Blog #9: How I Stopped Worrying and Wrote My Name in the Snow at Eagle’s Nest

Blog #9: Salzburg, Austria (6/6/2005 to 6/7/2005), or, How I Wrote My Name in the Snow at Eagle’s Nest

So I didn’t really spend much time in Salzburg. From what I saw, it is a great town.

My first day “in” Salzburg I went to Hallstatt to visit the oldest salt mines in the world. They claim that these have been worked for about 7000 years. Apparently salt meant wealth back in the day. Now those people knew good currency when they tasted it! In the tour there are of number of humorous films, slide shows and a talking plastic miner who looked like he escaped from the Showbiz Pizza Palace talking animal show. Cue the clapping hands on the wall. In these presentations they explain that the mine’s discovery was quite by accident. The theory goes that there was this hunter who saw a deer sucking on the biggest salt lick in the world. Being a stone age man and unable to pass up a good chance to lick a rock (not that the “stone age” part of that description narrows down the field of guys who will lick rocks), he gave it a shot. The rest, as they say, is history.

After the ride to Hallstatt, the train dumped me off on the opposite side of the lake from the town. The boat ride across provided some nice pictures of the valley and town. Hallstatt is a nice, quiet town. The pictures are posted. I wandered around to find the funicular (code word for really steep train ride) and to buy an entrance ticket. At the top of the mountain is a 15 minute hike to the mine tour. We walked into the mountain about a quarter mile, then rode down some man-sized slides. Sorry, I refused to pay the five euros to buy the picture of me sliding down. Inside we saw some ancient and modern examples of salt mining, an overdramatic film about salt, and some pretty ponds of trapped water. Our guide was quite good—she was most impressive as she was constantly switching from English to German.

I took a leisurely stroll down the mountain: this is not suggested for those who are weak-kneed. I do not mean faint of heart, I mean weak-kneed. It was quite a decent… and an ascent I am glad I did not make. Feeling my four-hour belly calling out for food, I decided I had time to wander down to the supermarket for some meat and bread. I did not count on the gang of little kids who were lucky enough to be in front of me in line. Please remind me to, if and when I have them, keep my kids on leashes until they can drive. Better yet: maybe they should not leave the basement. So at this point I’m thinking that maybe it would be a good idea to run back to the boat. There I am, intermittently jogging down the street and trying not to push my lazy, out-of-shape self too hard. Wow, am I good. After this 5 minute period of overexertion, I pulled a dramatic “Wait for meeee!” and a leap onto the boat as it was pushing away from the dock. It was planned from the very beginning….

That night I was tired and smelly from the day of traveling. I think I spent about 14 hours on trains that day and had about four fitful hours of sleep on the train. I have never looked forward to showers so much as when I have been traveling. In the hostel lounge that night I met a few Americans and we talked about our travels. There was the philosopher from Arkansas and two nurses from San Francisco. It was quite a good time. I the winner for the interesting story for the night was about one of the nurse’s patients. This guy was in the emergency room vomiting white stuff all over the place and his chart, seriously, said, “Poisoned with marijuana.” It just goes to show how many brain cells drugs can kill. Who in their right mind would believe that this guy was poisoned by marijuana? This girl starts pestering the patient, “C’mon, man, what really happened? What did you do? You were so NOT poisoned with marijuana.” After trading appropriate hand signals to ensure her coolness, he confessed. Apparently this guy was out of brownie mix and decided to improvise. Angel food cake, anyone?

Pictures of Hallstatt, Austria: http://www.imagestation.com/album/pictures.html?id=2125519070&code=16488610&mode=invite&DCMP=isc-email-AlbumInvite

My second day was almost entirely spent visiting Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest. I saved about 30 euros ($40) and spent a couple more hours by piecing the trip together myself over using a travel guide. I consider that two hours well spent. I trust from the panoramic picture I saw that there are some great views from the top of this mountain retreat to one of the century’s most psychopathic leaders. As you will see from the pictures I posted, it was a bit hard to see anything. It was June 7, people, and it was snowing!

I think the best summary to the trip was when a German man came up to me and asked, “Where is the Eagle’s Nest?” You’re looking at it, big guy. There is a building with about four rooms at the top of this mountain. That’s it. I think they ran out of money, because of all the effort to build the roads to and the elevator inside the mountain, to make it the grand place we expect it to be. It would have been nice to get some good pictures of the view, but I was content to visit a historically important site.

Pictures of Eagle’s Nest, in Germany: http://www.imagestation.com/album/pictures.html?id=2125524131&code=16485348&mode=invite&DCMP=isc-email-AlbumInvite

After returning I wandered about Salzburg. There are a few pictures of Mirabellgarten, a great garden in the middle of the new town (the Neustadt). I also got a few pictures of the churches and the fortress up on the hill. Unfortunately, I never made it around to St. Peter’s Stiftskeller, supposedly the oldest restaurant in central Europe. It has been in business for over 1100 years. Now that is a good business. Since it was a bit pricey, however, I think that I was better off not going to eat there.

As I was wrapping up my trip around the town, I ran into an Irish pub called O’Malley’s. As it was mentioned in my Let’s Go travel guide as a great place to visit, I stopped in. It was a bit early and the only customer for a while, so I got the low-down from my waiter, Max. He told me about this really great restaurant down the street named Humboldt. The next people to show up were three American ladies. We all started talking and, before I knew it, I became their date for the girls’ night out on the town. Before you get too carried away with your imagination, Lisa, Denise and Gertrude were all about 50 and either married, divorced or have kids. That said: they were a blast. They were cracking me up.

As I had already asked Max about great dinner places, I led us down to Humboldt. I was informed that I could not order the goulash because Denise had already claimed it. So that was how it was going to work. With this group, your food was not your own. There would be sharing, no bones about it. Fair enough: I always enjoy trying different foods. Appetizers included bread, tomatoes and cheese doused in oil and vinegar, and a beef broth soup with sliced pancakes. This soup looked like a broth-based tortilla soup. Strange, but not bad. My pork schnitzel and potatoes were excellent, as was Gertrude’s Asian Chicken, Denise’s goulash and Lisa’s goulash soup. For dessert we had bite-sized pancakes with fruit chutney and an apple strudel with vanilla ice cream.

At the end of a fun evening, I still had a couple hours to kill. My night train back to Zurich did not leave the station until 12:45. Oh, what fun. I was able to sleep about 4-5 hours, which is good for me on a train, before I got back for my all morning class in Zurich. My life is so hard.

Pictures of Salzburg, Austria: http://www.imagestation.com/album/pictures.html?id=2125509984&code=16495009&mode=invite&DCMP=isc-email-AlbumInvite