer, and heart care.
• 70% of buildings in Munich were destroyed during WWII. 
• When rebuilding the city they decided to keep the old style, unlike Frankfurt and other more modern cities. 
• The heaviest bombing was around the BMW headquarters, which at the time mostly made airplane motors. There was also a military training center close to there.
• The 1972 Olympic stadium and village was built on this site as it was basically just a landfill for WWII debris. It is now a beautiful part of the city.

Following our city tour we stopped off for lunch at a beer garden. We lucked up getting a table big enough for our Mississippi group but apparently while I was going to get my sausage and beer a German man took my seat. Ron had my back though and told him he would push him out if necessary. The man did get up when I got back but moved to the other side of the bench and crowded up on Ron. I'm not sure if the man spoke any English but if he did he surely was entertained with our our group when we talked about the German who we named "Clyde"!

The rest of the group headed to Dachau concentration camp while I stayed behind in Munich. I went to Dachau in 2008 with a group of students. It was a experience that was both moving and sad. I am so very glad I was able experience it but it is one place I just don't think you need to experience more than one time. SO...I started out my afternoon alone by climbing up the St Peter's Church Tower (299 steps) to work off the beer and sausage and get some good views of the city. Then I found the Apple store to get an SD to phone adapter so I can post pics from the GOOD camera since the Chromebook fails at that task. Then I went shopping!

Wendy's thoughts on Dachau (she came back with 3 books...history teacher and all): Wasn't what was expected. Smaller than she thought it would be. Everyone there was a POW but the Jew's were in the very back of the pecking order. The showers...take them into the room with robes on was both brilliant and sick at the same time. Most fascinating...if they shot a potential escapee they would get a bonus. The guards would rig it so that those that were lagging behind would be setup as escapees so they would get a bonus. There was a prison within a prison system where the 80 x 80 cells where they tortured those in the prison. When brought into the camps they didn't care about your intellect, they cared about your ability to work. They reserved the intellectuals for experimentation. In last 15 years they gave a survey of Dachau residents that lived in that time and they knew there was something going on there but didn't know exactly what. I know there will be many more reflections from our group but honestly you just have to experience it to understand the feeling you get. This is why we travel. Some say we are crazy to take a chance but I think all on this group agree that it is all worth it. Pictures, documentaries, etc. simply do not replace the feeling of being in a place.

Neurishawnstien and Munich

We started the morning off with a 2 hour drive to Schwangau in Bavaria. There is the "Disney Castle" that Ludwig II of Bavaria built. He was born in Munich in 1845 and was the heir of Maximilian I, King of Bavaria. During his childhood he was educated as if he was already King which caused him much stress (poor kid...NOT). He became King of Bavaria at the age of 18, which all of the educators in our group agreed was WAY too young to be in charge. He didn't care much about running the country (shocking) he was more interested in building things and the musician Wagner. He built the castle to look like a fairy tale castle. He was suppose to marry Sophia (sister of Austrian empress Sissi) but he backed out at the last minute. It is believed it is because he was a homosexual. Because he had no heirs and had not done much to help the country other than build castles the court decided to declare him insane. The commission that was developed to determine this fact never actually met him but they did indeed declare him insane. He left Munich and disappeared and later found dead under suspicious circumstances in 1886. Some believe he had been assassinated by drowning while traveling with his psychiatrist. It is interesting how different guides describe Ludwig. I've always heard he actually was insane. Carla seems to believe that isn't the case. This is why I love history!

Side note -- apparently there is a very good old movie about her the sister of the jilted bride...Sissi, 1955.

