Christmas Eve

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It’s Christmas Eve in Salzburg, Austria. It feels different, no doubt. We went back to the Christmas Market in old town and did some shopping for our tiny Christmas morning tomorrow. The narrow streets were filled with holiday shoppers from all over the world.

After lunch we visited the Festung Hohensalzburg which is the fortress on the hill above Salzburg. It is basically a small village inside a gigantic wall with guard towers, cannons and even a torture tower. Amazing that people had to live that way 400 years ago. Unfortunately it was too foggy (what's with all the damn fog?) to see any of the town below.

Around 4:00pm we drove to Oberndorf to see and hear the performance of Stille Nacht (Silent Night) at the St. Nikolaus church. Silent Night was written in that church in 1819. Check out the site here:

http://www.silentnight.info/en/kapelle/e_anfahrt.htm

There must have been 1,000 people gathered to hear the songs. It was special in its simplicity. No commercialism, no charge to get in, no parking fees, just a bunch of people enjoying Christmas Eve together.

We had a traditional Bavarian Christmas dinner back here in town. Some oddities, like a pile of pate on a flat potato. The soup was a Jerusalem artichoke soup that was fantastic. Main course was roulade steak. Desert was a chocolate tart and some sort of jello with fruit and a boat load of rum. Yippee!

Off to Garmisch, Germany tomorrow.

Merry Christmas!!!

Larry, Linda, Jerry and Jeff

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Photos

Yup!
Jerry and Jeff

Fog
Festung Hohensalzburg

Comments

[Dwight]

Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas from the Walkers in Walnut Creek. Guden Tag.(sp?)