2015 Home Exchange in Austria
We returned to Florida in October to spend the holidays with our kids, help with wedding planning and attend Dale’s high school reunion. On New Years Day, we flew back to Washington to take care of some unfinished matters (rebuilding the deck and adding a spiral staircase between floors) and to get in a little … Continue reading
It felt like a homecoming to be back in Schönaich again. This village of 10,000 (the same as our hometown of Miami Shores) is a little southeast of Stuttgart and has been the home of my Ulmer ancestors back to the time of the Thirty Years War (1618-1648) – and the family is still here! … Continue reading
Sunday morning, we walked to church with Jörg and Tobias. Heike, Christopher and Dorothea had gone on ahead because they were all involved in the ceremony. Heike is the choir director and Christopher, in addition to playing in the church band, was playing a solo on his piccolo trumpet. Dorothea, of course, was the star … Continue reading
Early to bed Sunday night, we were up bright and early for a daytrip to Ulm with another Ulmer relative, Manfred, and his son-in-law, Henrik Sachse. Henrik is married to Manfred’s eldest daughter, Simone. Simone and I are third cousins which also means that Manfred and I are second cousins, once removed. Henrik, Simone, Manfred … Continue reading
Leaving Ulm, we traced the Blau River ten miles west to its headwaters: the spring at Blaubeuren known as the Blautopf (the “Blue Pot”). Blaubeuren is also home to an ancient Benedictine monastic village, obviously located here for the spring water and mill power it provides. Blautopf is the second largest spring in Germany and, … Continue reading
Everybody has heard of Munich’s Oktoberfest, but did you know that it has a rival in the Spring? Well it does: the Stuttgarter Frülingsfest, also known as the Cannstatter Wasen, held every year in Stuttgart between the middle of April and the end of May. Its the largest Spring festival in Europe! And we were … Continue reading
Thursday afternoon, we decided to go for a long walk to burn off some of the calories from the Frühlingsfest. Dale had already been on the trail that runs below and behind the Langner's (Jörg's and Heike's) house, so she knew the route. The trail has been adorned with outdoor art. This piece is probably … Continue reading
Friday, May Day, turned out to be a rainy day – like what we would expect in Bellingham, Washington, this time of year. In fact, Bellingham and Schönaich are at just about the same latitude which explains the similar weather and vegetation. In preparation for our visit to Germany, Manfred had sent me a list … Continue reading
I have to say that I really love the beer, pretzel bread and wurst here but my favorite Swabian food is Spätzle, a boiled dough that looks and tastes a little bit like spaghetti. Dale asked Heike to show her how to make it, so when we got back to the house, Heike and Dale … Continue reading
We will be living in an apartment in the Neubau district in the heart of Vienna (“Wien”) for the month of May. Our apartment is on the top floor (we would call it the 4th floor, but in Europe it's called the 3rd floor, that is, three floors above the ground floor). Street level is … Continue reading
After spending a couple days just walking around the city center getting our bearings and looking at magnificent structures from the street, we finally settled on our first excursion, the Hundertwasserhaus. According to Wikipedia, the artist, Friedrich Stowasser, was born in Vienna in 1928. After World War 2, he studied art briefly at the Academy … Continue reading
The Hofburg Palace complex contains several museums, in addition to one of the two royal residences, the treasury and the Spanish riding school. It also is home to the Austrian National Library, the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek. Around the back side of the National Library, and somewhat hard to find, is the Prunksaal (the State Hall) that … Continue reading
If there's one thing Austria is known for above all else, it would have to be music. And while we Americans might immediately think – Julie Andrews and The Sound of Music – the hills around here are filled with much, much more than that. We first visited Austria in 1983, just after marriage and … Continue reading
I remember taking Civics class in Junior High School and learning how government works. Government has always fascinated me and later, in law school, I took both local government law and international comparative law, studying the interplay within the United States’ governmental hierarchy, as well as the different systems and forms of government around the … Continue reading
On Tuesday (“Mardi” in French), we went on the scenic train ride known as the Südbahn, the Austrian Southern Railway, over the Semmering Pass to Austria’s second largest city, Graz (pop. 265,000), the capital of the Austrian state of Styria. Leaving Vienna, the country’s largest city with 1,725,000 residents, we traveled through relatively flat countryside … Continue reading
It was fascinating to learn about the rise and fall of the Roman Empire when we visited Turkey in 2012. Prior to that trip, I knew relatively little about Rome from the early years of Christianity on – and nearly nothing about the Byzantine Empire, that is, the Eastern Roman Empire that continued on until … Continue reading
On our first day in Vienna, we rode trams 1 and 2 around the Ringstraße, hopping on and off as it suited us. We were intrigued by what appeared to be a city gate with a palace of some sort behind it, but the sky looked a little ominous so we decided to save exploring … Continue reading
It hadn’t occurred to me, though it should have, that Austria is a Catholic country (75% of the population). You know, the Habsburgs were the Holy Roman Emperors, allied with the Roman Catholic Church – that should have been a tip-off. But we were a little surprised to find out that everything was closed Thursday … Continue reading
Friday was Art Day for us as we set out to see the exhibits of reknowned Austrian painters Gustav Klimt (1862-1918) and Egon Schiele (1890-1918) who, I subsequently learned, were of the Vienna Secessionist movement which turned its back on the realistic historical style of mainstream Austrian artists and worked in a contemporary, impressionistic mode. … Continue reading
On Monday, we set out on the train from Wien Spittelau Bahnhof (“Wien” is German for Vienna) to the town of Krems an der Danau for an overnight bike ride along the Danube River to Melk. Across from the train station was another Hundertwasser creation, a garbage incenerator known as the District Heating Plant Spittelau. … Continue reading
A little over five miles upriver from Krems, we came to the medieval walled town of Dürnstein (established 1019 A.D.), just as the tourist riverboats from Vienna docked nearby. The main attraction inside the walls of Dünstein is the Augustiner-Chorherrenstift, a gothic monastery built for the Order of St. Augustine in 1410 and then rebuilt … Continue reading
The town of Melk, where we spent the night, is the site of the Stift Melk, a Benedictine abbey that sits 200 feet above the Danube. Originally founded in 1089, a monastic school and scriptorium were added during the next century and the abbey became known for its manuscripts and library long before the invention … Continue reading
We returned to Krems from Melk on the other side of the Danube River, the southeast side, which is not as scenic, but the cycling was better because the trail is mostly off the road and right along the river's edge. The morning started out mostly sunny, but we found ourselves riding in the shade … Continue reading
The first new building completed on the Ringstraße was the opera house, built in 1861-1869. It was originally known as the Wiener Hofoper (the Vienna Court Opera), but after the fall of the Habsburgs in WWI, the name was changed to the Wiener Staatsoper (the Vienna State Opera). Bombing during WW II destroyed most of … Continue reading
Besides the opera, another excursion that Dale had planned in advance for us was a visit to the Punkva Caves in the Czech Republic which can only be seen as part of a scheduled tour. The Punkva Caves are a popular destination for Czechs and Austrians, so reservations were necessary and ours were for Saturday, … Continue reading
The Road Less Traveled 