13 January 1977 - Thursday
We had breakfast in the hotel breakfast room.[1] Then we gathered up all our laundry and went toward the Norge automatic laundry on the other side of the river. En route we bought boots for Alice (the weather was still bad, with snow and slushiness on the street), and a new pen for me (I don’t like green). At the laundry we paid the woman 120 schillings to do two loads and we set out to see the Mirabell Palace.
The fountain and gardens weren’t open, and all we could find of the palace was the extremely ornate staircase (with cherubim beckoning folks on up the stairs). From there we caught a bus (7 schillings for us; 0 for Susanna) to the Hauptbahnhof (rail station) to find out about trains to Vienna. We got the info (trains every two hours [8:40, 10:40, 12:40, 2:40, 4:40] arriving at 12:00, 2:00, 4:00, 6:00, & 8:00 respectively).
Then we waited at the bus stop for a long time to catch the H-bus to the Mozarteum. While waiting a group of students from Dana College in Blair, Nebraska, in Europe to study architecture were standing there too. We didn’t talk too long but met their leader (didn’t get any names).
We finally took a bus to another stop and walked to the Mozarteum (not far) but couldn’t find anything there. It apparently is only a music school. Then we walked to the Mozart Residence but found it closed. We then walked to the Mirabell Platz and up Paris-Lodron Strasse to a small restaurant (no other name than Imbiss-stube) and had lunch.
Alice and I had Knodel (dumpling) and sauerkraut and Susanna had a ham sandwich. When we got to the laundry some of the clothes were not dry. We waited a little while and folded the clothes.
On the way back we stopped at the Mozart birthplace and museum. There were mostly old scores, portraits, & a few instruments (Mozart’s clavichord, etc.) Susanna was running around too much & the attendant fussed at her to her embarrassment. The woman who sold tickets gave Alice a pill for her cough, which had gotten pretty bad. We then stopped at a store and bought a notref [2] (leather skirt, like lederhosen) for Susanna. When we got to the room we all took showers (20 schillings each).
From our perspective, the baths in Europe are still pretty primitive. The shower was a stall with a very high shower head and only the hot water faucet worked. Fortunately, the water wasn’t too hot. The drain was poor and the curtain not effective, so the whole shower room (about 3’x4’) was full of water. No place yet in Europe has furnished a washcloth for any purpose.
We rested for a couple of hours. I called Vienna and made reservations at the Pension Pertschy, highly recommended in Europe on $10 a Day. The room for 3 of us, with both, is 480 schillings.
We found Jane (Frazee) walking around the Domplatz looking for a door to the Peterskeller. We all had a good, big meal, with the house specialty of veal, beef, pork, sausage, etc. Then we had a nockrel, a souffle apparently available only in Salzburg[3]. This place is the old wine cellar of St. Peter’s church and the ceiling is vaulted brick, obviously quite old.
After dinner, we caught the #3 bus to Jane’s hotel (a couple of miles south) and had some Cynar Artichoke Liqueur and champagne. We took a taxi back to the hotel and got to bed before midnight.
[1] Called Jane Frazee and agreed to eat at 7:00. [2] Called “Rock”. The Austrian look, the sort of peasant look is called “Tracht”. [3] Also in Vienna, but we didn’t try it.
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