Trick water fountains at Hellbrunn Palace

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Schloss Hellbrunn, in Austria, was today's highlight, not only because of this famous gazebo, but because we loved all the trick water fountains and water-driven gimmicks. We also went to two Bavarian resort towns, to where Franz Gruber lived, and on a long, harrowing drive through the mountains to sight see and scare Janet.

We had a leisurely morning. I walked across the street to a bakery and bought a true decadent pastry, a marzipan roulade. The coffee pot worked fine (after the initial spill because I hadn't closed the lid completely). Eventually we drove to Inzell, on the Deutsche Alpenstrasse, and walked around on another Kaiserwetter day.

We thought this fountain and courtyard were pretty. We walked a short distance to visit the St Michael's Church, founded in 1190, and were impressed as usual. We saw the huge world-class ice skating rink that I had read about in the 7-Eleven bicycling team story, where team founder Jim Ochowitz skated in 1971 and saw what it would take for a cycling team to compete on the world stage.

 

We then drove a short distance to Rupholding, and got out of the car only long enough to look at this attractive Rathaus with its Lüftlmalerei (wall paintings).

Onto the autobahn we went, back into Austria just south of Salzburg to Schloss Hellbrunn. It was built as a summer "day" residence for Salzburg's Archbishop Marcus Sitticuss in 1612. So much for a Catholic priest's vow of destitution. Because this elaborate mansion was meant merely as a day's escape from Salzburg, it has no bedroom! But Marcus had a sense of humor, as we'll see (for one thing, his uncle was the archbishop who had 15 children with his mistress).

The first thing we needed was lunch. Too many tour buses meant the cafe was booked, so we went to the take-out counter and ordered the only thing on the menu - weinerwurst mit brot. And, as you can see, beer. Then our tour finally started, and the guided part was only of the gardens with its trick water fountains and water-powered grottoes.

Here was the first trick fountain. When a servant would open the valve, everyone seated at the table would get drenched, other than the host seated on the end, nearest the camera. It turns out the gardens have dozens of fountains that the servants, and our tour guide, would suddenly turn on to surprise and drench visitors.

These fountains came on just as we all were exiting that grotto against the wall. Interestingly, flowing water (by gravity) was the power source for all sorts of moving figures and mechanical theaters throughout the grounds.

For example, in this theater are hundreds of figures all working harmoniously in a village. Once the guide turned on the water valve, all the figures came to life and moved around "doing their thing". Here's a close up:

See all those figures? Hard to believe that water-turned axles and belts make all of them move. We also went into two grottoes where there were birds singing and calling, produced, again, by water-powered bellows. It was amazing what they'd done in those gardens.

Janet and I then toured the actual palace, the one with no bedroom. After that, we walked down to see the Sound of Music gazebo. I sang for Janet the song they did in that gazebo, "You are 62 going on 63, fellas will fall in line..." Ha! The gazebo was brought there following the movie's filming in 1964.

Our next stop was a short distance south in Hallein, to see Franz Gruber's birthplace and museum. We got to it after it had closed, but we took several photos:

That building is Gruber's home and the museum. It's covered with plaques, such as the Stille Nacht plate in the top photo above.

This inscription tells Gruber's story and about this house.

His grave is right there in the front yard as well.

Here is a better photo of all the wall plaques and the grave. As we walked back toward the car, we inquired at a tourist shop where the church was located where Silent Night was first performed. We were told it was in Oberndorf, north of Salzburg on the Salzach River. We looked it up on the map, and it was too far away to drive to, although we had passed right by it when we drove from Burghausen to Salzburg.

Hallein is known mostly for its history in salt. "Hall" means "salt" in Celtic, and it was mined here back to prehistoric times. Salt was known as White Gold, and brought wealth to this area for many centuries. Rich Hess and I took a salt mine tour here in 1971.

Instead of just driving straight back to Bad Reichenhall, we drove a big clockwise loop around and below the chuck of Germany (Berchtesgaden National Park) that sticks downward into Austria. We first continued south through the Salzach River valley, looking up to the Rossfeld panorama where we had been looking down the previous Sunday morning. When we got onto the road going westward, it was small and very winding. Apparently I was going too fast around all the curves, because Janet later admitted how scared she was during this drive. Eventually we got to Saalfelden to head north, and the road flattened out and she felt much better.

As we passed through Bad Reichenhall, we pulled off the highway to find a restaurant. We knew the pickings were slim, but decided to try again. We did find a hotel restaurant that was open, and ate outside.  We enjoyed our dinners, which included tossed salads! Back at the apt, I uploaded some photos onto Facebook postings for the first time on this trip, so that friends/family could see us at Oktoberfest and some other places.