Chapter 92 - Remodeling, Austrian Style

We've all seen remodeling projects, but this is the first time that I had a direct view. The building across the street from our flat was recently remodeled, and it was definitely different from anything I ever saw in the States.

This is the building; the right two-thirds is the Raiffeisenbank, and the left one-third is Petra's hair salon. Here, behind the wedding procession, you can see that it was an old whitish plaster building with nice trees in the front.


The first thing they did was cut down the lovely trees to make it easier to put up their scaffolding, much like the clear cutting we all hate.


They removed the large bank windows, then boarded them up to make new, narrower ones.


This Austrotherm is used on buildings all over this area. It's kind of like a styrofoam.


They used some kind of mortar to attach the Austrotherm blocks to the walls.


Here's the whole building covered with the foam blocks. I don't know why the pink blocks are used along the bottom - maybe they're more moisture resistant or something. I do know they were doing something with the basements and just assumed it had something to do with drainage. The Hotwell building (the blue one to the left of this one) has had severe problems with basement flooding after heavy rains.


They drilled into the wall with a drill bit that was several inches long, then screwed in these red spikes.


Close-up of the spikes


They plastered the left side first, using large trowels.


Here is most of the building plastered.


Here's the building after the plaster dried. It's whitish just like the previous color so I assumed that was the final deal.


Someone - a crazy person in my opinion - decided that the building needed "more color" - in this case three colors! Petra's hair salon is the umber, and the bank is the yellow and gray. The plaster was tinted and applied with the same long trowels. They don't paint like we do at home with brushes and rollers.


Another view of the building


Then a truck with hot tar came to replace the sidewalk that had been taken up to do whatever they did to the basement.


The new sidewalk. Apparently, Petra hadn't been informed beforehand because I saw a couple of her customers having to leap in and out of the doorway to avoid stepping in the soft tar.


Then they added the bank sign. The logo sign on the right is lighted at night. All the Raiffeisenbanks in Burgenland have identical signs.


The last thing they did was to pick up some of the excess dirt.


I presume they'll wait till Spring to plant trees and flowers. There's still no sign at Petra's hair salon. She was told one would be installed, but it's obviously on Austrian time. I noticed during this several-week-long remodeling project that the workers - except for two days - worked what we in America would call bankers hours.

Chapter 91 - Salzburg

Ah, Salzburg! The site of my favorite movie, "The Sound of Music." I had been looking forward to visiting this city for decades.

With only a day and already tired from London and Prague, I decided to go on one tour only - "The Sound of Music" tour. Bob said he paid to see the movie way too many times back in the 1960s although we differ on exactly how many times that was - never enough for me! He decided to rest and then walk around the Altstadt (Old Town) while Kate, Colin and I went on the tour.

Salzburg - the name means "Salt Castle" - is located on the banks of the Salzach River at the Alps' northern boundary. Among mountains to the south are Untersberg at approximately 6,500 feet high, and also Monchsberg and Kapuzinerberg. The birthplace of Mozart, Salzburg is the home of three universities and has a current population of 150,000.

Salzburg's history is both typical and atypical - my, don't I sound equivocal! The typical part is Neolithic, Celts, Romans, Bavaria, Holy Roman Empire, Austria-Hungary, Nazis, blah, blah, blah.

Unusually, Salzburg was the scene of a different kind of religious strife. In 1731 Catholic Archbishop Count Leopold Anton von Firmian banished all Protestants who wouldn't convert and seized many children from their families to be raised as Catholics. The people were given only eight days to sell their belongings and leave. Walking besides their packed wagons in bitterly cold weather, they were preyed upon by highwaymen. Their plight became famous, and Goethe was inspired to write his poem "Hermann and Dorothea" to commemorate the event.

King Frederick William I of Prussia invited 12,000 of them to settle in areas of East Prussia previously devastated by a plague epidemic (reminds me of the Croats coming to Burgenland to settle plague-ravished areas). Other groups went to Slovakia, Serbia, Hanover, the Netherlands, and in 1734 one small group founded the town of Ebenezer on the Savannah River in Georgia. They kept their distinct Germanic identity over the following centuries, and as such their descendants were expelled from Lithuania (formerly East Prussia) after World War II. Those refugees went to western Europe and the United States.

Of course Salzburg was part of the Anschluss when Austria was annexed to the Third Reich, a significant part of "The Sound of Music." During World War II Salzburg was the site of several POW camps for prisoners from the Soviet Union and other countries. The KZ Salzburg-Maxglan slave-labor concentration camp for Roma (gypsies) was also located there.

Allied bombing destroyed 7,600 houses and killed 550 residents, but much of the town's Baroque architecture was undamaged. After the war the town was the center of the American-occupied area in Austria and the site of numerous DP (displaced persons)Camps.

This is Hohensalzburg Castle.

The "High Salzburg Fortress" is one of the largest medieval castles in Europe, encompassing over 150,000 square feet. Construction began in 1077 and gradually expanded over the following centuries. Surprisingly (at least to me), it surrendered to Napoleon without a fight. It has also been used as a prison for Italian POWs during World War I and for Nazi activists before the Anschluss. A cable car called the Festungsbahn built in 1900 leads from the city to the castle which is today a tourist attraction and the site of festivals, concerts celebrating Mozart and other special events.

The tour was a lot of fun. In our van was the three of us, another American, two Australians and a Canadian so our delightful guide, Gustav, didn't have to give the spiel in more languages. He also played music from the movie throughout the tour.

