Goodbye Austria (via Salzburg)! Hello Ljubljana, Slovenia

Fuschl Lake, Austria

Red Bull Headquarters, Fuschl, Austria

Red Bull Headquarters with Fuschl Lake

Cable cars over St. Gilgen going up Zwolferhorn Mountain - In 2005 St. Gilgen was promoted as the "Mozart Village" by the Wolfgangsee Tourist Board. Although Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart never visited St. Gilgen (as he had intended to), his grandfather worked in the town, his mother was born in St. Gilgen, and his sister Nannerl moved there after her marriage.


It was an early start to the day and after a nice breakfast and some computer work I said goodbye to the nice people I'd met and was on the #150 public bus across the street and off on the very comfortable and picturesque ride to Salzburg.

Mozart's House

St. Elizabeth and St. Peter's Church Interior

St. Elizabeth and St. Peter's Church Interior Dome

Sculpture and life size chess set outside St. Elizabeth and St. Peter's church

Fountain in church square below castle

I liked the sculpture in front of this museum entrance

Spires of St. Elizabeth and St. Peter's church in the foreground and Franziskanerk Church in the back ground 

Sculptures in the University courtyard

Wonderful shopping street with unique signs hanging above the store entrances

I didn't get to hear the famous chimes of the Glockenspiel (a musical instrument that has a line of flat metal bars of different sizes that are hit with two special sticks.) The famous Glockenspiel Salzburg is located under the tower spire on the west side of the New Residence. It plays its usually well-known melodies daily at 7 and 11 am and 6 pm, for the enjoyment of both residents and tourists. Prince Archbishop Johann Ernst Graf Thun (1687-1709) bought the 35 bells in 1695 from the bell caste r Melchior de Haze in Antwerp. Its gamut ranges over three octaves with all semitones. The Salzburg gunsmith Franz Sulzer and the bell caster Benedict Eisenberger made the drive mechanism and the brass drum in 1702, # in which the court clockmaker Jeremias Sauter then drilled the holes 7.964 required for operation. He is noted as the craftsman mainly responsible for the carillon. The carillon has been playing music since 1704, by now around 40 pieces, Of which 16 are ascribed to Johann Michael Haydn. The music pieces by the Mozarts, father and son, are adaptations from the nineteenth century.

Famous shopping street with unique signs (this is probably the most beautiful McDonald's sign in the world.)

View of Castle

The Max-Reinhardt-Platz recently a ton bronze sculpture was turned off, the by Jörg Immendorff dates (1945-2007) and now wants to be admired. This almost 6 meters high "Affentor" consists of five monkeys figures, "which together playful and combative act. They form in the overall view of a closed form. The motif of monkeys used Immendorff in various sizes and shapes in both its plastic and in his paintings. the monkey stands as a metaphor for self-deprecation, clowning and the artist's role in society. The Rupertinum building facade behind the statue was designed by the famous architect and artist, Friedensreich Hundertwasser who is know for his whimsical and nature oriented designs.

Franziskanerk Church Alter

Franziskanerk Church Alter Gate

Exterior of St. Elizabeth and Peter's Church

We arrived in about an hour and 40 minutes having passed some stunning views of the mountains and a few beautiful small towns nestled among and beneath them.  We stopped shortly in St. Gilgen which is across the lake a bit from St. Wolfgang. What caught my eye as we sat a few minutes waiting for some more passengers were these three tiny cable cars suspended on a wire high above us. Apparently you can take one of these to the top of Zwolfherhorn Mountain. Just looking up at them made me nauseated but I'm sure it's lots of fun and the view is spectacular if you have no fear of heights.

Slovenia from the train

Slovenia from the train

The couple behind me spoke a little English and proceeded to tell me little bits of information about the region and point out interesting views. The husband also pointed out the Red Bull (who knew the famous energy drink was made in Austria) headquarters in the town of Fuschl on Fuschl See (Fuschl Lake.) What makes it so interesting, besides that I had no idea the company wasn't American since I see so many people in New York walking around with the cans daily, is the architecture which allowed for the lake to go into the building and be incorporated into the daily work life of the employees there.

Slovenia from the train

I was in Salzburg by noon and stored my suitcase in a locker and headed out to see the city for a few hours. It was nothing like I expected because there is such a large modern area and the older town center where the churches are and Mozart's house is very small. But I'm glad I had the opportunity to visit and would certainly recommend a day trip to anyone who happens to be in the area and I think if I had had more time I would have visited the Modern museum on the top of the hill.

My train left for Ljubljana at 2:15pm and fortunately it was direct and only four hours and 15 minutes. It was much more crowded than I had imagined but the views all along the route are truly breathtaking and we detached from the front of the train in a fairly large town called Villach and our now only three car long train continued to Slovenia.

Slovenian Sunset in the countryside

Slovenia's countryside resembles Austria's so if it hadn't been for the train change I'm not sure I would have know we had reached a new country. I arrived at the Central hotel which is a quick 5 minute walk from the train station around 6:30pm and dropped off my bags in the room and headed out for something to eat. The front desk also informed me that guests here had complimentary access to the Grand Union Hotel's swimming pool and sauna's which turned out to be very nice. It's their sister hotel and only a about 2 blocks down from here.

