On July 1st we moved into the Gulfport Municipal Marina and prepared the boat as best we could for any tropical storms or hurricanes that might occur while we were away. Fortunately, there were no storms while we were away! :-)
On July 5th we took a taxi to Tampa airport and a flight to JFK airport in New York City. Then a loooong flight to Vienna, Austria. Linda's son, Rob, met us there and we spend two days in Vienna. Vienna was a nice clean city, lots of very ornate and architecturally beautiful old buildings. The people were friendly and helpful and the food was very good. Of course, we don't speak German but there were lots of people who spoke English so we did fine. We toured the Museum of Natural History which was very nice and located in one of the beautiful old palaces of the Austrian Empire.
Linda and Rob in Vienna:
Museum of Natural History in Vienna:
We then took a 3 hour train ride from Vienna to Salzburg. Salzburg is the birthplace of Mozart and the location where the "Sound of Music" was filmed. We had a nice hotel there. Salzburg is a beautiful town, scenic, located in the foothills of the Alps with the higher Alps visible off in the distance. We took a 4 hour bus tour of some of the locations where the "Sound of Music" was filmed. It got us out of the city and into the lake district. Lots of nice hills, lakes and scenery and smaller villages. We had lunch in Mondsee, a small village with the church where Maria and the Captain were married in the "Sound of Music". Linda had struddel and ice cream!!!
Here are a few photos in Salzburg:
The higher Alps off in the distance:
View of Salzburg taken from the castle on the hill:
Linda, her son Rob and me on the Sound of Music tour:
The cathedral in Mondsee:
Mirabelle Gardens one of the locations in the Sound of Music movie:
The next day we took about a 5 or 6 hour train ride to Brno in the Czech Republic where Rob lives. We found a fairly decent hotel for the week. Breakfast is included with most hotel rooms over there but we were not particularly happy with it. Otherwise, the rest of our meals were good, although we did tend to eat in Italian, Chinese or international restaurants or at McDonalds or KFC. You may have noticed that Czech restaurants are not abundant in the U.S.A. for some reason! But we did have some good Czech and German cuizine also. For the next 5 days Linda was able to spend time with Rob, shopping and hanging out while I toured the sights of Brno.
I visited the crypt (basement) of the Capuchin church to see the dead, decomposed, mummified bodys of the monks and patrons of the church (I will spare you the photos of that!!!). In the 17th century they just put the bodies on the dirt floor of the basement and let them rot! Seriously! All the tourists have to go see it.
I also found out that the Abbey where Gregor Mendel, the "Father of Genetics", had his garden and lab where he did his experiments with pea plants was in Brno. He was not Czech but was a German monk who was sent there to teach and be a priest. Since Amy is a Molecular Biologist and I was a Microbiology major in college, I had to make a "pilgramage" there just like a "Towel Head" has to make a pilgramage to Mecca once in their lifetime!
I also climbed the hill to see the Spilberk Castle which is one of the major attractions in Brno. I saw enough old buildings to last me for awhile. One unusual sight in the central square of Brno was a big sandbox with palm trees in pots and beach chairs with Czechs pretending they were actually at a beach with palm trees. I, of course, dubbed it the Czech "litter box". They don't call this a Slobic country for nothing. (Yes, yes, I know it is really Slavic but Slobic is more accurately descriptive!).
Linda and me in the central square of Brno:
On our final day we took a train about a half hour outside of Brno to the Moravsky Kras area to see the caverns. The tour involved a walking tour of the caverns with the stalagtites and stalamites and a boat ride through the caves on an underground river. Since Linda had never seen caverns before, she was blown away! I had been to Carlsbad Cavern and other caverns before but these were very nice caverns and well worth the trip.
The next day we left Brno for a bus ride back to Vienna. The bus was stopped before the border by Czech police who checked our passports (NO smiling by the police!) and then we were detained at the Austrian boarder by Austrian police who made us very nervous by taking our passports off the bus! Twenty minutes later the bus started moving and there was a moment of panic until we saw that the stewardess on the bus had a stack of passports and was trying to return them. We got them back and finally escaped from behind the former Iron Curtain, back to Vienna, Austria. There we stayed in a very nice modern hotel right across from the airport terminal. The next day we took the loooong flight back to New York City. We were very happy to be back in the U.S.A., although I, of course, have always considered New York City to be a foreign country! But we could mostly understand what the New Yorkers were saying when they "two-walk" (i.e., "talk").
A 3 hour shuttle bus ride and we arrived at Amy's house to see the two most precious little girls in the world standing in the doorway holding a banner they had made welcoming us home with pictures of our boat, palm trees, a beach and sandcastles! Lots of love and hugs!
We spent a wonderful week with Amy, Mark, Olivia and Laura. Olivia was in a music/theater camp in the afternoons. We attended the play she was in, 101 Dalmations, in which she played a Chihuahua and sang in the chorus and danced as one of the Dalmations. She was very good and very excited about it all. We played lots of games with the girls, took them shopping for school clothes and school supplies, went to a 50s/60s band concert one evening, and just enjoyed being with them as usual. It was HOT while we were there, 103 degrees one day! MUCH hotter than Florida ever gets!!
Olivia (in the center) in her play:
Yesterday, July 24th, we flew back to Florida, back to Enchantress. She had faired well while we were away but "Little One", our dinghy, was full of water and half sunk from the rain from thunderstorms. As Linda says, I went into "Sherman Mode" which is fast forward, Energizer Bunny, perpetual motion until everything was back in order with the boat while she unpacked. :-)
We have no plans for anymore foreign travel and very, very happy to be back in the good old U.S.A. where I can speak and understand the language and no longer have to play the part of a deaf-mute!! :-)
We will be cruising around the Tampa, Clearwater, Sarasota and Bradenton areas for the remainder of the summer. Will try to update the blog monthly.
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