The hills are alive...Salzburg/Bavaria Day 3 & 4

....with 40 degree weather, pouring rain, and freezing cold ACU students!

SATURDAY, we spent the entire day in Salzburg, Austria. It was a great day! (Minus the cold weather and rain.) Jenny, Rebecca, Laura, and I set out on our little adventure.

Umbrellas were definitely a necessity all day long...

We visited the Festung Hohensalzburg, or the Hohensalzburg Fortress, a huge and gorgeous castle that looks over the entire city of Salzburg.

The view from the top of the castle.

There were lots of artifacts in the museum but there were 3 exhibits that I really liked:

1. These are iron sculpted soldiers in fighting stance. I have never seen a display like this, and it was really cool!

2. An old ceramic oven. The colors were so vivid.

3. A flashback to the old days - an ancient bassoon! (For those of you who don't know, as nerdy as it may be, I used to play the bassoon in middle school and high school.) Seeing this made me miss playing!

After the castle, we went to see the nearby Catacombs, located inside a gorgeous cemetery. Each grave was overflowing with colorful flowers and decorated with ornate wrought iron. (We were told that part of the Sound of Music was filmed here, the part where the Von Trapps were hiding from the Nazis.)

One member of our group decided that he would pay to be buried here some day. We'll see how that works out...

Across from the Catacombs was the oldest bakery in Salzburg! It has been in the same place for 800 years, and they still sell huge wheels of bread made with the original recipe.

It was a little bland (to say the least!) but I actually liked it.

Laura and Rebecca eating our huge loaf of bread.

We decided to all split the big loaf, and then we each got an individual sweet raisin bread, which was amazing, and I don't even like raisins. We ate those on the way to the highlight of the trip....THE SOUND OF MUSIC TOUR!

We got our tickets and boarded the bus. Our tour guide was a little crazy, and loved to sing - loud, off key, and occasionally in German. She was fun though, and we had a great time.

This was the start of the tour. Can you tell we're excited?

Here is a list of all of the sights we saw:

- The gazebo where Liesl and Rolf kiss.

- The front of the house, including the long yellow wall Maria walks along as she is singing "I have Confidence."

- The lake the children and Maria fall into.

- The house the director wanted to use as the Von Trapp house, but wasn't permitted to.

- The trees the children hang out of along the road as their father returns with the Baroness.

- The church where they married in the movie.

- The church where they were actually married.

- The abbey.

- Mountains used in the movie.

- The Maribel Gardens, where the children and Maria ran and sang.

It was a four hour tour, and worth every euro we spent. In addition to all of the movie landmarks, we saw some of the most gorgeous mountain scenery we've seen yet. Can you see how blue the water is? And we were dry and warm, which was a blessing that rainy day!

After the tour, we hurried back just in time to see the Domkirche. It was so ornate, and probably my favorite church I've seen so far. The ceilings were incredible.

Exhausted, we piled back onto the bus and headed back to Shönau, where we stayed in Bavaria. We ate a delicious (but expensive) dinner of Cordon Bleu, and then headed for bed. What a day!

SUNDAY:

We got up early and boarded the bus back to Leipzig at 8:30. (Ok so its not that early, but give us a break - we're college students!) Professor Winegeart and Miriam arranged for us to stop at Dachau, one of the German concentration camps during the Holocaust. I guess excited isn't exactly the right word, but I was very interested in seeing the camp. I'm so glad that we were able to make this stop.

The front gate reads "Work will set you free." 

The bunkhouses where prisoners slept. They also each got a locker for personal possessions. I'm not sure if each family was awarded one, or if it was one per person, but it was unreal to actually realize how little these people had.

The restrooms inside of the bunkers.

I can hardly even look at this picture. Approximately 206,000 Jews were housed in the Dachau concentration camp over a 12 year span, during which there were over 31,000 deaths of prisoners. This is the oven where most of those bodies were burned.

It was an unforgettable trip, and I'm sure that all of the students will continue to process their thoughts about it over the next few weeks.

We got back to Salzburg at about 6:30 that night. We were all tired, but met at 9:00 for a devo in the Winegeart's apartment. It was so great to be able to get together and reflect on our day at the concentration camp. One of the guys in our group brought up a very profound point during our discussion. He spoke about Jesus not only dying on the cross for us, but for the guards of Dachau as well....WOW. That got me! Professor Winegeart led us in a great devo, and we spent some time in prayer together and shared communion. It is definitely times like this that will make this trip so memorable.

Thank you all for your comments! That is what keeps us going. :)

Dreams really do come true....

Miss you all so much,

Sylvia