European Journey

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Sun! Blue Sky! Birthplace of Hippocrates!...whaaa? Where have these Levetons got to now?
Well, dear friends here is the saga of the path to the Isle of Kos....

We left Vienna as the sky continued to cloud and threaten rain...and decided to seek out a small mountain retreat in the Austrian Alps, favored by Freud for vacations and Eva's friend Sophie. Vienna, Salzburg, Bad Gastein....so easy on Eurailpass...After getting off one station too soon we arrived at Bad Gastein and found ourselves in a truely 'Gimley' hotel, almost deserted.'Gimley' the name of a very dark Canadian director's notion of victorian horror and madness. Everything in town is oriented to massage, radon treatments and purges of unmentionable sorts. The town has a menacing(or thrilling) waterfall crashing through the center of town.... It was almost deserted and other than watch locals dance (?) demonstrating their ability to hit their shoes with one hand and their head with the other while counting to ten...there was nothing to do. The Hotel was dominated by 'the Doctor' a woman who assumed we were there for treatments and listed off a number of them and their cost....Envisioning confinement, commitment and radon submersion, still the weather was still good, although when the owner of a very cold inn mentioned the Foehn and the snails in the garden we began to worry, and sure enough, the next morning we were greeted with blackening skies and a real downpour, so,we decided to just leave. Fearful and diffident, like everyone at the Mirabell, mentioning her title only in hushed tones,he desk clerk hesitated to call us a taxi until the 'Doctor' was consulted, the several halls with their yellowing wallpaper and ever changing patterns of green and orange passed, the rickety elevator delivered us to a taxi and we escaped.
What followed was providence's hand in our affairs. As we got to the train station, one was waiting on the tracks, headed back toward Vienna which suited our plans to stay in Salzburg, if the weather improved, or go on to Switzerland if that looked better. In Salzburg it was cold and rainy, so we caught another train across the track, just about to leave for Munich, where it was even colder and Eva remembered that there was a train to the airport, and possibly warmer climes (she also recalled a weather report that had foretold all of this and no real end in sight). And, lo and behold, there was a train headed for the airport right across the tracks.
We took, it of course, and found ourselves going from one travel desk to the other in the immense modern hull of Munich's new airport, hearing that all flights to Greece, Sardinia, Turkey, etc. were filled. And then we found a young woman who had two tickets to Kos, the 'healing island' of Hippocrates and Aescalepius, leaving in 2 hours. What could be better?

So here we are, basking in the sun, catching up on the blog, planning more trips to cafes, ruins, the beach and contemplating the harbor from our hotel. All our bones have been singing songs of praise and we are happy--who knows whether we'll ever leave?

Still to come in future blogs.. a loving look back to Rosenkavalier and Petrouchka
Alan and Eva

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Photos

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Comments

[Naomi]

What a thoroughly delicious travel diary...the best of the best.....pure pleasure to trail along your adventures....should you wish to stay and NOT return, I know Julian will be available to take care of the house, but if he's doing other things, let me know and I'll fly out to San Fran and sit until winter sets into the Greek Isles.....if never....well, what can I say......LOVE and HUGS, Naomi