Gute Nacht aus Österreich

We made it from Strasbourg to Salzburg last night, and it’s delightful here. We’re a step closer to getting some of our data/internet issues sorted out, which is also delightful. Some hilarious hijinks ensued along the way, which I’ll share later. For now, I just wanted to say hello from Austria.

Hello!

It’s so pretty here!

Austria is the part of the trip Charlie has been especially looking forward to, and it’s been so fun to see his enjoyment of this place and to hear him use his German.

This afternoon, we saw a marionette performance of The Magic Flute at the Salzburg Marionette Theatre. The puppeteers were amazing and the music was beautiful, of course, though our sons were both outraged that it was recorded and not live (Bonnie Kidd, I’m putting that note in here for you, because I thought you would both approve of and get a kick out of their discriminating tastes!). The music was also abridged (to make the show short – it was about an hour). It was also, of course, in German. There were no supertitles, but every now and then, a single sentence of narrative explanation would flash up on the wall in six languages. It was a little confusing – one of my sons said it was like being in a fever dream – but I got a kick out of it.

We also went to the Salzburg Cathedral, where Mozart was baptized and where he spent two years as organist. There are five pipe organs in this cathedral, and I managed to capture them all in a panorama shot (though you can’t see the one on the west end as well as the ones on the four corners of the transept):

This is the first baroque cathedral we’ve visited. With four pun-loving Dukes in one baroque space, you can imagine how many times we said some variation of the old “if it ain’t baroque, don’t fix it” joke. (Okay, I’ll confess – two of us won’t stop saying this, and it’s not the two teenagers.)

I’m trying to write just a short post tonight, so I’ll stop there except to say this: if you are ever in Salzburg, make sure to try the Salzburger Nockerl!