There is considerable road construction in the city, and we couldn't get to the site of the famous abbey in the movie. But if you look behind the building, you can see the spire of Nonnberg Abbey founded in 714 and used in several scenes in the movie.


Remember the song Julie Andrews sang when going from the abbey to the Baron's mansion? This is the fountain where she flicked the water.


This is the road where she ran along and kicked up her heels.


Kate and Colin kicking up their heels


This is the house where she ran up to the front door.


This is the back of the 17th century Palace of Leopoldskron. This is where many of the movie scenes were filmed, including the lake where the boating scene took place and the terrace where they drank the pink lemonade. Interior scenes like the ballroom were also filmed here.


Here is a close-up of the gate leading from the lake to the terrace.

The palace is currently used as the site for important international conferences.

This is me across the lake from the palace, as close as we were allowed to get. Notice the coat? Yes, it was May, but it was freezing cold!


I loved this mother duck and her ducklings. Maybe I'm a frustrated nature photographer.


I'm with our tour guide, Gustav, who is quite an exuberant guide and an avid cyclist and triathlete.


This is the gazebo at the 17th century Hellbrunn Palace where Liesl and Rolf sang "Sixteen Going on Seventeen" and Maria and the Baron sang "Something Good."

Kate and Colin again dancing.

This is the bridge over the Salzach River where Maria and the children ran across in the "Do-Re-Mi" song."


This is the Church of Mondsee where Maria marries the Baron.


The main altar


A side altar


A beautiful carving on a side wall


I don't know if this was the organ playing in the wedding scene, but I suppose it could have been.


The tour then went to the Salzkammergut, the lake and mountains area outside the city. This is close to the meadow where Julie Andrews sang in the movie's opening scene. Gustav said that spots in this whole area were featured in the song, "Do-Re-Mi."


On this beautiful hillside you can see the tracks of the Sommer Rodelbahnen, the summer toboggan run.


I didn't ride on it, but Kate and Colin did and had a good time.




Two very lovely views




A beautiful mountain... Do you see the little building on top? Who could live up there?


I love the picture of these deer grazing in this oh-so-green mountain meadow.


Kate and Colin near one of the lakeside villages

This is the St. Gilgen area on Lake Wolfgang. Mozart's mother was born here, and it was also pictured in the opening sequence of the movie. Directly across the lake is Schafberg mountain, also seen in the movie.

Although Salzburg was more urban than I expected - in the movie they have really tight shots - I'm so glad I went. I watched the movie again after we got home, and it was so much fun to keep saying, "I was there!"

Chapter 90 - Some More Churches

My fascination with old churches continues. After all the ones I've covered, I discovered that I had pictures of a few I haven't yet blogged. Needless to say, they are all Catholic churches. Austria is a Catholic country, and religious holidays are celebrated as national holidays.

We begin with the church here in Klingenbach. It looks starker than many of the village churches because it doesn't have any landscaping around it. The church building is new from 1976, but the church tower was built in 1740.


This Baroque church in Mullendorf, near Eisenstadt, is a beautiful example of Baroque architecture. It dates from the 1600s although I was unable to find the exact date.


This memorial to village soldiers who died in the two world wars is in front of the church.


This is the neo-Gothic Kalasantiner Church in Vienna, built from 1868-1875.


It is called the Pfarrkirche, or Church of the Parish.


It was dedicated to Mary vom Siege (St. Mary the Victorious).


This closeup of the main door shows off the ornate Gothic architecture.


A church on this site in the nearby village of Wulkaprodersdorf was first mentioned in 1337. This early Baroque building was consecrated in 1642.


When compiling a list of churches in Burgenland, the Baroque Bergkirche in Eisenstadt has to be included. The formal name is the Pfarre Eisenstadt Oberberg, which means the Parish Church of Eisenstadt on the Hill. Construction began in 1715.


This bust of the composer Josef Haydn (1732-1809), also known as the Father of Symphony, sits in the courtyard behind the church. Haydn spent decades as court composer at the Schloss Esterhazy two blocks from this church.

When his Esterhazy sponsor eventually died, Haydn was "let go," and he moved to Vienna. After a number of years there, he died during Napoleon's invasion of the city. He could actually hear cannon shortly before he died. With a war going on, he had to be buried in Vienna.

This is the altar in the larger church. Haydn's mausoleum is to the left of the church entrance. In 1820 his remains were brought to the church where it was discovered that he was buried without his skull - a substitute skull was interred with the body. What I want to know is how did they know it wasn't his skull? Distasteful as the thought must be, one would assume that his remains had decomposed after 11 years.

At any rate it was learned that Haydn's skull had been stolen after his first funeral by supporters of Franz Joseph Gall who apparently held the view that mental and emotional characteristics of the individual were established in the cerebral cortex and showed elevations and depressions of the skull. Idiots everywhere, I guess.

A closeup of the altar


The thieves lied and said they didn't know where the skull was, but of course they did. In 1895 the skull turned up at the Museum of the Society of Friends in Vienna where it remained until 1953.


Haydn's skull was finally sent to the mausoleum at the church in 1954 and interred with his body. A weird thing is that they left the substitute skull in the crypt, too. So now Haydn rests with two skulls! How strange is that!


A closeup of the beautiful chapel ceiling


Haydn played this organ in 1772.