This is Schloss Esterhazy in Eisenstadt, the home of composer Josef Haydn for so many decades.
Burg Forchtenstein, castle and the largest armory in central Europe. This is where we saw the saddles and other leatherwork Bob's ancestors may have made before they came to America.
The view of the valley from the parapet at Burg Forchtenstein. I like to imagine it from the other way - what the Turkish soldiers saw as they marched toward the castle. I might add that Forchtenstein never fell to the Turks.
The side of a building in Siegendorf. We saw scenes like this all over central Europe, and it reminded us of Woody Allen's comment, "Europe needs paint."
I fell in love with the doors over there. This is just one of hundreds of original doors we saw.
One of the hundreds of dogs we saw in malls, stores and restaurants all over Europe - a very civilized way to do things, I think. We never saw one misbehave.
The old, abandoned Jewish cemetery outside the hospital in Eisenstadt haunted me ...
as did these medieval Jewish graves in Wiener Neustadt ...
and the Mauthausen Concentration Camp.
It was so jarring at first to see this speed limit sign. It's in kilometers of course but still startling.
These roundabouts, or traffic circles, are the most inspired way to move traffic efficiently. I wish they had them in the U.S.
On May Day every year, the two political parties in Austria (the black right-of-center and the red left-of-center) put up these poles. It's quite an occasion for bands, convivial cheer and, of course, lots of drinking.
A few places where we spent our money. Note the empty parking lots on the first two - all retail stores are closed every Sunday and any day remotely resembling a holiday.
This is Muller's, a cross between a CVS, Ulta, and small grocery store that also has toys, CDs, DVDs and general household products.
Our favorite grocery store, Merkur.
Bob's favorite place to eat - that little slice of home. Note the Citroen-with-its-own-mind second to the right out front.
And Wabi, across the border in Hungary, where we got our mani-pedis. You can get anything there, from a haircut to spa treatments and facials, all the way to any kind of plastic surgery.
In London I'll always remember Big Ben and Parliament ...
Buckingham Palace ...
Hampton Court Palace ...
Tower Bridge ...
and the magnificent Tower of London where we witnessed the centuries-old Key Ceremony.
In Prague the Prague Castle will always stand out in my memory ...
another of the many palaces and churches in the Prague Castle complex.
... and of course the [now] picturesque Old Town, which was once a complex of narrow, dark, twisting, damp and disease-ridden lanes where the oppressed lived in servitude to those who looked down on them from Prague Castle.
In Salzburg, on "The Sound of Music" tour, this is the house where the movie Von Trapp family lived.
The alps outside Salzburg, what I thought all of Austria looked like before I went there and learned I was to live in the rolling vineyard country.
And my lovely Vienna.
This is the Hofburg, the 1000-room Hapsburg Palace still in use today for government offices as well as four museums.
Bob and Kate at a sidewalk cafe where we ate - what else - wienerschnitzel (which for Americans is kind of like a pork, hammered-thin chicken fried steak).
We loved the Vienna Rosen Garden.
These stone figures guard the Belvedere Palace and Museum.
I had wanted to see Holbein's portrait of English Queen Jane Seymour since I was a child. The painting is displayed at the Kunsthistorische (Art history) Museum in Vienna. It's a very moving portrait for me. Her dress has a detailed criss-cross pattern of gold embroidery that looks so real.
Kate and me outside the unbelievably fabulous Schonnbrunn Palace ...
the front of the palace ...
and the back.
So what will be my lasting memory of Europe? Well, that's an easy one - stairs! Every last place you go, there are stairs. In the restaurants, the restrooms are downstairs. I never liked stairs, and now I really don't! Here's just a taste.
At the University of Vienna ...
at the Kunsthistorische Museum in Vienna ...
at Hampton Court Palace in London ...
So many of the village churches were built on a hill, hence the common name Bergkirche. At this one in Donnerskirchen, you have to climb five of these flights to get to the church.
This is the scariest of all the stairs. It's a winding staircase at Burg Forchtenstein leading down to the kitchens. Nothing to hold on to except the wall, and the stairs are narrow and uneven. It seemed to go on forever down into the dark and freaked me out.
And this one saved to the last. This is part of the flight we had to climb several times a day. It's the one leading to our flat. It's steeper and longer than the typical American flight of stairs. Then when you get to the top, you go to the right down a long hallway to our flat before you can catch your breath!
Some memorable people in the next blog.
No comments:
Post a Comment