Thursday, June 19 – Vienna to Eichstätt

We are in the home stretch now – mostly driving with few stops – to get back to Frankfurt for our flights home. 

The hotel breakfast this morning was served on a rooftop patio with a view of the surrounding area. This hotel was again pretty good, except that it lacked parking for the bus and it was on a busy, noisy street.

We began the day with a hike to the Schönbrunn Palace, purchased our tickets, and were first in line when they opened at 8:30. I have been here a few times, but never this early, and have never seen the courtyard so empty. 

While most of the group toured the Palace, Miles and Mary Ann and I shuttled our luggage into position for pickup due to the lack of parking for the bus. We first moved it from the rooms to the lobby on the third floor of the building. (The first floor was retail and the second was offices.) Then we shuttled it to the main floor in the elevator. Pat and Loretta returned from the tour about this time and Loretta stood guard over the bags in the building while Pat was stationed at a bus stop we had found around the corner and the rest of us hauled bags to the bus stop. Johannes arrived and we started loading baggage. A city bus pulled up and wasn’t too happy about our choice of parking spots, but went on without creating any fuss. But where was the rest of the group? Due to a miscommunication, they had been waiting quite a while for Pat and Loretta. They finally concluded that the girls had already left and returned themselves, only a few minutes behind schedule. We were on the highway on the outskirts of town by 10:30.

We stopped in Salzburg for lunch and a brief look around. Mary Ann wanted to partake in a local dessert specialty that is difficult to reproduce and not easily found elsewhere, but the restaurant where she had had it before was closed. By the time she found another one that served it, she was out of time because we had been dropped off by the bus and had a prearranged time for pickup.

We arrived at our hotel in Eichstätt around 6:45, about three quarters of an hour late, to find Erv’s cousin awaiting our arrival. They went off to discover each other while the rest of us settled in for the evening.

The scenery today was beautiful. From somewhere east of Salzburg almost to Munich it is like you are viewing a postcard album. We were at the foot of the Alps, with hills in many shades of green with farmland and forest, picturesque houses and villages dotting the countryside, low mountains in the foreground, and snow-covered peaks in the background. Every few minutes brings a new vista worthy of a postcard.

The weather was again good – mostly sunny, although in the late afternoon we ran into a moderate rain shower caused by daytime heating.

Today was another holiday, so truckers were all parked at truck stops waiting to get going tomorrow.