Butterfly House

They had a huge arching dome sweeping out into the yard, completely made of glass. The glass made the area extremely light and also extremely HOT. The make it even more tropical, they had lots of water in the form of waterfalls and small streams running through.The humidity rivaled what we had in Japan!

Right in the middle of the city, actually a part of the Hofburg palace, is the historical Vienna butterfly house. The butterfly house is actually a part of the palace we had just toured with the back of the butterfly house being one of the outside walls of the castle.

We must have stood there for an hour, attempting to take pictures of butterflies, managing to somehow get only a few decent shots.

Vienna

The time had come that we finally had to return to Vienna. We continued playing the role of the tourist, taking advantage of the sites and spectacular buildings. First we followed Mozart through the city, taking a walking tour around the old part of town, viewing the buildings he lived in, where he met his wife and halls where he played. While many of the buildings were drastically changed from Mozart’s time, it was a great opportunity for us to tour the city and see many of the different buildings.

We decided to take a tour of the Hofburg Castle, the home of Franz Joseph and Sisi, his wife, the rulers of the Austro-Hungarian empire. A portion of the castle is still used as the official residence of the President of Austria, though there is, of course, a rather large portion of it open to tourists. Once again, upon entry, we were handed the language players so that we could tour through the castle. There was just one problem with the language tapes – they told you about EVERYTHING in the room in MINUTE detail.

 We started listening to the tape in the kitchen area. There they talked about the cooking pots, the silverware, the wine glasses, the dishes, the dishes, the dishes, the dishes. Some of the sets were for hundreds and they had rooms of them. Then we moved into the home itself. In the first room, documenting everything in the room, the tape talked about the pineapple designed red silk wallpaper, the ceramic heaters in the corner, complete with gold leaf designs, the spectacular pictures painted on the ceilings, most of Alexander the Great and then the various pieces of furniture in the room. It was quite fascinating in the first room, interesting in the second room, remarkably dull by the 8^th room. In fact, I discovered, as I was listening to the tape, that I had listened to well over half of it – and I was in the wrong room! The wallpaper was decidedly red, but the tape talked about the blue-green wallpaper in the room! I decided that perhaps it was time that I moved through the rest of the place a bit quicker. To be fair, it really was gorgeous stuff but, enough is enough. 

Innsbruck

Innsbruck was a quick stop and we were both sad that we hadn’t allotted more time for this beautiful city in the Alps. Little did we realize the awesome beauty we would find. We had to start our triptay with a trip to the top of the mountains – 3,000 plus meters up! They have built an extremely interesting tram system to take you up the hill – pretty much to the top portion of the “living” section of the city. The tram starts at the bottom of the hill, near the old town part of the city. The cars were very small, about 2m square, with 4 or 5 of them grouped together in a grey “shell”. It seemed a funny way to make the cars, and certainly limited the number of passengers but…we got on. 


As we started up the hill, we quickly learned why the cars were designed that way. Each car was free of the neighboring car and the ascent was so steep, if it were one car we would have been seriously slanted for the ride up. The cars, however, simply rose up, each car successfully higher than the one below. We headed across the river and up the slope, stopping first at the Alpenzoo (the highest zoo in all of Europe) and then the top level of the city. From here we transferred over to a more traditional cable car that took us up one level – a 15 minute ride! The next cable car was much shorter but took us to the top of the mountain.

The view of the alps was absolutely stunning. We could look down over the mountain and into the valley where Innsbruck sprawled below us. It was interesting to watch the clouds forming below us, drifting up and towards the mountain. The other side afforded us a view of the alps. Spectacular views of unbelievable country. Right up there, up on top of the mountain, there was a wedding party, complete with food, wine and pictures being snapped with the alps in the background. What a memory it will be.

We would have really liked to have been able to hike down, this time it wasn’t quite so downhill as the last time. It will sadly have to wait for another trip, we had far too little time in Innsbruck to take advantage of the opportunity.

On our way down we stopped at the zoo to take a cruise through. The zoo is built right into the hill, the paths winding up and down between stunning scenery and animal enclosures. All of the animals here are ones that are native to the European environment. This little guy was a real hit as he roamed through the enclosure, trying to get mom to give him more milk.

Salt Mines

The next stop on our tour was a trip to the Salt Mines of Hallein, some of the oldest salt mines in the world. While in some areas the mine is still working and in production, the area we were in was open to the public as “show” mines.

When you enter, the workers hand you a miner’s set of overalls – with a remarkable eye for coming up with the right size. They also have the ubiquitous portable language players. They lead you from there to the waiting carts that take you into the mines. Once again we were tugged through tunnels, though this time there were no protruding boulders to have to dodge around.  The route leads you through different parts of the mine, with good graphics, and oral information about the history of the mine, and how they mine it. They even have two different wooden slides you get to go down to the next level of the tour, hence the miner’s overalls. In the middle of the tour there’s a boat that is floating on an extremely still lake. The reflections of the light on the salt plays on the water with really beautiful reflections. There’s a boat that sitting at the edge and we silently slipped across the pond. 

