Back in the U.S.A.
16 hours of travel, several planes and trains (but no automobiles), and we're back in California. It's good to be home because I'm exhausted and ready to sit still for a few days, but it is also sad to be home because I/we were just getting the hang of Vienna when it was time to turn around and come back.You'll forgive me for not writing much this evening. I have to force myself to stay up for another couple hours to go to bed at regular California bedtime, but my brain isn't functioning well and I am not confident that anything I write will actually make sense. I think I'll catch up on my blog reading, maybe get an episode of Mad Men in and then get ready for some good sleep.
Let me just say that we did have a great trip. We saw lots, did lots and met lots of people. To all my new Vienna friends ~ hello and thanks again! It was so lovely to meet you.
More tomorrow. Promise.
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5 comments:
Welcome home :)
Look forward to reading about your impressions!
Gruss Gott !
You're back! Thankfully you made it around the volcanic dust cloud. Will you allow me to recommend a book that you need to read written by a Hungarian author? It is a book that you won't be able to put down. Don't read the reviews because it will give away the secret of the story. It's especially poignant because there are still schlosses (a kind of giant, mansion castle) there, nearby Vienna, just like in the book. The book takes place in Vienna and in schlosses. I tell you this part without giving away the shocking and extremely interesting plot. Sometimes the schloss, as in the book, is so big and so expensive to maintain, that the schloss appears to be empty, the owners long gone. I was a tourist, having just walked through Carnuntum (not far from Vienna), the old Roman capital city where Marcus Aurelius lauched his invasion of 'Germany' as depicted in the movie 'Gladiator'. Vienna is mentioned in the movie. They called it Vindabona, the Roman camp that is now under the streets of Central Vienna near Stephensplatz. I went right through Canrnuntum walking, through the ruins. I wanted to see how far away the Danube had moved since the Roman ships had supplied Carnuntum directly. After about two hundred metres, I came upon the schloss, right next to the river. You can enter the enclosed courtyard through the wide open gate, and there are other open arched entrances inside the courtyard itself where you might see the trophy antlers on the walls from hunts in 1935, 1924 and 1908. Another doorway, which you daren't enter appears to lead to the grand ballroom it's deserted, but through the windows you see ghosts in the shadows. Are those long tables is that a large mirror on one wall? But it's really hard to tell. Finally, you walk around the grounds; the foundation is so old that you wonder if this is one of the castles that got burned down in 1683 during the Turkish invasion and was later rebuilt.
You hesitate, you don't enter because it is after all private property. And if someone says something in your exploration, be prepared to say with a big smile: 'Es tut mir leid. Ich bin tourist !' The other reason you don't enter,as sometimes happens with ruins, tunnels and pits across Europe in places like Pompeii and many others in Europe, is the place is dilapidated, portions of this castle are in semi ruin. Doors are about to break off. A floor of the building, or a portion of it, appears to be sagging, and it would really be too bad to fall through a floor or get lost in a tunnel and become a permanent part of the display at the site for a courageous explorer to find in the soon or distant future. We must take care and know our limits. Finally, you come to a corner of the castle. You stop in your tracks. There is a fenced in plot with a garden,a door with a buzzer. A secret garden ...and in banal shock - when compared to the castle's exotic past - a postbox with a name on it is spotted. One tiny portion of the castle is occupied! That is why that book is so poignant. There is nothing like seeing that literature is sometimes real. Get this book. Once you pick it up, you won't be able to put it down. Remember, don't read the reviews or the story description: it might give away the secret, the secret that keeps you turning the page in earnest desire to find out what on earth the author is talking about!
Go here and order it if you like:
http://www.amazon.com/Embers-S%C3%A1ndor-M%C3%A1rai/dp/0375707425/ref=sr_1_1/188-0452448-7459303?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1273985300&sr=8-1
Another book to read is 'A time of Gifts' by Sir Patrick Leigh Fermor which describes his walking tour through Europe and Vienna and Bratislava in 1933-1934. Something I have had the pleasure of doing. A heartwarming story. Incredibly, he is still alive. I wrote him, this ancient British knight, trying to figure out some of the trails or streets he described in old Pressburg/Bratislava. With these books, you can continue your delightful and enchanting journey,even while in the US of A. Kerry Philpott
You've got me intrigued! And the best news is that my library (I work in a library) has a copy of Embers, so it'll be there waiting for me when I go back to work this week. Thank You!!
Bitte sehr ! KP
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