We had leisurely morning after a night of light rain. I took a quick run towards town, taking in the Austrian countryside and a riverside path (watching my step)- the river fed into Salzburg's main river, the Salzach. After a shower I sat down next to Ally on the back picnic tables to take in the view of Strazburg below. The owner, a friendly, but serious Austrian dressed in dark chinos and a button up shirt is working away from the garden shed nearby. He begins laying out the garden hose, and as we sip our coffee, rigs his hand power washer. We watch amused- and amazed- as he uses the power washer to spray away the few fallen leaves from the gravel parking lot. As I type on my computer, I'm told to put my one foot, which is tucked under my other leg, back on the ground. Once the leaves are all blown to one side, we hear a small tractor heading toward the lot, with the Austrian host on board, the tractor sucking up the leaves he had just power-washed aside. He keeps this place meticulous. We've had a few good-humoured jokes about appreciating Julia and Phillip's (our German and Austrian classmates) perspectives since staying here. It seems these countries like their structure and order.
With some sandwich wraps in hand, we start the long walk toward town. With the sun beating down at mid-day, temperatures reached upwards of 35degrees. Despite a few wrong turns, we finally made it to Salzburg's old town and enjoyed some local beer and wine in an outdoor courtyard restaurant.
Lunch was followed by a riverside icecream stop before the group split ways for a few hours. We strolled the area, passing by Mozart's birthplace- and therefore every imaginable Motzart memorbilia one could imagine. Ally and I continued upward- via an exceedingly steep climb- to the Salzburg Fortress to take in the panoramic views of the city. The Fortress dates to the eleventh century. As we stood looking to the distant Alps, a group next to Ally was engaged in cheery conversation,
"I would LOVE to live right there!" says a woman in her forties with a British accent, pointing to a small house in the centre of an open field below.
"Really?" says a British man in the group, "There would be no naked sunbathing- and all these tourist would always be looking down on you! Impossible!" The man, dressed in a loose golf shirt and khaki shorts with round-framed semi tinted sunglasses turns to Ally and says, "I don't know, what do YOU think?"
The group of five turns to look at Ally,
"Ohhh, I don't know, I couldn't possibly comment," she says laughing. The group laughs, and as they all take a final scope of the view, they begin to trickle away.
"Where are you from?" asks the man with the glasses.
"I'm from England, and Bonita here is from Canada," says Ally.
"Ahhh, where in Canada?" asks the man with great curiosity.
"About an hour northwest of Toronto," I say.
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"Ah! Well I've spent some time in Toronto," he says with a big grin, "At the Art Gallery of Ontario. We did an exhibit there. Henry Moore. I was his assistant. This was many years ago-"
"Really!" I say keenly, pretending like I knew who Henry Moore was. I glanced at Ally and could tell she was impressed- so much so that I felt I ought to carry on as if I knew who this artist was- if only for the sake of short, friendly conversation with a stranger.
"Oh yes," he goes on, "I haven't been there in years, so haven't seen the completed addition."
Now this was something I knew about, so we chatted briefly about the architectural style of the addition- and other similar "new developments" in the Toronto "art world"- such as the ROM crystal. Suffice to say the conversation was at the boundary of my artistic knowledge.
Following conversation about where he was from in the UK- and his surprise at Ally's lack of Nottingham accent, we parted ways as he headed toward the guard tower of the fortress.
I turn to Ally immediately and ask, "Who is Henry Moore?"
"Ohhh he's one of England's most famous artists- he does sculptures. He has work all over the UK- and the world. We had three copper sculptures at Loughborough and we had to hide them away when copper prices went up because copper was becoming so valuable- people had started to steal pieces of his work elsewhere in the country."
Right. I'd have to look this guy up.
It wasn't until later in the evening that I learned that we were not in a castle, as we had both thought, but rather a fortress. With neither of this type or scale existing in Canada, I was impressive all the same.
