On the Road Again

I've had a busy week of travel this past week, first to western Austria and southern Germany, where I revisited the town of Lindau, the place I had lived with a German family during my high school years. For me it was an emotional visit, since both of my "German parents" have died since last I was there. Their children have all moved away to other parts of Germany now, but I was able to find the cemetery where Herr & Frau Hümmer are buried, and had a chance to decorate their graves. I also revisited their old house, which is owned by somebody else now, and after chatting with the owner walked my old path to the downtown part of Lindau, which is on an island in Lake Constance (the Bodensee, in German) that is connected to the shore by a causeway. It's a gorgeous place, with the Alps visible in the distance across the lake.

The house I had lived in with the Hümmer's family, in Lindau, Germany.



Then I had the chance of a lifetime to go on a flight of the Zeppelin! I have been a Zeppelin nut for quite a few years now, collecting memorabilia and books about the "Graf Zeppelin" and "Hindenburg," the giant zeppelins of the 1920's and '30's. The Zeppelin company is still in business in Friedrichshafen, Germany, a town just 15 miles up the lakeshore from Lindau, and they have been flying a new version of the Zeppelin which is thankfully powered by helium now, and not hydrogen. I had wanted for a long time to take a spin on the new Zeppelin, and so had made a reservation for a one hour flight that would take me over Lake Constance and the island town of Lindau. It was a 7 hour train trip from Vienna, where I've been staying, to the Lake Constance region, and so I made a weekend trip out of it. Wouldn't you know it, the day I was there to fly on the Zeppelin, it rained, and my flight was canceled, due to the bad weather. What luck I have! But then the weather improved and they were able to reschedule me on a flight the next day. So I had just enough time to do the flight and rush back to Bregenz, Austria where I caught the train back to Vienna with 5 minutes to spare. That was last Monday, 9/21.

I kind of look like the mooring mast for the Zeppelin in this shot, but the guy I asked to take it of me was nice to do it!

The strangest sensation of riding in the Zeppelin was to take off and land. It just lifts off, kind of like a flying saucer, and hovers back down when you land. The propellers drone loudly while the stern sways with the breeze, since only the nose of the Zeppelin is attached to a mooring mast or literally held down by one man who hangs on to the mooring line.

"Up Up and Away," into the wild blue yonder in the Zeppelin.



On Tuesday, 9/22, my mother arrived in Vienna for a week's visit. She and I are now in Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, and are headed today to Opatija, Croatia, at the top of the Dalmatian Coast on the Adriatic. We have rented a car from Vienna, and stopped on the way yesterday at Hochosterwitz Castle in southern Austria, and at Lake Bled in the Julian Alps of Slovenia. Both places were dramatically beautiful, and the weather cooperated for us. Our plan from Croatia is to drive back north via Trieste, Italy and then over the Austrian Alps via the Gross Glockner high alpine road. I'll catch up with you again once we get back to Vienna.

This is Lake Bled, in Slovenia. This little pilgrimage church sits on an island in the middle of the lake, and it's one of the most beautiful places I think I have ever seen!

A Week of Culture in Vienna and Surroundings

I've had a busy couple of days this week pursuing lots of cultural, musical and historical endeavors. Went to see Mozart's "Die Zauberflöte" on Monday night at the Vienna State Opera. It was an incredible performance, and the setting in the gilded halls of the Opera House make it even that much more impressive.

This is a view from my seat on the third level of loges.

Curtain call of the "Zauberflöteæ cast. Pagageno is the guy in green.

I also visited the museum of my favorite composer of operettas, Franz Lehar, where I had a private guided tour of his villa and got to see the original manuscripts of his many operettas, including "The Merry Widow." This was like spending a morning in heaven for me!


Portrait of Franz Lehar, with his conductor's baton.


Then yesterday I went to the small town of Mikulov, in the Czech Republic, about a two hour train trip away from Vienna. Mikulov has wonderful baroque era architecture, as well as a haunting history of having been a pre-War cultural center of Judaism in Moravia for centuries, without any Jews being left living there when the war was over. I visited the one remaining former synagogue.

Miulov, from the top of a medieval era tower.

Interior of the Upper Synagogue in Mikulov, CZ

At one time there were 12 synagogues in the town, with a Jewish population of 3,500. I also wandered around the Jewish cemetery and hiked north out of the town into the rolling hills of Moravia, the Czech Republic's easternmost state.


Gravestones in the Jewish Cemetery in Mikulov

Today it was rainy, so I spent part of the afternoon at the Austrian Military History Museum, here in Vienna, seeing lots of fascinating things, like the car in which Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie were assassinated in June 1914, the event that touched off World War I. To be in the presence of so much history, all in one place, is truly amazing.

The actual car in which Franz Ferdinand and his wife were assassinated. in 1914.


This doesn't even begin to tell you about all the other stuff I've been doing. I have enjoyed getting to know some of the people of the Vienna Community Church congregation, and some of them are inviting me to dinner in their homes and to meet them for coffee in Viennese cafes. I also spent an evening with a guy from the congregation at a Viennese "heuriger" wine garden in Heiligenstadt, in a house where Beethoven once lived. So I am literally "drinking in" Viennese culture. It's a tough assignment, but somebody's got to do it!

An Update from Vienna

Well, I'm settling into my sabbatical routine here in Vienna. I get up each morning, fix myself breakfast, and go to the internet cafe to check messages. I've attended two operettas so far, seeing Lehar's "Land of Smiles" in Bad Ischl on Aug. 29 and Johann Strauss's "Zigeunerbaron" in Baden on Sept. 6. Both were excellent performances. I also have been walking around Vienna, taking lots of pictures and I hiked in the Vienna Woods yesterday.



I'm going to hear the Vienna Choir Boys this Sunday at the mass they sing for in the Hofburg Kapelle in the center of the city, and then also at a Friday afternoon concert at the Musikverein. Also will attend the Staatsoper's performance of "Die Zauberflöte" on Sept. 14. So I'm immersed in music here in the city of music!



I also attended church this past Sunday at the Vienna Community Church, an ecumenical congregation of English-speakers from all over the world who are living or visiting here in Vienna. It's a congregation that "nests" in the Evangelische Kirche of Vienna, in the Inner City, and I found it very friendly and a great place to meet people when you're a stranger and a foreigner in this somewhat forbidding and overwhelming city. The worship service at the "VCC" made me appreciate our worship services at House of Hope all the more, but I would say that the Vienna Community Church is a very friendly and welcoming congregation that could teach us a thing or two about making visitors feel genuinely at home.

After a stenuous hike in the Vienna Woods yesterday, I wound up taking the bus back down the hill and having dinner in a "Heuriger," a restaurant in the Grinzing district of Vienna where they serve the "new wine," (a heady vintage), and where they have roving musicians playing wonderfully schmalzy Viennese music. I loved it! They even played my request of Emmerich Kalman's operetta melodies. I was in Seventh Heaven! Of course the new wine helped!