Wednesday night we went to a string ensemble concert at the Mirabell Palace. Very enjoyable music and musician watching. The first violin and first viola kept exchanging meaningful glances and there were two sisters who made identical facial expressions with their musical phrasing, especially raised eyebrows.
During the intermission Marty struck up a conversation with one of Rick Steves' researchers who happened to be attending by herself. She is an American who lives in Europe half of the year with all her expenses paid and who knows what salary.
Since I have used the word quite naturally, this is probably a good place to relate the "salt lecture" we heard more than once while in this district. Here goes: Salt was once an extremely valuable commodity. It was used mainly for preserving meat, but that was a big deal before refigeration. At different times and places salt was actually used as a medium of exchange, i.e. money. Hence, we have even today expressions such as "worth his salt" and "the salt of the earth". Then, finally, the word "salary" (are you ahead of me?) which comes from the Latin word "salarium" which denoted money allowed Roman soldiers for the purchase of salt. There you have it.
The next morning we spent roaming the Mirabell Gardens which are right next to the Palace where we had attended the concert.
After the Gardens we were ready to leave for Vienna. We gathered our luggage and trundled the several blocks to the dreaded parking garage. We had been instructed on the procedure for using the exit ticket reading machine so that the garage charges would be billed to the hotel. (We had paid for parking at the hotel checkout.) But need I say it, something went wrong, we cannot quite reconstruct what, and we had to back away from the exit door, re-park, and hike the several blocks back to the hotel. Oh yes, it had started to rain in the meantime. Is that movie-perfect or what?
Describing our situation to the concierge, got us a dark look, but the kind lady said that she had an errand to do in the vicinity of the garage and would accompany us back there. She did and it all got straightened out and we were released from Salzburg.
On the autobahn to Vienna we had lunch at this most picturesque of rest stops. This is the dining terrace on the side of the building away from the highway and toward the lake.
Below are views all from this one place.