We wander back down to the old town to meet the boys and find some dinner. Lonely Planet led us to Zum Wieden Mann, where we tried more goulash and schnitzel in yet another lovely outdoor courtyard. Over dinner Ally and I shared our story of encountering Henry Moore's assistant on top of the castle (what a sentence...). As per usualy, Paul whips out the iPhone to enhance our storytelling by bringing up pictures of his work... He flashes me the screen.
"OH MY GOODNESS!" I say in shock.
"I've stood next to that one!" I say. Paul had shown me this photo- a fairly prominent piece of work right of from of the AGO at the corner of Dundas and McCaul. How NEAT!
Wanting to take in a bit more of the city before returning to our campsite, we headed back up toward the Fortress where Costas led us to a massive restaurant/beer house offering a great view of the city. We sat outside on the massive patio area, and as we sipped our Stiegl, a party of about 12 people noisily made their way to our area. We soon realised they were a wedding party- only it seemed to be just the bride and the groomsmen.
"What is going on?" I ask.
We watch on curiously, as they begin singing a range of German drinking songs. Soon enough the bride was standing on a stool gulping glasses of wine. What a wedding. It wasn't until nearly forty minutes later that the rest of the wedding party arrived- by ritual or delayed cars- when the bride and groom climbed onto the main table- with chairs set on top- and sat back to back. An MC of sorts had the surrounding wedding guests silent, as well as a few of us on-lookers. We took in the scene, eagerly trying to guess what on earth was being said,
"Is THIS the wedding ceremony?" asks Paul, laughing.
The MC says something to the exicted crowd as we look on...
"Oh! They've taken off their shoes," says Ally excitedly. "Now they've swapped," she goes on...."But now what?"
"Maybe they'll drink out of their shoes!" says Costas.
"Surely not!" replies Paul.
We watched as the MC read aloud, with the bride and groom occassionaly lifting up on of the shoes- theirs, or that of the new husband/wife. Whenever they weren't both lifting the same shoe, they drank.
"Bonita, I think this is your kind of wedding," says Paul jokingly.
"I think he's asking them questions," says Ally, "You know, like, who has the smelly socks and who leaves their pants on the floor, and then the bride and groom vote using their shoes!"
This was certainly the most plausible of explanations we had, particularly since contradicting votes drew great laughter from the crowd. Whatever game was being played- we soaked it up. Many of the women in the crowd were dressed in traditional dress, alongside a group of three musicians playing drums and accordian. The group clapped, cheered and sung along over the course of nearly an hour before filing out to their next destination.
As we took the last sips of our beer, we look beyond the mountains in the distance to see flashes of lightening and before we knew it rain was pouring down. After a day of hot sun, our clothesline full of laundry would be soaked and our hour long walk home would be chilly. We hopped in a cab and enjoyed the insights and entertainment of a lively driver named Heibr, a native of Salzburg. In his fiercely german accent, Heibr told us about how he is now retired, but used to buy and sell antiques. He used a massive warehouse to store his antiques, but it was burned to the ground in 1991 and "caust mee milliuns". According to Heibr, Salzburg was founded in the 700s by Holy Rupert, a rich archibishop. The city of approximately 150,000 people is home to the first constructed church in the surrounding German-speaking countries (according to Heibr). When Heibr found out that Ally and Paul were both British, he dove into his stories of his long-ago visit to England, where he found the rather standard Humber Bridge to be "absolutely great!"
Paul leans over to me and says quietly, "I've never seen someone so excited about the Humber bridge before!"
We pulled into the campsite as the rain continued to pour down. I had foolishly left the air vent open on the top of the tent that Ally and I shared- so when we safely arrived back at camp in the pouring rain, it was a frenzy to get our clothes off the line and into the mechanical dryers and to dry my down sleeping bag under the toilet hand dryer. Camping.
Despite a wet ending, the relaxed day was a perfect taste of the small city- with warm sunshine, tasty food, and fascinating history.
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