A castle, a mountain, and a giant pancake

September 4, 2011 – Emily

On Saturday morning, we went to a castle about 6km away and walked around the town a bit.  We could not go inside, because a certain titled someone actually lives there, but we did catch a glimpse of the chapel and  stared down a well and tried to see the pail at the bottom.  Also the flag was flying outside, which meant that the Duke (or Count?) was there.  Judith says that castles abound in Hohenlohe (her province, pronounced hoe-en lowa) are famous. 

Then, we went to the nearby town of Schwäbisch Hall, where we slipped into a Protestant cathedral right after a wedding and looked around.  Then we walked to a museum established by the man who owns Würthe and who lives in the area.  The museum featured an exhibit of mostly Niki (Catherine Marie-Agnès – who knows how that stuck in my brain) de Saint Phalle.  Some of it was depressing, but she made many sculptures of animals with multicoloured stones and mirrors on them.  The lions, the walrus, and the alligator were the best.  There was a pretty watering can in the gift shop, but it was rather large for a carry-on.  We walked around the town some more, and Maggie bought some postcards in a book shop. 

Then, we went home to Judith’s, ate dinner, packed, and were off to Salzburg!  We heard a song about jet lag, which was still appropriate, and chatted/slept the hours away.  We fell asleep soon after arriving at Judith’s apartment and set off a few minutes after waking up in the morning.  The hour and a half drive to Spittal (still in Austria) was sublime.  The mountains and sheer drops and verdance are of the sort that come only in dreams.  We went to a church that Judith knows about, because Florian, a friend she met during a Bible study conference this summer, goes there.  From what we could gather, a lot of the English speakers visit the nearby church-owned castle, so the sermon was in English and translated into German, and all of the singing was in German.  (Maggie even deduced the German word for kingdom – such a quick study.)

After church (and cake and coffee that followed), Florian drove us up, up, up, and then we all hiked even farther up until we reached the top of Goldeck, a mountain that overlooks Spittal and the surrounding valleys and villages nestled therein.  We found a little hut that is probably far more populated during the ski season and tried Almdudler, an Austrian soda-ish drink.  Maggie had Kaiserschmarren, which was so gigantic that we all ate some and there was still enough left for someone else’s entire meal.  During the rest of our hike, we encountered many cows (and took photographs with them), two sheep (Maggie snapped one, but they were eating and not to be trifled with), and sweet violet flowers.  Tonight, we will sleep in a room above the church, but before that, we are to go to a castle that the church uses as a retreat place sometimes, so we are curious about that.

Whilst we were making plans today...

Florian: Sollen wir nach Italien für Abendessen gehen?

Maggie: What?

Florian: We could go to Italy for dinner tonight.



Here is Florian: