Europe trip day 13-14: Mauthausen-Hallstatt-Salzburg

On Friday, we intended to get up early to drive out to Schonbrunn Palace and beat the crowds, but, as usual, it took us a while to get out of the hotel, buy food for the road, and actually decide what to do.  

So by the time we reached Schonbrunn, it was already very, very crowded.  We decided to forego the 2 hour wait to get into the Palace and grounds, and instead hit the road.  I was disappointed because Schonbrunn was one of those very memorable places I went to in Vienna as a kid.  But after having seen the Hofburg Palace the day before, I realized it probably wasn't worth the wait in the heat.  

Anyway, the Schonbrunn Palace was the summer palace of the Habsburg royalty.  It was finished in the 1750's, although royal mansions and residences had been there since 1548.  Franz Joseph I (Sisi's husband) was born and died here.

 Entrance to the Palace grounds.

 Front of the Palace.  When we were there, there were many more people walking around in front.  It's built in the Neoclassical style, although the inside is Baroque.

 The back gardens were pretty cool in my recollection.  There was a hedge maze that I was looking forward to.  Next time!

 This room and the next were two that I particularly remembered-- the Bergl room is this one.

And this is the grand gallery.

Anyway, we spent a little time in the gift shop and looked through some books with pictures of all the interior rooms, so the boys sort of felt like they got the tour anyway.  :-)

We got back on the A1 autobahn and drove west through the Danube river valley toward our next destination, the Mauthausen concentration camp.  Along the way, we passed the Melk Abbey.

This is another place I would have liked to stop and tour.  It's a Benedictine abbey overlooking the Danube River.

But instead, we passed it by-- this is the only view we got of it.

Mauthausen was about 2 hours away from Schonbrunn.  This was another place Ben was really skeptical about going.  He thought it would be disturbing and a real downer for the boys.  But I felt like it was really important for the boys to have concrete images and memories to attach to the history they learn in school.  Mauthausen is one of the few concentration camps that was not destroyed, so all the buildings are original.  The Mauthausen complex of camps were among the largest in Nazi-controlled europe.  In 1945, there were 85,000 inmates.  It was a labor camp, with prisoners working in the nearby quarry, munitions factories, and mines.  It was termed a "grade III" camp, meaning it was the most punishing.  It was an "extermination through labor" camp, and mainly housed the "intelligencia"-- the more educated people in higher social classes.  It's thought that upwards of 320,000 people died here.  

This is the view of the complex from the parking lot.

Concrete walls around the camp.

Mosey waiting outside of the visitor center for us to get the audio guides.

View of the city of Mauthausen from the camp.

 The "wailing wall."

 This is where the prisoners had roll call each day, and was the location of much torture and violence.

 One of the barracks.  Up to 500 people at a time were sometimes crammed into one of these rooms.

 Gas chamber.

Crematorium

Toward the end of the tour of the buildings, we came to this room of names.  It was really sobering.  The room is filled with these lit tables with the names of some 81,000 prisoners--all of those known by name-- who died here.  

Walking back down the hill, we could see the quarry down below.

On the grounds there were a number of memorial statues.  I thought this one was particularly striking.

The tour was really emotional and sobering to me.  I hope it's something the boys will never forget.

We ended up staying the night in Linz, not far from Mauthausen.
Linz ended up being one of my favorite cities on our whole trip!

Sitting on both sides of the Danube River, Linz is the 3rd largest city in Austria, and has the dubious distinction of being Hitler's childhood home.  :-(  It is the home of Johannes Kepler University, and definitely has the feel of being a college town.  There were lots and lots of young college-age kids around.

We stayed on the south shore of the Danube, in the Nike Linz Arcotel, right next door to the Brucknerhaus-- Linz's concert hall.

 That's the concert hall, in purple, on the right.  We were right on the river!

