After breakfast at the hotel we went to Residenz, an old palace where the state house is. In the main state house room, there’s a big gold staircase. The audio guide said that each of the columns of the staircase (or whatever those things are called) was tuned to ring a different note, like bells, so the whole thing could be used like a glockenspiel. Haha. There was also a mural on the ceiling of one of the old rooms where lots of places across the world were represented, and the audio guide said that America was represented by a parrot and a crocodile. Huh? The parrot was even being held by a Native American.
We had a tour scheduled for the afternoon, so while Holly went back to the hotel, I read outside for a bit. On the way back, I stopped in a store called “English Shop” that had tea sets and union jacks in the window, but also advertised that they had English novels, and I needed a new book. I was really excited because they had Digestives, the best best cookie, and I told the shop owner and he asked if we had them in the states (he was English). I told him I’d been studying in England and we chatted a bit while I picked out a book.
The tour we were taking left from Schloss Mirabell, a palace built for the mistress of a former ruler (and their many illegitimate children). Mirabell Gardens is really pretty with a ton of flowers and a fountain in the middle – the fountain from The Sound of Music, where Maria and the kids sing part of “Do Re Mi.” I took pictures of it, but both were from the wrong angle (not the one you see in the film). Whoops.
The bus tour took us past the actual von Trapp home (not the one from the film, but where the real people lived). Our guide also explained that they didn’t really escape over the mountains, but actually hopped a train to Italy. We also passed a car dealership that sold Harleys.
The bus dropped Holly and I off at Hohenwerfen Fortress and the rest of the tour went off to see ice caps in a mountain. There was some confusion with the booking of the tour; Holly was given to understand that the tour was just to the fortress, and not that we’d be dropped off and have to wait to be picked up. So we ended up having much more time than we needed, and we had to wait for the bus for an hour after the fortress closed. While we were there, there was a falcon show (which included a bald eagle) and some pretty views of the mountains. Oh, and I spun around like Maria on the hills.
We left after a bit and walked down the road to a restaurant. It was May 1st, May Day, which is a national holiday in Austria and everyone really gets into celebrating. The restaurant we ended up at was having this huge party, and everyone was dressed up, either in those biergarten dresses or the suspender-overall things. There were kids, teenagers, and adults, everyone was drinking beer, and there were people playing music (two little boys were playing accordions, which was adorable) and dancing. It was so funny, but it was a perfectly normal thing for them – it just seemed to me like something they do in the Germany section of EPCOT.
For dinner that night we went to a restaurant recommended to Holly called Sternbräu. I was really excited because it was my restaurant, and Stern was in the name of the place, a few of the rooms, and even their special beer, Stern Bier – which, of course, I had to get. If only I could have brought the bottle home. But there’s literally no room in my suitcase.
On a final, unrelated note: I really hate that everyone, everywhere wears Yankees hats. It’s really confusing. Every country I’ve been in, I see someone with a Yankees cap and I think, “Hey! A New Yorker! An American!” and then I hear them speaking German (or, back at school, with an English accent) and I’m like grrrr. Damn Yankees.
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