After getting a quick bite to eat I headed to the pool and sauna for an hour before coming back to my room. The weather here is comfortable and what I saw of the city thus far is beautiful and I look forward to exploring it tomorrow.

Addition to St. Wolfgang Day Post

Added Note:

The night sky before dinner

The Protestant Church next to the hotel

The evening went by pleasantly with a nice dinner and talking with some lovely Austrian people. There was little 2 and half year old Carlotta and her grandmother who were spending a few days here enjoying the spa. The most adorable little blonde haired, porcelain faced cherub of a child, Carlotta was enjoying her dessert when her grandmother began chatting with me and it turns out little Ms. Carlotta and her grandmother travel together quite a bit when her mother and father (who you might have guessed from the little girls very un-Austrian name is Italian and from Venice) are working in Vienna. In June Carlotta and Oma (grandmother) are off to the Italian seaside for two weeks. You can tell by watching them how happy they are together and it's so sweet to see the little girl spending so much quality time with her grandma.

The dining room

We also chatted with a very handsome Austrian man, Robert who is sadly married but has two beautiful little girls (he shared photos from on his Ipad.) He is here for three weeks because in Austria the spas, including this one, is owned predominately by the Austrian Government. Over 90% of spas are government owned and therefore 

The pool area

Night Sky

Austrians get the treatments prescribed to them as medical necessities. Robert's issue is with his shoulder from years of playing tennis. I think it's fabulous you can get a 3 week spa prescription as your medical cure.

And Robert had met Carlotta and her grandmother the day before when they were all in yoga class and Carlotta apparently sat angelically observing all that was going on as her grandmother performed her yoga poses. What an incredible 2 year old and this morning while at breakfast she came parading behind her grandmother with bread basket from the buffet in hand like it was the crown jewels and her solemn duty to get them to the royal treasury safely.

So then it was time to go back to the spa and I enjoyed more time in the sauna/steam room area and did another one of those special sauna experiences and at the 9:45pm one it was a salt treatment not the alcohol one. The Sauna Master was different as well and he was a very, very large man in every sense of the word and very funny, a real comedian you could tell even though I couldn't understand what he was saying everyone else was hysterical. The Master even sang for us while he prepared the room. There were about 14 of us for this session and several were employees (I think it's great that employees get to use the spa for free) and again we were all shapes, sizes and ages and sitting there on our towel naked  waiting for the heat to over take us and it did. By the end of the 15 minutes we were all moving down from the top bench toward the lower ones because the heat was getting oppressive. 

View of the train station form the hotel and in the right hand lower corner of the picture is the circular Sauna Hut and the outdoor shower area is under the roof with the tiles below.

Everyone, like the first session this afternoon were so friendly and chatting with me when they found out I was American and when they found out I had brought in a small towel with crushed Ice they were hysterical. They have this little crushed ice rock pool where you can slather yourself with the refreshing tiny chunks and I though it might be useful while in the sauna hut and it did but by the time we were ushered out of the hut I was still so grateful to have a reprieve from the dry heat.

Once outside and yes, we were outside, standing under a slight overhanging roof where you have to shower and then the Sauna Master hands us some lavender scented sea salts that everyone rubbed all over them and then we marched back into the sauna hut for another 5 minutes where the Sauna Master did his magical procedures and made the sauna even more sweltering and with a twirl and whipping of his bright yellow towel he moved the heat around the room to ensure that each of us was enveloped in the heat enough to melt the salt and draw out any last, persistent toxin that may be still lingering in our bodies. 

This Sauna Master is actually and award winner and won 3rd place in the Sauna championships here in Austria. Yes, there is a competition for this and I can see where it's really an art form and takes a great deal of skill and precise technique to ensure optimal effects for their sauna clients.

A very sweet man who lives only 20 miles away sat with me in the large salt pool (very much like the water in the Dead Sea) where you just let your now heated muscles to relax and float. He works for a company nearby where that makes the fibers for everything from pampers diapers to tampons to terry cloth towels. He and his friends come about 4 times a year to spend a night here enjoying the spa. Spas are just a part of a Austrian everyday life it seems either in their local town on a smaller level or like one of these specialized ones.  And he was funny, when the group waiting outside the sauna hut for the Master to open the doors found out that I was American I guess they were thinking 'did I realize you have to be naked.' And their assumptions about American's not doing this whole naked spa thing is correct but they all misjudged my varied experience with European spas and I was quite comfortable by now with all this, although the showering in the outdoors with a group of people in the cold was a bit strange and I did pause for a moment looking up at the sky and with light rain coming down on me that 'Wow! How did I get here?!' It really has been surreal in so many ways because I had no idea in my head of any place like this and certainly that I would be doing it on a Wednesday night it March.

e said when we were ascending from the salty pool that you can't shower until morning so the minerals can do their work and make your skin smooth. All I could think is my hair will be like straw but I did as I was instructed because he would know better than me what the best spa practices would be here. Well the man was right. This morning I woke up and my skin felt amazing although my hair looked frightfully so I'm glad I got to take a nice refreshing, hot shower.