We checked into the hotel in the afternoon, and first tried to go swimming in the public pool next door, but arrived just as it closed.  Instead we went out the back of our hotel, on the banks of the river, and serendipitously found ourselves right next to a small outdoor amphitheater where we listened to a band concert for a while.  As the sun went down, we walked along the river, admiring the cruise boats and generally people-watching.  Here in Linz I saw many people wearing traditional Austrian clothing-- lederhosen and dirndls (especially lederhosen)-- seemingly just as regular clothing!  It was charming.
We crossed the Linzer Nibelungenbrucke bridge and got pizza and kebaps to go before walking back across the bridge and to the main square.  By this time it was dark out, and it was then that Linz became even more magical.  On the north side of the river, along the bridge, was the Ars Electronica Center, also known as the "Museum of the Future."  At night, the entire building is lit up in colors that slowly morph through all the colors of the rainbow.  It is beautiful.  And right across the river is the Lentos Art Museum, that mirrors the lights from the Electronica Center.  It's so pretty!
(I hadn't brought my camera along, so the next several pictures aren't mine)

We walked down into the main square-- Hauptplatz-- which is dominated by a huge Trinity column in the center.  There were lots of people out and about, walking, eating in the outdoor cafes.  We shared some gelato before heading back to our hotel.

This is a time lapse picture that shows pretty well how many people were there that night.

The next morning we drove briefly through the historical center of town-- pretty much where we had been walking the day before, and then hit the road towards Halstatt.
As we drove, we quickly got out of the Danube River valley, and started up into the mountains.
The drive was beautiful!  But the parking was not so easy.  We drove back and forth a bit before snagging the very last parking spot in a lot a short walk from the entrance to the Old Town.  We wanted to see the Bone House of St. Michael's.  St. Michael's Chapel is really, really old-- 1100's, and perched up on the side of the mountain.  Next to it is the charnel house (Bone House) with over 600 painted skulls.  This was just up the boys' alley, espeically Joseph.  The trail up was too steep, so I stayed down below in the town while Ben took the boys.

While I waited, I took some pictures.  It was so beautiful there!  The town sits right on the western shore of the Hallstatt See.

After making it back up to our parking lot (the roads were narrow and STEEP-- and with the cobblestones, I was very glad Ben was there-- it would have been impossible by myself), we kept driving about 20-30 minutes up into the mountains to Obertraun. Our destination was the Dachstein Salzkammergut, and from there, the Mammut Caves (Mammoth caves).  Once there, we bought tickets and then got into a big cable car that went just about straight up the side of the mountain.

The ride up was very nerve wracking. I had to force myself to look outside.  But the view was spectacular!

We landed at a visitor center area, from which Ben took the boys on a tour of the caves, and I stayed behind ot wait.
Mammut Cave is one of the longest cave systems in the world.  Not all of it has been explored yet.  To get there, Ben had to hike with the boys about 20 minutes up the mountain (which is why I couldn't go).

Joseph took these pictures of the inside of the cave:

When they came back down, I couldn't resist a father-and-sons shot.  It was so beautiful up there.

And Brigham and Joseph.

Once back down off the cable car, we headed back down the mountain, and north through Austria.
In the evening we reached Salzburg.  I had originally scheduled a whole day here, but because of schedule constraints, I had to cut it down to one evening.  :-(  Not enough time to do it justice.

Salzburg (not my picture)

Things to remember:
Skeleton marionette street performer
Violinist in front of the Mozart statue in Mozart Square
Bratwurst from a food stand in Old Market Square

 Kapitelplatz with a view of the fort above

 St. Peter's monastery

 Salzburg Cathedral

Residenzplatz

Mozart's house!

Mozart Square

One of the many small narrow streets that make up old Salzburg.

And back towards where we parked our car. 

After driving out of Old Town, we wound our way through some of the more modern parts of Salzburg, and then it was back on the road, and back over the border to Germany! We found our hotel, the Avalon Hotel Bad Reichenhallwhich ended up being one of the stranger ones we stayed at.  We ended up parking in an underground garage accessible only via a car elevator!

It was a long day, but full of so much great stuff.