Luck on the Day

The bus was just about to pull away from the Bärenwirt stop when the driver made an announcement, auf Deutsch, of course.

‘He said he’s only going as far as Hanuschplatz.’ My husband, whose understanding of German is growing faster than my own, translated. ‘Something about an event today. I guess they have the streets closed.’

It was the Feast of Corpus Christi and, like all Austrian holidays, it was observed on its calendar date, a Thursday in this case. In Austria, you take your holidays when they fall, not on the closest Monday or Friday. We were on our way to the Salzburg museum. It was too cloudy and too wet to drive to Tirol or ride the cable car up the Untersberg, either of which we’d planned to do on our next free day.

Hanuschplatz would do fine. It was only one stop from Mozartsteg, the closest to the museum. A walk through the Altstadt is never uninteresting.

But as the bus turned up through a narrow passage toward the next stop, we saw coming towards us three open-topped vintage cars. Himself nudged me. ‘Remember the cars we saw yesterday? There must be something on.’

Did I ever mention that Himself has been in love with cars since he was old enough to sit up and, holding a saucepan lid in two pudgy paws, pretend to drive? That he could name – with accuracy – every car on Ireland’s roads by the time he was four? That he can recite the registration number of a car he owned over thirty years ago, when he was in his late teens?

When we got off the bus at the river’s edge, we could see the crowds lining the sidewalks along the street and over the Stadtbrücke about four hundred metres ahead. From the bus stop, the street rises slightly from the bus stop, so we were looking up toward the bridge and could see in the spaces between the standing figures the blur of cars whizzing past.

‘There are cars racing over there,’ he said, with the pretence of petulance, ‘and I can’t see them.’

‘Well, we’ll walk faster then,’ I said and lengthened my steps. We reached the bridge soon and nudged ourselves into an open space at corner of the bridge and sidewalk.

Fifties rock and roll blared from speakers as engines thundered. Over the music a pleasant voice announced the cars as they approached. I turned my  head to see each one as it emerged from behind a lamppost partially blocking my view. A bright-green Porsche 911. A BMW roadster. Several Ferraris. An MG roadster. They flashed by quickly in the narrow space between the lamp post and the woman in front of me who leaned out over the railing that contained us.

I tried to make out the German words: Neunzehnhundert dreiundsechzig. It was a lot of work, but, yes, I worked it out. In fact, I could see that most of the cars were Sixties vintage, with a few, perhaps, reaching back into the Fifties. I could make out the year here and there, occasionally the make. I didn’t understand the German pronunciation of Jaguar, but I did understand ‘E-Type’. A small black Austin passed, similar to the one my parents owned when I was about five. But – wait a minute – did he say fünfunddreißig? Did my eyes or my shaky grasp of German fail me? Or was it my also-shaky knowledge of vintage cars? (I discovered, on researching it, that it was a 1956 Austin A35, a few years newer than the one my parents owned.)

The cars continued their circuit, speeding across the bridge from the Neuestadt, turning left in front of us, then roaring away toward the bridge several hundred metres southward, where they turned left over the river, then left again and northward to re-cross the Stadtbrücke.

I at last spotted the announcer standing behind a barricade of stacked tyres just metres from us. A greying man in his forties, he wore a bright red polo shirt, and his face reflected the calm humour with which he announced the cars and their drivers. Listening, I struggled to make out distinct words, trying to follow at least the car makes and years. But though he spoke distinctly, individual words dissolved into a blur of sound that streamed over me, largely indecipherable.

Still the cars zoomed past, a parade of colour on the dull day. We heard the rumble of the engine and then, briefly, each car would stream into view before listing deeply on the sharp left turn and rocketing away. A cream-coloured 1955 Mercedes 300 SL Roadster. A pewter-coloured Aston-Martin. A 1966 Maserati Mistral. A fire-engine red 1969 Corvette.  A 1962 Sunbeam. Porsche 911s, Porsche 356s, Alfa Romeos, and Mini Coopers.

I let my focus wander from the cars to look around me. To our backs, the Salzach swept rapidly northward, its waters high with the previous day’s heavy rain, so high they came within a metre or two of the pedestrian and bike paths suspended under the bridge. On its opposite bank, pastel-coloured Belle Époque buildings rose against the green, tree-covered Kapuzinerberg. Nearer us, just above the course, people looked out of first and second floor curved windows of the Baroque-era buildings. Rocking side to side, a woman danced to the beat of Splish-Splash playing from the speakers below.

