You Go Nate!

Alan Comes to Visit
Part I: Sunday & Salzburg (Sept. 7 & 8)

On Sunday morning of the 7th, I went to the S-Bahn stop to pick up my friend Alan who had just flown in to Munich. He had come to stay the week and visit. Alan and I were born a month and a few blocks apart and so we've known each other for a long time. He and I often go hiking and backpacking together and so, naturally, he just had to come and check out the Alps and Bavaria. Other than a brief one-day layover in London, this was Alan's first time to Europe.

So after dropping Alan's stuff off at my apartment we headed straight off to church. We went to sacrament meeting and I could already tell the jet lag was starting to hit. I decided that for Sunday School we would be better off doing some walking than sitting in a classroom listening to a foreign language for an hour. So we walked one block to where they were setting up for Oktoberfest which was just two weeks away.


Here's Alan in front of the Bavaria Statue with several large container of beer.

And here I am holding a very big maß (mug) of beer.

From Munich in Autumn

After our "sunday school activity" we went back to the church in time for Priesthood.

I had coordinated with the missionaries from my ward to make dinner at the church after the meetings. So that's what we did.

It was very chaotic and some parts of the dinner didn't turn out as well as we had hoped (we tried making three different sauces for our meatballs - none of them turned out), but it was still some decent eating.

After dinner/lunch with the missionaries, Alan and I headed out into the city. Unfortunately it was quite rainy at first.

As the tour guide I always had good ole' Rick Steves handy...

From Munich in Autumn

Luckily the rain cleared out after awhile and by the time we got to the English Garden there were some interesting clouds and the start of a cool sunset.

From Munich in Autumn

From the park we walked to the Isar River. Here is the Victory Column on the river...

From Munich in Autumn

The sunset made for some interesting photos....

From Munich in Autumn

We got the Maximilianeum just as the sun was hitting it before going below the horizon. This building is the seat of the Bavarian government.

From Munich in Autumn

And as the sunlight dwindled it made for some very interesting twilight clouds...

From Munich in Autumn

They next day we took the morning train to Salzburg. After arriving we checked into a hostel near the train station and headed out into the city. I had visited Salzburg a couple of times already, but this is such a fascinating and beautiful city that I was very excited to go back again.

Our first stop was a place I hadn't visited before: the Mirabella Gardens. This is where several scenes from The Sound of Music took place.

You might remember these statues...




SO! a needle pulling threeeeeeead

LA! a note to follow So




Alan has been a fan of weather for as long as I've known him. He has a degree in meteorology (no, he doesn't want to be on TV, and no he doesn't study meteors.) Thus we just had to visit the birth house of Christian Doppler.



And did you know that Doppler and Mozart were pretty much next-door neighbors (except for the fact that Doppler was about 50 years younger).?

Next we crossed the river to visit the Getreidegasse.

From Return to Salzburg

This narrow street is famous for all its fancy iron signs that hang outside the shops.

From Return to Salzburg

Fun story.




For lunch we ate at Europe's oldest restaurant, the St. Petri Stiftskellar. Charlemagne dined here in 803 and it has supposedly been in continuous operation since.




It's built right into the cliff face. We sat beneath the arch.

There were some fancy dining rooms scattered throughout the inside of the restaurant as well.




I told Alan that he just had to order the Wiener Schnitzel since it was his first time in Austria. I found something that sounded really good: wild boar with wild berries and a cranberry mousse. It was a little bit more expensive than I had planned, but I thought, "hey, it's probably what Charlemagne ate!"

While we were waiting there were two older ladies seated nearby trying to get a picture of each other. I offered to take their photo and they were grateful.

We waited...

And then Alan's schnitzel arrived.

Then the waiter gave me my wild boar. I thought that there must be some mistake, there was hardly anything on the plate. I didn't even see any boar until the plate was right in front of me and I noticed that it was small silver-dollar-sized slices of boar cut translucently thin and laid over the wild berries. The mousse sat on top with a robust salad leaf and a single potato chip.

"Oh crap!" I thought, this is lunch. And I get more food stuck in my teeth after a given meal than what I have here. Charlemagne would be rolling in his grave!

It's hard to see here, but this is it...

Before I could dig in, however, one of the older ladies seated nearby asked me if I wanted the rest of their roast pork, because it was too much for them to finish. Did I!? I was very grateful and ate it up. There was still quite a bit and it was delicious. I then ate my wild boar as a dessert and even though it wasn't worth what I paid for it, it was scrumptious.

After lunch we took the Rick Steves tour of the city.

We visited St. Peter's Church passing underneath the medieval marble arch doorway.




Inside there were interesting paintings on the wall, roccocco designs scattered throughout...




an organ with a clock!




...and some of the plaster was stripped away from the pillars to reveal 13th century frescoes...

Not far outside there was a giant game of chess going on...




And a Russian mandolin quartet playing Mozart. I had never seen a bass mandolin before, and probably never will again....




The mysterious statue!

And I finally bought a pair of new sunglasses after loosing my last ones while taking this picture in Zittau last July. These actually weren't the sunglasses I finally decided on. The ones I got are much cooler...




Next we visited the Salzburg Cathedral...




You can see the statue of Mary in the center, when lined up just right, is being crowned by the cherubs on the cathedral...

Inside was just as cool as it was last June...

This is classy....




Here is the 13th century baptismal font where Mozart himself was baptised...





Here I am with Wolfi!

The weather was just perfect and it is fun to simply walk the streets and squares of this old town.




We then headed up the Mönchsberg hill, Salzburg's "Central Park."




Here we caught great views of the cathedral (left) and St. Peters (right)...




And the classic panorama of Salzburg...




I got a better photographer to take our picture this time around...




Salzburgtastic!




We then walked along the Mönchsberg, passing the old 15th century fortifications....




and this spring with fresh Alpine water....

to the Fortress of Salzburg the "Festburg"



We went inside the fortress where it was impossible to have a bad view, even if there was a cannon in the way.



There was a somewhat random mini-museum of marionettes in the fortress.

Here are the actual marionettes used in the movie Amadeus... Though I could have misunderstood the explanation, because I don't remember any marionettes in Amadeus...



Here is a marionette scene from 1913 that was apparently designed and performed by one of the masters of marionette puppeteering.

Here are some medieval archways from the ancient foundations of the fortress...




15th century weapons and armour presented in a creative way...




Medieval Hungarian florins found beneath the floor during a recent excavation in the fortress...




Also, an marble set from the Middle-Ages...




Next to the weapons exhibit was the torture chamber!

Here is an early version of a "time-out chair." This one had spikes...

This couldn't have been fun to wear...




But I would have had some fun if forced to wear this one...




Hi!




Chastity!




We were there just as sunset started, and got some great views of the Alps in the distance...




Here you can see the Untersberg mountain. "This is my mountain; I was brought up on it." -fräulein Maria.




Here is a close up of the German Alps that lie just to the right of the Untersberg in the picture above. If you look carefully along the right side of the ridge you can see Hitler's Eagle Nest. This is where we would be tomorrow!

We left the fortress and wandered back over to the panorama site to get some dusk shots of the city...

Tired, and hungry (especially after my lunch), we headed back toward the hostel. We found a little Italian joint and ordered the calzones. When the waitress brought them out my reaction was pretty much the opposite of what it was at lunch. These things were HUGE!

It tasted great and was very filling.

That night I slept really well.



Next time: Hitler's Eagles Nest and Germany's most scenic lake!

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