The Danube isn't really blue

It's foggy today in Vienna, which makes for some great photography. I wandered through a fairground called Prater this morning. Crows calling through the empty amusement park made it kind of creepy. There's a lot of Geist Hauses that I'd love to see but the whole thing seems to be closed this time of year.

I arrived in this Art mecca of Europe yesterday after a fantastic week of studying the Mozart String Quartet in D Major K. 575 with the Manhattan String Quartet in Salzburg. Three hours a day of coaching and then museum touring left me with a huge knot in my neck. Last night my Camino friend Monika took me to a meditative free-dancing class which really helped loosen up my creaky old corpse.

All last week the food was fabulous at the Pitter hotel and it cumulated in a final farewell dinner. I now have a large group of American friends from all over the states, but a ton of the group were from Connecticut and Boston, two of my favourite places in the States! Also Chicago, another great town.

On the last day in Salzburg, I wandered up this big hill or outcropping thing that rises above the altstadt and wandered through an old fortress dating back to the 1400s. You can see snow-capped mountains in the distance and the narrow streets of Salzburg winding at your feet. The houses I thought were built into the cliff were actually buried in a landslide in 1669 but the facade-like fronts protuding were actually cleaned out so you can access them. But they didn't bother cleaning back the whole cliff. So that's why there's just the front of these houses sticking out of the mud-face.

Now, off to see old Vienna!

Christine