The beat of the music infected the woman next to me, too, as she turned and smiled, as if to invite me to share her excitement. Behind us, people of all ages jostled to find a spot to watch. A young couple angled a baby stroller in and peered over our shoulders. I envied the three men in cloth caps their height as they towered over me. In front of me, a boy of about 11 leaned over the railings and tugged on his mother’s sleeve. The music changed again, and the announcer intoned, in English and with deadpan irony, 'Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Mr Elvis Presley.'

Ah yes. No wooden hearts here.

Across from us, on the opposite side of the bridge, I could see railings where only a few people stood. We slipped down some steps and, with the strains of Fun, Fun, Fun echoing off the walls of the subterranean passageway, crossed to that corner. From there, standing opposite the red-shirted announcer, instead of seeing brake lights as cars rounded the turn, we saw their grilles as the approach to it. They veered towards us, rachetting up the tension as they came close to clipping the kerb near where we stood.

By now the rally class had changed to a thrilling parade of race cars, many of them over 50 years old, and a large portion of them open. Low-slung boat-shaped Morgans, a 1931 and a 1926 Buggatti. A white 1969 Porsche that I thought the announcer said had been driven by Steve McQueen. A streamlined silver 1955 Mercedes and a bulky 1932 Chrysler Gold Seal. A 1969 Shelby Cobra, massive engine throbbing. The drivers in their leather jackets, helmets and goggles, smiled back at the applause and thumbs-ups from the exhilarated crowd. As they sped away down the narrow road, the faster of the cars swerved left and right as they tried to overtake those in front of them, with others approaching close behind.

It was, in fact, a rally, we learned later, part of the Gaisbergrennen race for historic cars sponsored by the Salzburg Rallye Club. But from our perspective, standing on the corner waving at the drivers as they passed, one after another, the atmosphere was festive, celebratory, rather than competitive. Our stumbling onto it on the way to the museum – a visit now  postponed – was happy chance, one of the pleasures of living in Salzburg.

Walking

The flat by the wood had infected the imagination of each of us, though we were concerned by its distance from the city centre and what we felt was a down-at-the-heels aspect to the neighbourhood. It seemed somehow scruffy as well as remote. But Salzburg is not a large city, and the buses are said to be excellent. I certainly had no trouble getting from the hotel into the Altstadt. Every 5 minutes, one of two buses passes, each one going the quick 10 minutes into the city centre. I decided to see how long it would take from there to the flat.

Judging by a street map and the bus plan, it seemed two bus lines went near the flat, but which of the two was the one we had seen pulling away from a bus stop not far from it? I chose one of the two and boarded it at the stop by the river, just up from the Rathhaus in the Altstadt. It dropped me on an unfamiliar bypass far from winding medieval passages, cars whizzing by, near a sharp short path that crossed a narrow canal. It had taken 21 minutes, not too bad, I thought.

I waited as our sat nav, already programmed with the flat’s address and just switched on, located a satellite. Then I started walking, passing at first a series of small houses and apartment buildings along a narrow, poorly paved road. At last the street wound round a curve and opened out across a large empty field pocked with thousands of mole holes, ubiquitous around Salzburg. Across the field -– away in the distance -– I could see more low buildings. I walked and walked under a pale sun, comfortable enough on this spring-like day, but wondering how it would be in summer’s notorious rain or winter’s snow. By the time I came to the end of the narrow street where the flat lay and stood looking up at its dark windows, 18 minutes had passed. Too long to walk from a bus stop with a backpack full of groceries. Not doable in heels after a night out.

The street still seemed seedy. The house, shabby, its angular façade uninviting. The wood with its thin stand of conifers, unimpressive, monotonous. On the dark porch of the downstairs flat stood a toy JCB, the kind a toddler can peddle, and an infant’s push chair. They’d be noisy, wouldn’t they?

It was time to give up on the flat, despite the prickling sense that the woodcarver wanted someone who would care about –- care for –- his craftsmanship. Having seen it, I felt a responsibility toward him. Or, more particularly, his ghost. But the street, and the 40-minute journey from the town centre, was unwelcome.

I faced an 18-minute walk and a dash through traffic to the bus stop. But before I moved away, I turned toward the wood, thinking to explore what lay beyond the end of the house opposite the flat. There was a faint path, just a trace of previous footsteps, in the rough grass at the end of the low wall that surrounded a small garden. After a few metres, the ground dropped steeply to a path that circled a pond. Then I saw the swans.

