We had asked for a certain room when we made the booking many months before. It was the same room we enjoyed back in 2008 on our first visit and it would be waiting for us on this trip. On the previous trip the Concierge had walked us up to the room to explain everything to us as some of the room functions were controlled by a fancy phone console. Lights for instance and the draperies on the large window looking out on the balcony, 6 floors above Mahlerstrasse. There was a flat screen interactive TV which could be used to view your bill and check-out on the last morning.
We chose the hotel for it's proximity to the Opera House on our first visit. No opera this time but the location is right in the heart of the city. We can walk where we want to go or take the trams or buses or use the excellent subway system to go farther afield, which we had plans to do.
The hotel has a welcome cake in a big round tin waiting for guests. We could get to that later as we were planning to eat our 2nd meal of the day, 12 hours after the first. One of our favorite eateries on Earth was just a 5 minute walk away in the beautiful Hotel Sacher.
Carol had to dry herself off in the Arvena public bathroom when we got back to the car which was loaded with our luggage. I stood in the garage doorway praying to the gods to stop the rain but of course my prayers went unanswered. We had a long way to go to reach Vienna...350 miles ( 560 KM)
I was itching to get moving.
We got in the car and moved.
It takes plenty of concentration to drive on the autobahn at speed and even moreso when it is raining.
Factor in the fact that it was August and road crews were out and about repairing roads and we had several stoppages for Orange Cones where the traffic had to filter into one lane.
Factor in that we have to stop every now and then to use the restrooms at the Autobahn stops.
The restrooms along the way are immaculate as there is a person in them whose job it is to keep them sparkling. They usually have a little plate with coins in it near the door and we always drop 50c in there for a job well done. The Germans and Austrians set the standard for cleanliness that is hard to find in the road-stops in the USA. They have fantastic rest-stop restaurants where you can get a full meal and a beer or really good coffee. The foods are mouthwateringly displayed. If you are driving there and you see one of the rare AXXE restaurants stop and eat even if you just had a meal ten miles ago. They are state of the art in roadside dining. They only have 24 outlets so not easy to find.
Otherwise any road-stop has a clean gas station (diesel for us) with a shop selling anything you need on the road, including huge arrays of British chocolate bars (lots of Cadbury treats!) and lots of stuff you won't find in the USA. It's like being in a foreign country!!
Conversations in these shops take place in German but if you are struggling they can usually speak English to help you out. The bathrooms are squeaky clean.
We drive on in comfort, mile after mile, seeing Vienna getting closer. The rain eases for a while then returns with a vengeance. We see beautiful mountain and valley scenery, a castle here and there.
While still in Germany I hit 130 mph as much as possible as once we enter Austria there is an 85 mph limit (130 KPH) and we want to arrive before dark. We are listening to German classical radio as the Jaguar purrs along, barely breaking a sweat. Before the Austrian border we stop for diesel and to buy a 20 E Vignette-a windshield sticker that shows we have paid to drive on Austrian roads. You also need an orange vest to wear if your car is disabled and you are walking around outside the car, but I have one since my last Austrian drive in 2008. You also need an International Driving Permit. In Germany I just use my regular US lisence.
So now we are in Austria. We had hoped to visit the scenic Germany city of Passau before doing this but it was so wet we decided to just keep going and see it another time in better weather. We saw it through the mists as we drove over a high bridge along the way.
Our last rest-stop in Austria before descending down the winding valley into Vienna 50 miles away was one we had been to before and it is one where there are only bathrooms and some vending machines. These produce pretty decent espresso and I was in need of a couple of cups. The rain abated and allowed us to walk and stretch our legs in the warm wet August air.
Spartan by our normal standards but welcome. Now for the last push into Vienna! We hadn't eaten in about 9 hours. Yikes!
I enjoy the challenge of driving in European cities. The Navigator is essential-no paper road maps being fumbled with. As we get down into the city I recognize where I am which is a great relief and makes me less reliant on the Nav. Like Munich you have to be aware of the trams as you are often driving over their rails. As in Germany-no jaywalkers as people wait for their signals to walk.
