CENTRAL EUROPE 2011
Day
21
September 22, Thursday
Salzburg
Today
is our last day. The past three
weeks sure have gone fast.
We
slept later than usual as we had a slow day planned. We ran into our friends
from Miami that we sat next to at the concert last night. There were here in our
hotel. We had a nice visit with them. They
were leaving today. After breakfast
in the hotel café at a much lower price than the breakfast buffet (40 euros
each) in the dining room, we went back over to the old town to do shopping for
gifts. We hadn't bought any gifts
along the way becau
se we didn't want to carry them from town to town as our
luggage was heavy enough with all the books we bought about the churches and
castles that we had visited. We had
to lift our suitcases on the train and then onto the over head rack, although
often someone had pity on us old folks and helped us. 
The
streets were very crowed as this was the second day of Salzburger Ruperti-Kirtag
(see yesterday for more information on this festival). I think we went into
every store trying to find gifts that would fit our family and into our
suitcases. Most of the stores
displayed attractive good quality merchandise. While we were shopping, we passed
Mozart’s Birthplace. Mozart lived on the fourth floor of this tall house until
he was 17. We did not go in
the house but it is now a museum about the life of Mozart.
We
had seen several Nordsee Seafood restaurants in our travels so decided to try
this restaurant for lunch. It is a
chain in Central Europe with over 450 stores.
The display for lunch choices was very appetizing.
We had a nice lunch with two types of shrimp salad.
At
the end of the street was a beautiful little church, St. Blasius Hospice Church,
which had a simple external appearance. It
had a steep saddleback roof and several
little turrets shaped towers. On the front was some statuary. At the peak of the
façade was a clock. Around on the
side on the roof was a small dormer with another clock.
This
church was built in the 12th century on the grounds belonging to the
Admont Monastery. It was dedicated
to St. Blasius, the patron saint of the monastery.
In 1428 a spacious gallery was added and it stretched over four of the
seven bays. The upper part was
reserved for the actual hospice inhabitants, while the lower area served as a
short-term hostelry. What appears today as a triple-bayed, enclosed flat
chancel, was probably the actual church interior, which was made accessible to
the citizenry by its own entrance on the east side. We went in and took several
photos. There were two chapels, one
much larger than the other.
We
came back out, turned to the right and went up to the next main street.
We soon came to another church which was wrapped for restoration – The
Collegiate Church. Not only was the
front fully covered, it its location on a narrow court did not all
ow for full
frontal photography.
This church dates back to 1707 and was consecrated
in honor of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, the patron saint of Salzburg as
well as for the local Benedictine University which was founded in 1622. The
university was disbanded in 1810 but reopened in 1962 as part of the University
of Salzburg. The Collegiate Church is also one of the most celebrated Baroque
churches in all of Austria.
Even
though we could not see the actual façade, photos and descriptions indicate two
towers rising freely from the ground and only loosely connected to the main part
of the front. The central part of
the front is convex. The church is
built on a modified Greek cross plan. We entered through the construction area.
The interior, being a Greek cross plan, had four equal arms with an open
dome. There were
four chapels
dedicated to the four faculty saints- St. Luke (medicine), St. Catharine
(philosophy), St. Thomas Aquinas (theology) and St. Ivo (law).
The sculptured wall behind the altar rose to the ceiling and contained a
number of angels surrounding the figure of Mary.
There were two clear glass windows in the middle of the sculpturing.
The light from these windows was very bright and almost obscured the
sculptures and prevented the taking good photos.
My
wife’s knee was hurting so we came back to the hotel abo
ut 4:00.
Standing at the window in our hotel room, I noticed an old
monastery/fort/church up on a hill across from the hotel.
I read that you could go up for a good view so while my wife rested, I
climbed the 257 steps to the top - what a view! 
Two thirds of the way up the
hill was a small beautiful church, ST. JOHNS on the Imberg (the name of the
staircase). The church is first mentioned in 1319 with the present building
dating from 1618. There are several
beautiful painting on the wall and over the altar. The
ceiling was especially beautiful - very Baroque with many angels on a light
green background.
At
the top of the c
limb was the
CAPUCHIN CHURCH which dates to the founding of the
order in Salzburg i
n 1681. The
interior is rather somber with the reredos behind the altar occupying the whole
area of the small sanctuary. An
extension of the paintings flanking either side of the altar area on the chancel
wall. Preparations were being
made for a mass, but I didn’t stay.
The
view from the top was breathtaking. I was on eye level with the
Hohensalzburg and was able to take some wonderful phtos. Going back down
the 257 steps was much easier than climbing up!
We
decided that we didn't want to walk back to the old town for dinner so we went
down to the hotel bar for drinks. The
Sacher Hotel has a formal dining room, a café where we ate last night and had
breakfast this morning, and a grill. The
dining room menu really didn't appeal to us and there was only one couple
occupying the dining room so we went back to the café.
We had a very nice young waiter. He
said that we could order from any of the menus.
We had noted scallops on the dining room menu.
He said we could order that that for a starter. We ordered a lobster soup
and salmon to split. We had noted
that the dining room price of the scallops was 16.50 euros - about $23.00.
When the order came there was one lonely scallop about the size of a
quarter on a large platter. We
couldn’t believe it. We commented
to our waiter about the ridiculous price for one scallop.
He brought the food manager out who was apologetic and said he would
bring another free...he brought out four more and didn't charge us.
We are still talking about our $23.00 scallop.
They were good but not that good.
Not
only was the cost of the scallop excessive so was the use of the internet in our
room. It cost $27.00 a day.
In all of our apartments and other hotel room (Dresden) the internet was
free except for our apartment in Budapest which changed a token fee. The Sacher
Hotel is a luxury hotel and very expensive.
The décor is very tasteful, the service personnel very attentive, but
our room was the smallest of any place that we stayed.
Five of these rooms would have fit into the Palace Apartment in Prague
for a lot less cost- and they didn’t serve $23.00 scallops.
This
morning we noticed two men in the hotel, and one had on a Rehoboth Beach shirt,
we spoke but didn't hear us. They
walked through the café and my wife spoke and asked about the shirt.
They lived in Baltimore and went to Rehoboth several times a year...such
a small world.
We
have had a wonderful three plus weeks. My
wife planned extremely well on the transportation, apartments/hotels,
restaurants, concert tickets and other events. We were not disappointed in any
place that we went or anything that we saw. We saw almost all of the churches on
our list. There were places that we
didn’t have time to visit, so maybe this is a trip that we might take again.
I don’t know that I could pick a favorite city, although Budapest is
right at the top. Our apartment in
Vienna was a little further from the center of activity than the others
apartments, so we would stay closer to the historic area in Vienna and ask for
better weather! We had beautiful
weather the entire trip except for some rain in Dresden and Vienna.
Our
plane leaves here a 2:30 tomorrow and we change planes in Frankfort and arrive
home about 8 pm ...that is 2:00 A.M.
on the time that we have been on for the past 3 weeks.
ST. BLASIUS HOSPICE CHURCH