Now to the adventurous part of the day...first we have Randy's bathroom adventure. Randy, who for those that don't know is married to Dad's 1st cousin Jamie so this is a family trip in a way. Randy has been most worried about the bathroom situation since we planned this trip. I have told him to not worry that Go Ahead caters to adults and know we need bathrooms! Well today along a winding road Randy tested out guide (he has learned 2 cups of coffee is not recommenced at breakfast). Randy told Carla he needed a bathroom stop. After a convo with the bus driver she told him she had a solution that he could go to the back stairway of the bus and use the bathroom. Randy thought she meant to use the water bottle in her hand and said "no way"!. What he didn't realize is there is an actual bathroom in the middle stairway of the bus. Buses are built different in Europe and the bathroom is actually under the middle section of seats. Randy before the realization:

Randy realizing the bathroom exists:

Our group was tested today with our trip to the castle. In 2008 I walked up the mountain. Today we road a bus since there was no ice to prevent buses from running. We crammed twice the amount of people that should fit on a bus in and lets just say a few of us felt places of each other maybe we shouldn't have! Once we reached the top we actually had to walk quite a bit down a long path to reach the castle which proved rough from some. To quote Ron "damn that was fun"! The tour of the castle also included quite a bit of stairs. Though I think we all enjoyed the castle we were all ready to get back to the bus. Most of the tour group chose to ride the horse and buggy down but 4 of us, including Wendy and I, walked it down. Once back on the bus we all took our turn at snoring.

We had quite a bit of a rough check in at the hotel with half of our rooms not being documented. Long story but it ended in free drinks for the group and Wendy and I (after walking in on 2 other group members room) even got our mini bar for free! Traveling with this group is fun even when there are snafus!

For Lee:

Breakfast: Too much coffee, bread, bacon, eggs, fruit, and I walked around town to get a Coke Light

Lunch: bratwurst, weird hot dogs with no buns, pork knuckles, potatoe soup, cabbage and black forest cake

Dinner: a weird combo of German buffet and Chinese buffet with a dessert table to salivate over

lichtenstein and Innsbruck

Our first stop was Vaduz, Lichtenstein which is the 3rd smallest principality in the world. It became an independent state in 1815 because the surrounding countries of Austria and Germany couldn't decide who to claim them. The Prince of Lichtenstein is one of the richest in the world with a 4 million dollar per year income. Residents here do not have to pay taxes but it is very expensive to move to the country. 

We moved from Lichtenstein to Innsbruck. Carla explained a little about Austrians on our bus ride. Bullet points:

• Very trustworthy people. They have many "self service pay" stations for newspapers, public transport, etc. They all pay without anyone having to double check behind them.
• There are appox. 10 million people
• They don't like Germans. This comes from a history of when Austria was an empire and Germans were just farmers.
• In 1938 the anschluss occurred with Germany. I always wondered what Max was saying in the Sound of Music when he told the Captain this happened peacefully...now I know it means annex!

We arrived to beautiful Innsbruck in the early afternoon and enjoyed a walking tour of the city with our city guide Christian. We started with the famous golden roof that was built by Maximilian the I. It is actually made of copper with a thin layer of gold on top of it. Max built it to show wealth that he didn't have. We also had a chance to checkout a courtyard built during medieval times. Houses were built very narrow but also very long. They had bay windows on the front to keep the light coming in and the courtyard to bring light to the inner rooms. We also visited St. James Cathedral which was quite beautiful. I was spoiled by seeing St. Peter's in Rome as my very first church in Europe but I will say this one ranks high up with it's beauty. Sadly much of it was destroyed during WWII but they managed to save the artwork and restore the church. Innsbruck itself was almost 60% destroyed during the 22 bombings it received during the war. We ended with a visit to the Swarovski store as this is the home of Swarovski crystals.

For Randy's son Lee wanted to know what we eat:

Breakfast -- bread with butter or jam, deli meat & cheese, bacon, and eggs

Lunch - we stopped at a roadside cafe and sandwiches, pastries, and cokes (Randy just had the coke)

Dinner - a delicious noodle soup (similar to Chinese soup), roasted chicken, zucchini, and potato pancakes. For dessert...apple strudel. 

Our group of 35 is all getting along so well! We have made new friends and are enjoying spending time with them...especially at the beer garden in the old city center of Innsbruck!