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June 28, Ortisei Day 7
The moment you first feel that your trip is soon to end is … a moment. It can give rise to philosophical musing if inclined. Give rise to reflections about what travel does to you: to yourself, to your intimacies… Continue reading
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June 26, Ortisei Day 5
Today might be considered a lesson in aged traveling. We stayed “in” all day; never left the hotel. We looked at our accumulated photos from our trip and reminisced to each other about remembered and misremembered sights and scenes and… Continue reading
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June 27, Ortisei Day 6
As we look out from our balcony, everything has a special sparkle from last night’s rain. Each day the menu includes a saying. Here is today’s. We decide at breakfast to motor east to a town named Selva where we’ll… Continue reading
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June 25, Ortisei Day 4
We take bus 360 with our free Gardena Mobile Pass — different than the pricey lift pass of same name — from the Ortisei town center bus station to Santa Christina and then a free white shuttle van — bit… Continue reading
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June 24, Ortisei Day 3
Drive to place suggested by Cliff and Nadine: Selva Wolkenstein, more commonly named Dantercepies after the walking trail (Selva is Ladin; Wolkenstein is German). It’s the highest village in the Val Gardena. Free parking right under the gondola lift and… Continue reading
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June 23, Ortisei Day 2
We’re happy to see the breakfast buffet has not changed since last year: basically, just about anything you could want except Eggs Benedict. Satisfied, we walk into town to get our Gardena Pass 6-day lift tickets and find we have… Continue reading
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June 22, Salzburg to Ortisei
We pack, we get Eggs Benedict, we get our car with ease and leave town, aiming for the medieval, unbombed town of Hall. But we have to get gas so we stop and David tries his card at the pump,… Continue reading
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June 21, Salzburg Day 3
Eggs Benedict perfectly prepared begins the day. Cynthia and I set off on a Rick Steves self-guided walk through town and across the river into Steingasse – a narrow cobbled lane of houses preserved from medieval times, including an old… Continue reading
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June 20, Salzburg Day 2
When you stay in a hotel whose free breakfast includes perfectly prepared Eggs Benedict, you know you’ve chosen the right place. We are reluctant to leave the breakfast room but must to find Johannes, our “free walking tour” guide for… Continue reading
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June 19, Hallstatt to Salzburg
Today, we are aiming for Hellbrunn Palace on the outskirts of Salzburg. The drive is easy and we arrive around time for Cynthia to find yet another calorific confection to fuel her foray through the relatively small and intimate palace… Continue reading
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June 18, Spitz to Hallstatt
Bernadette is REALLY looking forward to the three-lake boat tour we have heard about, and is game to see the world-famous salt mine you enter from the top of a funicular at the edge of town. We pack the car… Continue reading
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June 17, Spitz Day 3
The heat wave that is blistering Western Europe cannot quash our travel jones soooo … up and at ‘em after breakfast: we load into the trusty Skoda and skoddadle to Durnstein, notable for being a small, well preserved early medieval… Continue reading
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June 16, Spitz Day 2
We caffeinate while making plans to do laundry later and explore Melk and its abbey, which are a brief drive down the road we take after wiping out an ATM we find after a bit of wandering in Spitz. The… Continue reading
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June 15, Vienna to Spitz
We leave the apartment, distribute refuse in the various places the myriad categories of refuse must go, and rattle along several blocks to the metro we take out of town to the Sixte. A young, pretty and extremely helpful woman… Continue reading
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June 14, Vienna Day 6
We are up and out pretty rikky-tick quick to meet Monica at the Leopold Museum located behind the Kunsthistoriches-dominated Museum Quarter. (Ie. Tram D.) This place is Mecca for Viennese art nouveau and the Expressionists. We’re talking Klimt’s Death and… Continue reading
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June 13, Vienna Day 5
We wake in a bit of a lazy mood ‘cause we don’t have anything to do before arriving at the Opera house at 11:00 for another chamber music concert and the trip takes at most a half hour. So we… Continue reading
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June 12, Vienna Day 4
Wake at 8 and caffinate in a bit of a rhyming rush ‘cause we have 9:45 tickets to see the Belvedere this morning: the large “guest house and entertaining space” above the smaller 25,000 square foot living quarters of Johann… Continue reading
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June 11, Vienna Day 3
David makes coffee for Bernadette and self while Cynthia sleeps. When she wakes, she makes herself breakfast and immediately shifts into max-plan mode, which can be her scariest metaphysical state: What when where, for how long, at what cost, buy… Continue reading
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June 10, Vienna Day 2
Wednesday begins with strong caffeine and sunshine glancing intermittently through gray sky. Interestingly, the apartment’s canister of sugar has several vanilla beans in it, which blooms a lovely aroma. The refrigerator: not so much: though it is totally empty, it… Continue reading
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June 9, Vienna Day 1
Occasionally when you travel, there’s no place to go but up. Getting to Vienna yesterday began with our direct flight on Austrian Air being cancelled at 9 a.m.. We were shoved into an Italian Air flight to Rome with a… Continue reading
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Two Tramps 