Austria 1995

(Except Vienna, Salzburg, Melk, and Hallstatt)

We entered Austria from Passau, Germany, then stopped in a little town and were happy the ATM liked our Master Card. But when the machine took so much longer than I thought necessary to dispense the money, I left, thinking the machine wasn’t working. An honest Austrian, using the machine next, hollered for me, and gave me the cash.

At one place, while stopped next to a lake for lunch, a man asked for directions. I always supply directions, even if I have no idea where they are going, and nobody has ever complained the next day. When I learned this man had been a Vice President of IBM, in Argentina, we talked for a few minutes, amazing each other with memories of the olden days, when computers were really computers, and not these little wimpy things that are a million times more powerful, a million times smaller, and a million times less expensive.

At one place along the Autobahn, a sign said something about the song “Stille Nacht.” so we spent a couple of hours trying to find what they were “signing” about. In Wagrain they said, go to St. Johann. In St. Johann, they said go to Wagrain.

We finally found a cemetery with a sign at the gate telling about a man named “Joseph Mohr” who wrote “Silent Night” in December 1818, but we found nothing else. We did get interesting pictures of the Austrian countryside, of course.

An Austrian lady we talked to at the cemetery said she had managed to escape from East Germany, just before the Russians came, at the end of WW II. She said that in later years, when the church bells rang in her town, it meant the Russian soldiers were coming for the women. One of her friends had hid in a chimney one time, but then killed herself rather than again be subject to their brutality. Had we transcribed all such stories we have heard, in all parts of Europe, what a book it would make.

It finally stopped raining, but since we could see fresh snow in the Austrian mountains in late-June, we decided to head south ‘till the sun shines, and the sun really did shine in Venice, Italy. The toll was nearly $20, almost twice what it cost in 1988 to drive through the Katschbergtunnel and the Tauerntunnel. But this is not the time to drive over the mountains.