Photos: Austria & Germany

The Eagle's Nest Obersalzberg, Germany

Salzburg, Austria

Hallstatt, Austria

Summer in Europe

Mai Li and I have generated a low pressure system that is being reported by the weather bureau as the centre of rain in Europe. Elsewhere is experiencing 40°C weather. So, when we arrived in Hallstatt it was raining, and while we were there it rained, and when we left it deemed to rain. We caught the ferry across the lake and boarded the train at the little unmanned station, bound for Vienna in transit to Budapest. We headed south because I wanted to go via the historic Semmering Railway, though this would take longer and require more changes, but like a giant board game we reached a sign that read Bad Aussee and we had to turn back. It seems there was track maintenance and this little town was as far as we could get, so we headed north, the faster and boring way to Vienna. I looked at the map of the Austrian rail network. Perhaps it was better than finding ourselves in Rottenegg.

When we got to Vienna it rained. Mai Li's $6 umbrella snapped in the wind and cut open three of her fingers.

We spent just that afternoon and night in Vienna since our destination was Budapest, where we arrived the following day.

In the rain.

Hallstatt

A couple of hours out of Salzburg is a little lakeside village called
Hallstatt, which European travel guru Rick Steves lists as one of his
favourite little towns in Europe. Wooden houses cling like barnacles to the
side of a mountain as it descends into the water, strung together by
rolling, narrow footpaths and stone stairways. From the bathroom window of
the private room we rented at the top of a tight, winding staircase in Frau
Gummerer's house we could reach out to touch the rocks and plants of the
vertical mountainside. From the room itself the view was a bit less
claustrophobic: a vast and uninterrupted vista of the lake, looking across
to the little unmanned railway station in the distance where we lit from
the train to board the waiting ferry to the village.

There are two small chapels in Hallstatt: the simple Protestant church with
its tall spire and clock tower is the most prominent central feature of the
village; and the Catholic church with an elaborate interior, small cemetary
and beinhaus ("bone house") where, because of the lack of real estate in
the graveyard, bodies were disinterred after ten years, the bones then
bleached in the sun and scraped of any "remains of decay," and the skulls
painted with symbols and the names of the deceased and arranged in the
beinhaus.

The single cobblestone road in Hallstatt runs along the lake and is shared
by both cars and pedestrians, most of whom are tourists. Quirky art
installations are moored in the water, such as a wooden table and chairs on
a floating platform. At night, what may be old boardwalk pylons appear
beneath the surface in the gloom of the water like spectral fingers.

Salzburg

Salzburg is overrated. It's okay, but is really like a big tourist trap of
wall-to-wall shops and Sound of Music tours. As my Lonely Planet says, it's
Austria's capital of kitsch. The Americans in particular seem to flock
here. Cesky Krumlov was certainly touristy, but it felt authentic in a way
Salzburg does not. I think Ljubljana, Slovenia -- which I cut from the
itinerary -- would have been better, but then we wouldn't have made it to
the Eagle's Nest, which was worth it.

We had beautiful weather on Saturday and spent the day exploring the
Festung Hohensalzburg, the medieval fortress on the hill. In the evening we
zipped around on Segways like we did in Paris, since this time it wasn't
part of a tour and we could go where we wanted, but once again you don't
end up seeing much of the city because you're too distracted with what
you're doing. It is a motorised vehicle, after all. Still fun, but not the
novelty it was in Paris.

Austria

Bloody rain again. We've had one day of sun to every four of overcast
weather or rain. This is summer in Europe?

We took a 3-hour shuttle bus trip from Cesky Krumlov to Salzburg, winding
through lush and verdant Czech forests before the rustic landscape yielded
to more manicured Austria. Eventually the landscape gave way entirely to
freeway, and we transited Linz before finally arriving in an urban and
industrialised Salzburg. Where was the famous picture postcard baroque
town? We hoisted our packs and traipsed across the river to get to our room
in a modern, basic dorm-style youth hostel which was everthing one expects
in a youth hostel, complete with the common kitchen area rendered filthy by
still wet-nursed kids.

More from the 37-year old backpacking grump tomorrow: Hitler's house!