If you have been following my travels for many years, you may recall an event I went to when I lived in Charleston, where I met Robert Edsel, the author of the “Monuments Men” book, as well as several of the people who starred in the film, such as Bill Murray, etc.

…and if you haven’t seen the movie, I thoroughly recommend you do.  It is a most amazing and inspiring true story…

Anyway, we managed to get our driver to take a detour and take us up to the mine where so many of the art treasures were found…

…and here we are!  This building has been built over the front of the mine entrance, but this is where near the end of WWII, these amazingly brave men found and recovered priceless artworks that had been stolen by the Nazis.

A Madonna by Michelangelo, paintings by Rubens and Rembrandt, the Ghent Altar by the van Eyck brothers, works by Dürer and Vermeer – all of this and literally thousands more came within a hair’s breadth of going up in flames during the final weeks of the war in 1945.

When the German Reich began to collapse and the cities were turning into fields of rubble, the authorities began to hide their stockpile of treasures in disused mines.

In the spring of 1945, Hitler had given the order from Berlin that, in the event of defeat, everything should be destroyed – including the artworks that were being warehoused in the Altaussee mine, originally intended for the “Führer Museum” in Linz. Shortly thereafter, Hitler revoked the order, but despite this revokation, the Gauleiter of the Salzkammergut, August Eidgruber, did everything he could to destroy the art treasures inside Altaussee Salt Mine.  Thankfully, the majority was saved… and these are the original tracks used…

Unfortunately it was several hours until the next tour, so we bade farewell to the mine and continued on our way…

…and found a cute place for lunch!

Below, our rather ‘unique’ driver…  (Thumper said ‘if ya can’t say something nice, don’t say nuffin at all”) – he was at least a friendly fellow…

This mountain is the Loser Mountain – after which the beer is named!

Next stop, Hallstatt!

~ Bella

On my bucket list, you will note that one of the entries is owning a landau (convertible carriage) and horse, with a driver on hand.  I would SOOO love to have that, and would use it as my main source of travel for most things locally.

…and as no trip to Vienna is complete without a horse-drawn carriage trip, I treated Donna to a gloriously long ride through the city (ok, so it was probably more of a treat for me!)  🙂

Contented, happy sigh…

~ Bella

The Wachau region was inscribed as “Wachau Cultural Landscape” in the UNESCO List of World Heritage Sites in recognition of its architectural and agricultural history, and is known for its high-quality wines…

…and that is the River Danube to the left…

This was funny…  According to the GPS, this is a bridge…  🙂

After much reading of signs, we discover it is a car ferry of dubious quality, but…

…they are off on an extended lunch break!

…so we went in search of another way across the Danube…

Aha!  An actual bridge!

…and the ferry people gave us a good idea – lunch!

Beautiful Schloss Dürnstein, where King Richard the Lion-Heart of England was held captive by Duke Leopold V.

My friend Donna who came over from the States to do the drive from Vienna to Munich with me… (we will get to that soon)

…and back to Vienna…

Do you remember this (below)?  It is the red-eyed, fire-breathing incinerator that you saw in an earlier post, only this time in daylight…

What a glorious day – and home in time to get plenty of work done, including back to back calls with clients until late… (thanks to the time difference, I can explore during the day, and work with my US-based clients in the evening – perfect!)

Thank you SO much to Alexander and Donna who made it so much FUN!

~ Bella