We started the day with breakfast at the hotel then headed out on a walking tour of Salzburg. It's a beautiful city. We headed through the tunnel through the mountain. On the other side was the old stables for the royal family. They have been turned into a concert hall. The fountain with the horse statue and horse pictures and ramps into either side was the horse bath. I loved it. We saw the concert hall where the VonTrapp family sang before escaping into the mountains in "Sound of Music" and in real life. Although in the movie they climb the mountains on foot. In reality, they rode the train.
We went through a monastery with one of the oldest restaurants ever and looked at their cemetery.
We went up the cable car to the Fortress on the mountain in the middle of the city. The view was great from up there.
Next, we went back down the cable car and through the city to the Mozarthaus. It was where Mozart was born. He only had 4 rooms in the building and most of his brothers and sisters died as children.
We had a few minutes for lunch. Kip and I joined Jo (clarinet), Mihail (flute), Cara (bassoon) and Emily (her daughter) and went to the Mozart Cafe. I had a salad with turkey and a great dressing. With another few minutes to spare, we ran off to find an ATM and bought a bunny backpack for Becca.
We made it back just in time to join the group on the trek back to the bus to ride to Bad Ischl. The countryside around Salzburg was absolutely gorgeous! There were pristine deep blue lakes surrounded by lush green fields and trees. I think Intel should build a site there and transfer Kip. As we drove, Julia told us things about the countryside. One of the little towns we went through was the birthplace of Mozart's mother, so he vacationed there a lot as a child.
Bad Ischl was a cute small town. We found the St Nikolaus church and set up for rehearsal. It was a tough venue because of the echo from the high ceilings and stone walls. But it was a lot of fun. The church was beautiful.
We had another group dinner at a local restaurant. Most people had some sort of meatball and fries. Barbara and I had the GF version - a pork loin and fries. It was OK. We skipped out before dessert - I gave Kip mine.
Before performing our concert we helped in the presentation of mass. We sat in our seats through the ceremony, the pastor standing behind me and Phyllis. Guy and Kip said the pastor stood with his hands outstretched just above Phyllis and my heads like he was blessing us in particular. We have no idea what he was saying - it was in German. They said a few things in English for our benefit, but other than that the only thing we could understand was the "Lord's Prayer". And we all kept falling asleep. My head jerked down once and I was embarrassed enough to keep me awake for a while after that. Then, I resorted to pinching myself to try to keep awake. I wasn't the only one.
I think I look very attentive in this picture. This was from the rehearsal, before we ate dinner and started falling asleep in the service.
The concert went really well. It was a ton of fun to play there and the audience seemed thrilled with us. At the end of the concert the people clapped and clapped. We ended up doing 2 encores. But the second one was a little rocky. We hadn't planned on playing it that night (I think it was American Salute) and a lot of people didn't have it on their stands. The cellos were making it up the whole time. And someone's stand fell apart during the performance. It was pretty funny.
After finishing, we packed up and headed out in a thunderstorm. The lightning was amazing and I got soaked running back and forth between the bus and church in the rain.
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