It's been a month since I've blogged and a lot has happened! I'm hoping to catch up entirely this week because I have a class starting next week and my spare time will be reading and writing. Honestly I've been debating whether or not to continue blogging. If I don't, I will continue to "blog" my entries into the book format I use with Blurb so that we have our family journal every year. I just don't know if I want to continue doing both. If you actually read the blog, leave me a comment letting me know! Maybe then I'll decide.
Anyway, this summer we had visitors!! Two of my very good friends came over from Texas. They flew into Paris and spent about a week in France and then took the train through Switzerland and on into Salzburg, Austria. We drove down and picked them up from the train station and then stayed for a few days in Salzburg and Berchtesgaden seeing the sights. Well trying to! It rained steadily our entire day in Salzburg!
We really just wandered. I took them to a few of the places I remembered from the Sound of Music Tour that we could get to on foot (and we saw a bike tour en route - all covered in rain ponchos!) and we went into some churches and stuff that we hadn't seen before. It was a little bit miserable but still amazing and there are a few things I would like to go back to. That area of Austria/Germany is so gorgeous!
This is the Salzburger Dom. It was lovely inside of course but I think one of the highlights of our visit her was that as we were wandering around, a group began singing in the middle of the cathedral. It was like a reverent flash mob! And it's incredible how the sound carries simply because of the way the building is built. The artistry and excellence of these buildings always puts me in awe.
We always enjoy a good statue. Megan declared that this one has Grandpa's forehead.
Mozart was the organist here for two years and composed several masses that are still used today. There are five organs in the church and I imagine that when they are all played together it is an incredible experience.
Ok this is probably really irreverent of us but that bronze basin in the background is where Mozart was baptized!
In the rain, this statue was crying. Seemed appropriate.
There's a great view of the fortress from the Kapitelplatz. We didn't go up because I read that it's not really an enclosed fortress and we were trying to find inside things to do!
But we walked up the hill to Nonnberg Abbey - the Abbey where the real Fraulein Maria was before she married Captain Von Trapp and there are great views of the city as you go.
This is the entrance to St. Peter's Church - the birthplace of Christianity in Salzburg. It's a whole complex with a monastery actually and a restaurant in one part that claims that Charlemagne ate there in 803.
But actually my favorite part of this one was the amazing cemetery behind it all with the cliffs one one side and the city on the other.
To the right, the arches? Those were the inspiration for the cemetery where the Von Trapps hide when they're escaping the Nazis.
You can see how you have the large memorials behind the gates. The movie didn't do a replica but you can definitely see how they were inspired by this. Especially when you stand back and see them all in a row. They're up against the wall but I could totally see how they made spaces to hide behind!
Jenn and Bronwyn did the museum tour here at Mozart's birth house and I took the kids next door to an H&M to find sweatshirts and keep out of the rain! Nothing like old and new as neighbors!
Then we wandered into this very interesting church that is undergoing renovation. I don't know if they have plans to paint or gild this stucco work but I love it the way it is with the clouds spreading out and up.
We found a great restaurant to warm up in and this is the only picture I have of the three of us! I think someone has a few more of us in the rain somewhere though. We had soup and warm apple strudel! It was so chilly and we were all pretty much soaked through.
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