things. Think of Scott, Perry, and Shackelton and their polar
expeditions. Think of Marco Polo, Magellan, Neil Armstrong and Jaques
Cousteau. They all pushed the limits of human knowledge forward
through amazing feats of courage, insight and moxie.
This is a pretty stellar group to draw association with, but I too
braved difficult territory in the pursuit of new knowledge yesterday
and came away with a treasure trove. What was this heroic feat? I
rode on the "Sound of Music" tour through Salzburg and the adjoining
countryside for 4 hours yesterday. Yep! Are you impressed? Huge tour
bus, about twelve women and me, stops at all the locations used in the
filming of this 1965 classic and new information at every turn.
Did you know Lisel fell while jumping between the benches in the
Gazebo scene, stuck her leg through one of the windows and had to have
stitches? Did you know Christopher Plummer once said "I'll be damned
if I'm going to carry that fat kid over the mountains on my back"?
With new knowledge like this it makes the arguous journey seem trivial.
The best part of the tour was leaving Salzburg city and driving to the
Laken district, where mountain encased lakes sit with tiny towns on
their shores. Very beautiful.
We arrived back in Salzburg at 1:30, spent an hour charging the iPhone
and talking to a former Microsoft employee born in Salzburg, raised in
the Middle East and living in Bellevue these past twenty years, with
months overseas now and then. She was complimentary of Americans,
saying they were the most generous of all people both with their time
and money. But, she thought the US image had been destroyed by the
Bush administration. In fact, we have had nearly everyone tell us
this. The owner of our campground called the US dollar "Mickey Mouse"
money due to it's declining value and the amount we have spent on
wars, continue to spend on defense and spend buying stuff.
With 35% battery on the phone we hopped a city bus for Mozart's
original house in Salzburg, only a few blocks away.
With audio tour held to ear we walked through the rooms Mozart lived
in and saw harpsicords, pianos and other instruments of his day while
hearing his music playing in the background. It was amazing to see how
much his father had he and his sister traveled at ages 5-8, a three
year tour, with young Wolfgang composing music for courts all over
Europe, including Louis the XV in Versailles, a palace we visited a
few weeks ago.
We crossed the river to old town and toured the narrow streets, bought
fresh green beans for dinner at the open market and bussed back to the
campground for an exciting night of laundry.
Camped next to us were Gerhart and Brigette (pronounced Bri-gee-ta)
Wacker from Frankfurt, a 50ish couple bike touring for 2 weeks down
the Danube. We shared a late evening beer at the cafe at the
campground, swapping stories about our homes, retirement possibilities
and touring.
We retired to our tent, and with strains of "The hills are alive, with
the Sound of Music. . ." playing in our heads we fell asleep.
Chuck
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