Munich - Along the Isar

St. Luke's church along Isar river

Last saturday R bought me a spanking new all terrain bike. But unfortunately I was not able to use it until this wednesday when the weather finally cleared. Its been raining non-stop and as you may have read in the news several parts of Europe such as Germany, Switzerland, Austria have been flooded. On the otherhand Portugal is plagued by wildfires due to drought. The weather sure has been freaky this year.

Anyway, the extension of the English garden along the banks of the river Isar is just a block away from my apartment and it has wonderful walking/ hiking / biking trails. When I took my cycle for a spin there, I noticed that the Isar river was/is flooded as they opened up the gates to lower the water level from the neighboring lakes. Yesterday morning when I went for my ride, I decided to take the camera with me to capture the scenes along the river. I still cant get over the fact that all this wooded area is right smack in the middle of town. All I have to do is walk/ bike down a block to get away from all the traffic & the congestion.

The following pictures show the flooding of Isar. (Click the pictures to enlarge) To see more pictures of the flooding, check out this blog.















The Angel of Peace


The Angel of Peace- Close up


The base of the "Angel of Peace" pillar


A view of the city near the statue. Do you see my favorite mode of transportation - my bike?

Sound of Music & Austria

Ok, did you know the Sound of Music was shot in Salzburg and the neighboring Salzkammergut area? The movie is loosely based on the true story of the von Trapp singers. The movie was filmed in Austria in 1965 and guess what, it was a big flop in Austria! A non-sound of music enthusiast would probably not care much about this post. I do have to confess that the beauty of the place capivated me more than the ties to the movie. Before you read on, you might also want to read this!

Anyway after a morning of wonderful classical music, I thought we should continue the journey of music with the "The Sound of Music bus tour". To be honest, it was not as great as I had hoped it would be. The tour guide however did tell us it would be impossible to cover all the places shown in the movie in a 4 hour trip. Oh well, its a good thing that Salzburg is just 130kms from Munich, I guess R & I will have to cover the places on our own.

Our first stop was at Hellbrunn Palace. Remember the kids hanging from tree tops in an alleyway after the picnic with Maria singing Do-Re-Mi? Well, you can see the alleyway below...


Below you can see the gazebo (located in Hellbrunn palace grounds) where Rolf & Liesl sing "16 going on 17". Talking about the post boy Rolf, he was not the Nazi, it was their butler who was.


The Leopoldskron castle was used to represent the rear of the von Trapp family home. remember the scene were the kids fall off the boat and come into the backyard dripping wet, or the lemonade scene ?


While Leopoldskron castle was used for the rear, the Frohnburg Palace was used to show the entrance to the von Trapp family home. This is the location were Maria comes in singing "I have confidence".


The church at Mondsee in Salzkammergut region was used to film the wedding of Maria & Captain von Trapp. Btw, did I mention that "see" in German refers to a lake? All the words that end with see imply they are a lake and sometimes the cities bordering the lake go by the same name like Mondsee.

The church seen from a distance


The interior of the church

Other areas used for filming in the Salzkammergut region was the Fuschlsee, Wolfgangsee and St.Gilgens. Also, St.Gilgens is the village where Mozart's mother was born.

Wolfgangsee


St.Gilgens Village

Ofcourse there are lot more sites in Austria tied to the movie and I hope to see them the next time I visit the Salzburg area.

Bis bald, yaathri

The Vienna Philharmonic

Yesterday we got ready to head to Salzburg. We had made reservations for the Vienna Philharmonic concert playing in the Grosses Festspielhaus (large Festival Hall) in Salzburg for the annual Salzburg Music Festival. The conductor was Valery Gergiev, a Moscow born conductor associated with the Mariinsky theater of Russia. He had won the Herbert von Karajan conducting competition in Berlin at the age of 24! Frankly, I was not sure what to expect as I had never been to a full blown western classical concert before. R's excitement in seeing the combination of a great philharmonic and a great conductor was definitely rubbing off.


The concert begins

But truly, nothing could have prepared me for the concert, it was absolutely stunning. It started off with Rachmaninoff's Die Toteninsel (The Isle of Dead) followed by Toshio Hosokawa's Circulating Ocean (this piece was written in 2004-05 to a commission from the Salzburg Festival for Vienna Philharmonic) and closed off with Sheherazade by Nikolai Rimsky Korasakov based on the Arabic fairy tales of The Thousand and One Nights. To me, the highlight was definitely Sheherazade, a 50 minute piece that just blew me away with the peaks and the crescendos. It definitely made me wonder if I could appreciate it even more if I understood classical music :-(. Circulating Ocean was also a beautiful piece which combined Japanese musical elements with western classical. This piece was also welcomed with thunderous applause when the composer himself made his appearance on stage.


The Finale

Thanks R for exposing me to this wonderful experience!! On a side note, it was definitely a lot of fun people watching too. All the women in their fancy evening wear, some even in dirndls (a traditional Bavarian and Austrian dress) at 11 in the morning! I think the next time I go to a concert, I am gonna "kick it up a notch" with a fancy sari or a ghaghra. That should definitely match the glitterati...

Salzburg

I was quite excited about our trip to Salzburg, even though it was just for a day. I had seen a glimpse of the beauty of the area on our way to Vienna and the eastern end of Alps in Salzburg had definitely caught my interest.

The city Salzburg and the river Salzach get their name from the salt mining that happens along the river. "Salz" means salt in German. Until 1800 Salzburg remained an independent state when it fell under the French rule of Napolean and followed by a brief period of Bavarian rule. In 1816, Salzburg became a part of Austria. Salzburg's well known resident Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, was born here in 1756. Thanks to the Mozarteum, a music school and the Salzburg Music Fesival conducted every year since 1920, Salzburg has become a well established center for Western Classical music. The city's geographical features coupled with its rich history and culture make it truly a feast to the eyes, ears and the soul.

Below are some pictures of the city and the countryside...

View of the inner city


River Salzach


View from Hofstallgasse


View of Hohensalzburg Fortress


View from Getreidgasse


Hellbrunn Palace Gates

The country side...

Well, well, look who's starting a blog!

When R was talking to me about the benefits of moving to Munich, he said "look, within a 4hr drive you will be in countries like Switzerland, Austria, Italy, Czech Republic." Good move R, in our marriage of 3 years you have definitely figured out that I am a sucker for travel :-). I replied, "In that case, I will move to Munich if you take me to a different country every weekend."

Here in Munich, he has definitely kept his word! These last two weekends we were in Austria, visiting Vienna, Salzburg and the environs. These trips have been like teasers making me wanna soak in the spectacular scenery these lands seem to be been blessed with. I decided to start a blog not necessarily for public viewing but more as a repository of our travel and to remember the feelings and the thoughts these trips evoke in me.

Soon, yaathri