Heading to Vienna... and taking our time

We have a Senior Missionary conference this Thursday through Saturday in Vienna. Since it is also our anniversary this week, we decided to take a few extra days and visit some sites in Austria along the way. It has rained a lot on our trip so far. Monday was wet all day and today has been even wetter.

I was tempted to put a lot of pictures here, but restrained myself. I did put more than I put in my Facebook posts. Now you can see some of our beautiful sights.

As we were driving through the rain, Sister B. got this really nice shot showing the water on the car window and the mountains.

This is as we were nearing the city of Chur in southeast Switzerland.

Here you see us approaching Liechtenstein from the south. We drove down to Chur to see the Alps in that region and then decided to drive through Vaduz, Liechtenstein. As you can see, it was pretty wet and rainy.

As we were leaving one of the cities of Liechtenstein, there was a covered wooden bridge crossing the Rhein River. Traffic was not allowed on it but we got this picture as we were passing by.

After leaving Liechtenstein, we went through Feldkirch, Austria. Here is a fortress in town. We drove through the tunnel that runs underneath it in the rock.

We found out that there are a LOT of tunnels on the highway to Innsbruck. This one was the longest. The distance markers every once in a while along the way indicated that it was 10.3 kilometers (about 7 miles), but after the 10.3 kilometers, it continued on for another 3 kilometers. There were at least 10 other tunnels of varying length. They had a special toll for that tunnel. We had a freeway pass for Austria that is supposed to pay for all tolls along the way, but learned that there are some freeways and tunnels that are extra.

As we continued along the valley towards Innsbruck, we saw these churches on the peaks and other churches in the upper valleys. Sorry this is not a clear as it should be, but it gives you the idea anyway.

We went in to Innsbruck and had a light dinner there and then fought traffic getting out of town. Here is a picture of me standing in front of a little chapel in downtown Innsbruck. It is located on the island between lanes of traffic. It was raining.

Our Inn for the night was in Stubaital, about 15-20 miles south. Here is a view of our little valley, looking out the window of our room.

This is looking over to the south side of our valley.

Here is our valley shot the next morning. You can see that there is new snow in the higher elevations above us. They told us that they start skiing this Friday here.

 Our little place was about half way between Innsbruck and the Italian border. Since we are only allowed to be in our mission area, it was still OK for us to visit this little bit of Italy, because they speak German there. We could not pass up the chance to see a bit of Italy. This is a little glimpse of the Italian Alps along the freeway.

This is to prove that we were there. This sign alternatively displayed Italian and German.

This was interesting. If you look closely, you see a gondola crossing the freeway.

On our way up the canyon towards Italy (still in Austria) we got past some trucks that were blocking our on-ramp to the freeway. We got into the inner lane and continued on up the canyon (after paying the 8.50 Euro toll). It turned out that, because of construction, the two lanes of the freeway were separated by barriers. Trucks could not go up the inner lane because it was only 2 meters wide. There was a major accident in that outer lane, completely blocking all traffic. We got by because we went up that inner lane, which was fortunate (a blessing). On our way back, the trucks were still lined up trying to make it up the canyon. The crashed semi had been removed, but it still was backed up.

We spent some time in Salzburg in the afternoon. Here is a picture from the Monastery area, looking up you can see the castle on the hill.

This is the front of the St. Peter's Cathedral (Dom). The third statue over is Peter and he is holding a golden and silver key. The far door has the date 774 written above it, when the church was first built.

This is inside the St. Peters Cathedral.

This is a walkway past the churches (on the left) and the burial area and catacombs (on the right). Above is the castle.

Near the churches, we found these unusual statues. They are cucumbers.

We love the sound of the bells. Here is a video with a 60 second clip. The view is not much, but you can hear the bells ringing in the evening (if your browser or blog viewer lets you run movies - sorry if it doesn't).

Mozart was born in Salzburg. Here is a statue in his honor. You would not believe the many souvenirs, candies, etc. that exist here.

Here is the building where Mozart was born.

At the end, we needed to refuel. I have seen this brand of petroleum in a number of places, though is seems to be more common in Austria. I jokingly called it the place with the six-legged dog with bad breath. I have no clue what it is supposed to mean.

OK, now we are finally up to today. We went up to the Salzburg Castle. First, we rode up the rail to the base of the castle. This really is looking straight down. It was a steep train run.

Sister B and I are about to climb up to the castle entrance. Even with the rail line, we had a lot of stairs to climb, and even more after getting into the castle.

Here is the view of Salzburg from the castle (not the top of the castle, either).

This is one of many pictures inside the castle, in one of the chambers.

 Here is a cannon for defending the castle and below is a look out the window.

They had a large museum and many things showing the history of the castle, including these scale models showing the development of it over the years. The Catholic Cardinals controlled the salt trade of the area over the years back then and used the vast wealth to build the castle and surrounding churches.

Here we are starting the long journey back down. We walked instead of taking the rail line down.

Here is the wall at the bottom of that particular walkway. In the window on the left, the gnome is watching, but so is the video camera right next to him.

Lastly, we drove about 15 miles north and visited the town of Oberndorf where Silent Night was written about 200 years ago. Here is the chapel where he first performed the famous Christmas hymn.

Tomorrow we head out to Vienna, with a stop in St. Pölten to visit one of our former missionaries.

Continued on the next blog...