Eagle's Nest

If you’re going to be someplace where it’s raining, and predicted to continue raining, you might as well do something that keeps you semi out of the rain so the next day we decided to take a tour up to the infamous Kehlsteinhaus or Eagle’s Nest, a retreat built for Adolf Hitler. It is located in the mountains of Germany, near a city called Berchtesgaden, near Austria, and was a birthday present to him. Besides all the horrible things he was, it was a strange present because it turns out he was afraid of heights! He only used the building about 14 times, and even then he stayed only as long as was necessary. He had a passage built straight to the elevator – the driver had to drop him off and then back out of the tunnel (he didn’t like being in a car going backwards). He was also claustrophobic so he refused to have more than 7 or 8 people with him in the elevator (it holds about 60) because the emergency elevator could only hold 10 people and he was petrified of being stuck in it. The elevator was also made totally of reflective brass, to make it seem much larger than it really is (though it really is quite big).

The entire area, except for the one building, was completely bombed out during the war. At the base of the hill is an informational area about Hitler and his regime so that the world will not forget. They have buses that take people up to the entrance elevator (walking through the tunnel these days) and then up to the Eagle’s Nest. It now has a restaurant, cafeteria and gorgeous views as far away as Austria. We were lucky because it had been threatening to rain all day but the clouds held off until we headed back down the hill. It is interesting…the tours are not offered in German (there were still some Nazi sympathizers when they first started the enterprise) and the money earned is used to pay for the employees, upkeep and at the end of each year, any extra money is donated to charity.

The "gorgeous views" really doesn't do justice to the beauty of the setting. The snow clad mountains in the background, the spectacular vistas, the views of the lake below, all of it was outstanding. 

Salzburg sites

It was time for us to return to Austria, and though we had a week or so left, we knew our vacation was coming to an end. Salzburg was our next place…the birthplace of Mozart and the home of the Sound of Music, both of which are played to the hilt for the tourist. Being the tourists that we are…

We did manage to roam around, picking up pictures of various places from the sound of music – we happen to be watching it right now – and I’ve found a few places that came right from the movie! I didn’t get pictures of everything but I did get a few shots of some of the places. We had walked up to the convent where Maria was and also passed by the field where she and the children sang. Lots of shots in the movie of the castle and various city locations. It was cool to see them and know that we had been there too! The first one is a picture of the convent when she is leaving to go be the governess.

The old town and the castle district were our first tourist excursions. Sad to say, once you’ve seen 20 old towns, they begin looking all the same. Cobbled streets, old buildings, beautiful statues, ornate ornamentation, classic, renaissance, baroque, rococo, all styles of buildings that I now have seen but still couldn’t identify with any authority. It seems that over the years they’ve taken to re-building and remodeling in the current style of the day. Most buildings boast 2 or 3 different styles even in the same room!

Sad to say, the rain came while we were in Salzburg. Our trip up the hill to the castle was wet, to say the least. They have preserved the castle as a museum and have included much of the original structure along with a great portrayal of life during the period around Salzburg. There was more to discover through the courtyard area but the drenching rain drove us down the mountainside and into the relatively drier cathedrals and museums.

If you hadn’t heard before, you would know within 10 seconds of arriving in Salzburg that Mozart was born here. It is proclaimed everywhere you look so, of course, we had to check out his humble beginnings, and humble they were. The home has been “preserved” and is now a museum, sharing information about his early life and his family. The sojourn of his life was continued in Vienna. It was interesting, and dry, dry from the wet outside. 

Bhinj Jezero

We still hadn’t had much opportunity to really hike in the area so we took off to the more remote lake called Bhinj Jezero. They have so many buses here that it was really simple, and cheap, to catch it and head out to the local village. They have a chairlift in the village of Ukance, obviously for skiing in the winter but useful for hikers and tourists in the summer. Now, some people will hike to the top and then use the lift to come down. We thought we were doing it the easy way, taking the lift to the top and hiking down. I’m not so sure it was.

The view from the top was stunning. The Julian Alps towered above and around us, majestic and gorgeous. The wind was whipping through us and we began to wonder if we had enough layers with us. We spent quite a while roaming the top before setting off for our path down the mountain. Now, they have a few lifts in the area, I think we started off at about 1480m, not the highest one available but the only one open in the summer months.

The path was fairly well marked, once we found it. They had signs and red bull’s eyes for us all along the way down. It started off, downhill, of course, wending its way through the rocks. We stopped to enjoy the changing views of the alps and to get pictures of the great alpine meadows, dotted along the path down. We found lots of broken rocks and matted leaves and still the track went down. Now, I keep mentioning down because this path was DOWNHILL! It was not relieved with rolling terrain anywhere, no flat spots, even taking pictures we were perched on a downhill slant. It was totally unrelenting in its downhill approach to getting you down the mountain. The wet leaves (it had been raining the day before) made the area slick. The rocks were mixed sized and not packed into the earth, the rolled and turned. We went down and down and down and down. We passed one couple on their way up the hill and wondered which of us had the harder route (I still think they did but my legs were not in agreement with me). We were down to probably the last 30 minutes of our hike before we came along a short road through a meadow that allowed us to walk for a bit on a semi-level path. By the time we made it to the bottom, I didn’t think I ever wanted to go downhill anywhere again! Thank goodness the bus wasn’t too far away from where we came out.