14 January 1977 - Friday
At breakfast we talked with another family from the US (Calif) who were on an extended vacation driving a new Mercedes Diesel across Europe. They had a son about Susanna’s age named Kevin; we didn’t get their names otherwise.
We spend the morning seeing a bit more of Salzburg. The day was clear, very bright and sunny, but colder than usual. We saw the inside of the Gothic church attached to the Franciscan Order there; a service was in progress when we went in. Then we took a ride in one of the horse-drawn) inflated rubber-tired) carriages that hang around the Domplatz.
We saw a few parts of Salzburg we hadn’t seen before. We also walked into a very small church which had a creche in a Salzburg setting and a central altar-piece painting of St _____ slaying a man-like dragon.
(Susanna's Commentary, 2022: This is blank in the journal, but most likely is St. George who is well known for slaying a dragon. There is also a St. George church in Salzburg, but the picture that is in the slides is St. Sebastian's Church)
The main thing we didn’t get to there is the fortress. The cog-train was closed, and the walk was too far for the amount of time and energy we had.
Alice got some sandwiches for our train trip from a butcher near the hotel, we got a taxi (a lady this time) and got there at a leisurely pace.
There was only a three-minute stop for everyone to get on the train, there were quite a few people getting on. The train was a few minutes late, and when it came, we had trouble finding first class cars. We finally got on but could find no room. We set Susanna down in one seat close to an American woman while we looked. We found a place in the car with first class seats but not compartments. We managed, finally, to settle in quite comfortably for the three-hour or more trip. (12:40-4:00).
The Austrian trains are different from the Germans. They seem to be less punctual but to be more concerned about who has tickets. The conductor looked at our Eurail passes carefully and at the passports. By contrast, the old man in our compartment on the train to Munich was never asked to show his ticket. The tracks in Austria seem a little rougher than in Germany, but the car we were on was a fairly recent manufacture. I shouldn’t generalize too much from our limited experience.
On the train, in the fourth seat of our group seat, was a woman (50-ish) whose English was pretty good. She told us a good bit about what she saw. For most of the way the sky was clear, and the fresh snow made the countryside look crisp and clean. We didn’t see any real alps but did see some good size mountains.
We arrived in Vienna (having passed the Danube and the Vienna Woods) at a little after 4:00 and took a taxi for the Pension Pertschy. It was not promising looking, but there was an elevator to the third floor, where we found we had our reservation. The room is large with a very modern bathroom. To get to the room we walk along a “catwalk” which runs along the walk facing the inner courtyard (where cars park). It’s an old 18th Century Palace; the pension is on the 2nd and 3rd floors (i.e., 3rd and 4th).
We went out for a walk after we got settled in, going out on the Graben (Street) and then past Stephensplatz and St. Stephen’s Cathedral, stopping first to get some Cokes and wine at a shop that was just closing and then at the Hass-Haus Restaurant for Supper. To get there we had to take an elevator; the restaurant is on the 6th floor, with a view of the city and the Cathedral. We had the same house-plate (schnitzel, pork, sausage, etc. as last night). Then we strolled down the Kärntner-Strasse (closed to traffic, a mall to but less impressive than Munich’s).
We found the opera house and went in; the intermission was over, and everyone was scurrying through doors. An usher looked at us without any scorn, so I asked him about getting in (he spoke English) he told me when to get tickets and said that Susanna would not be allowed to go. Then we strolled up the Ring (the street surrounding Vienna’s center. Two American young people, student looking offered help when they saw us looking at the map. We walked back through the Hofburg palace grounds to our place. We were home around 9:00 and got to bed early.
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