There were a pair of them, necks rising elegantly over pure white bodies, gliding through the waters on the far side of pond, where the ice had melted. Nearer me, in the shadows, the ice had not yet dissolved, putting me in mind of winter’s afternoons spent skating. I followed the path, about the length of a quarter-mile track, the pond the size of football field of an American high school. Mallard ducks swam in the inlet of a tiny island near the shore; with them were the funny black-and-white fowl I think are called coots. Above my head, in the stillness of the morning, I could hear the high shrill call of a bird I didn’t recognise. Rounding the curve on the narrow end of the pond, I could see a pair of horses in a field just beyond the pond. A man walking his dog greeted another, pipe in his mouth; a third man strolled along drinking something from a bottle.

Sitting down on one of the benches that lined the path, I searched my map. I remembered the other bus stop, one much closer to the house, which we had seen as we drove away the day before. Maybe, by programming the sat nav with a street name taken from the map, I could find the other bus line, the one I didn’t take.

I started walking again and passed, not far along, what seemed like a small administration building. This was apparently part of a recreational area. There were other ponds, a lake for swimming, paths leading off toward another wood. And now, about two hundred metres along, I saw a bus pulling away. All within a couple of short blocks from the flat.

Maybe this can be done after all.

The Fortress

Stepping off the plane into Salzburg’s surprisingly intimate airport, I was struck by the encircling mountains, some of them rising steeply right there, immediately in front of me. They reminded me of the mountains in my birthplace, Salt Lake City, where, seen at least from that city’s East Bench, alpine peaks rise with similar abruptness and distinctness.

If the mountains ringing Salzburg reminded me of Salt Lake City, the city centre couldn’t be more different. My husband’s immediate boss, visiting Salzburg from global headquarters in the U.S., was taking us to dinner in the Altstadt. On the bus from our hotel, we eavesdropped unintentionally on three American women, each about 20 years old. Obviously in Salzburg for a study abroad programme, they talked loudly about their class schedules and living arrangements until the most vocal got off the bus just before we crossed the river. At the Karolinenbrucke, as the bus turned right, away, we thought, from the Altstadt, Himself and I panicked, just a little, wondering where we were going. However, we were simply entering an area of one-way streets, with north- and south-bound traffic running on opposite sides of the river. After two more stops the bus set us down near our meeting spot, and we re-crossed the river.

Now, for the first time, I could see unobstructed the Festung, rising above the Altstadt even more abruptly than the Alps rise over the city. Illuminated, its white stone walls shone against the black sky. The bulbous blue-green domes of the Dom and what seemed like a half a dozen other churches bristled beneath it, also shining in the darkness. The river gleamed with light on one side of us, the steeples and domes clustered on the other, and dominating the whole was the white fortress hanging in blackness, blackness softened by a scatter of stars and sliver of moon

It was good to meet The Captain again after nearly three years. He and Himself had worked together at another U.S.-based tech firm, and they had built trust and mutual respect over their nine-year-long working relationship. By recruiting my husband for this new position, he had launched our Austrian adventure. Besides which, I like the man. Talking all the time of old times and news of his family, he led us through the narrow passageways of Salzburg’s medieval core. Even now, several days later, there’s an unreal quality to the adventure. It’s strange to think of myself not as a tourist visiting an historic city but as a new resident discovering the place that will, I hope, become home. Then, that first night here, the experience was dream like.

We walked through winding lanes, nearly empty on a Sunday night, that every so often opened out into a wider platz dominated by sculptures under pyramids of glass. Above us, church towers topped with ornate domes clustered forest like. Nearer to earth, glittering shop windows cast diffused light through dim streets. In the windows, light glinted from thousands of brilliantly coloured surfaces: jewellry, porcelain, antique silver, stylish clothes and eyeglasses, dirndls and alpine jackets, leather goods and shoes. Others were completely filled with bright Easter eggs painted all the colours of a vivid summer garden. And everywhere windows shone silver and gold with the foil-covered marzipan-filled chocolate balls, the confectionary specialty of the city, Mozartkugeln. Over it all, high overhead but very very near, the white stone fortress floated, stark and bright against the black sky.

We ate that night in a restaurant supposed to have been in operation for over 1200 years, since 803. Inside, dark wooden panels covered walls and the low ceiling, while fresh tulips filled vases. We sat and talked long. At last we emerged into the night, entering the series of large platz widening out from the sheer cliff wall on which the schloss sits. The lights cast shadows on bare rock, making it hard to see whether the buildings are carved from it or sit flush against it or whether there’s more space than is apparent between the wall and the buildings huddled in its shadow. Light and shadow, buildings with their sharply rising steeples lit brightly from below, empty platz and darkened statues, merged and separated. All seemed surreal; only the floating white fortress rose clear and sharp and solid in the night.