Once in he heart of the city I don't need the Nav any longer and we turn her off. We are making a bee-line for our favorite hotel there....The Grand Hotel Wein (Grand Hotel Vienna). It is right on the Ring Road which circles the inner city and we pull up at the front door via a little slip-road that leaves the Ring.
Liveried footmen hustle to get the luggage from the car, welcoming us as returning guests and the car is taken away by a valet.
I am done driving for the day and see a cold refreshing beer in my future!
Now that the Festival part of our journey was over as we had (a) no more tickets and (b) a visit to Vienna planned we would leave the Opera routine behind and venture to one of our favorite cities in the morning.
As was our norm after the show we didn't rush to get away as the traffic from the parking lot is one lane, now that the road is open again and there is a long procession of cars returning to the real world.
We like to find a bench and sit in the darkness, looking a the theater and inwardly reliving what we had just seen and heard. Taxis come and go and the number of people dwindle until there is us and the small security team (a couple of guys with flashlights).
Although we had eaten a sumptuous meal 90 minutes ago we had arranged to meet Ciaran and say farewell over dessert (and beer) at Weihenstephan after the show. He was on an early train next morning and would spend most of the day heading towards the North of England where his daughters live. As an English teacher in France he has he entire month of August off work. I had a week to cram a lot in.
We don't know when we will be back in Bayreuth to attend the festival. We just apply each year and get on with our lives while the process unfolds, knowing that one day in a future month of March we will get the good news and rearrange our plans accordingly. Whatever we have planned gets cancelled once a letter from Bayreuth comes through the door. If you have invited us to your August wedding and we don't show up, you know the reason. Best wishes for a lifetime of Happiness!
So, we would have to leave Richard Wagner for now and thank him for all that he has given us during these past 4 days. You can't spend every night of your life at the Opera, although Carol would probably say "why not?". We needed to de-compress and return to the real world. It was time to say Auf Weidersehen to the Festspielhaus and leave it in the rear-view mirror of the Jaguar...
We arrived at Lohengrin an hour early as usual. As well as having left time to relax before the show we had to visit the Steigenberger Restaurant next to the Festspielhaus as we had a reservation there for a dinner to be taken in stages during the two intermissions. We had booked a table outdoors but on arriving found that due to a possibility of rain they were not serving outdoors. We were asked to come in and meet our waitress so that she could take our orders which would be served once we arrived from the theater during intermission. There was a table with our name on it and also the name of an English couple.
Ciaran was not here tonight as he was ticket-less and would meet us later at Weihenstephan (where else?!) for dessert.
The trumpets and trombones on the balcony would call us when it was time to enter the theater: at 15 minutes they play the tune once. At 10 minutes twice and when you listen to them play it 3 times then you know you only have 5 minutes to be in your seat. That's enough time as access to the seats is easy and the people in your row stand until all have been seated. Then at 4 pm a bell rings and all the side doors are closed and curtains pulled over them to stop any chinks of daylight peeking in. The lights go down and the only light left is the glow from the orchestra pit shining on the gray stage curtains.
Silence in the theater.
The orchestra begins.
In Lohengrin it's only an hour before they stop as the curtain closes again. A slight pause as the audience waits for the last note of Act I to die away in the cathedral acoustic and then they cheer and applaud.
A couple of minutes later and we are back in the sun, ready to eat then stroll the grounds and find somewhere quiet to sit and reflect.
Our main courses and dessert would be served to us during the Act II intermission and then we would meet Mr and Mrs Lisle , our table mates from Nottingham, England who were going to have to eat all the courses in one hour. This was their first visit to the Festival after 10 years on the waiting list and they only had one performance to see. They were good company for the short time we spent with them. The food was of a very high calibre indeed. Fine dining. Not schnitzels and beer.
We didn't stay to watch them eat as we wanted to relax before the last act. In the video you will see people wandering through the Jewish Bayreuth History exhibit placed on large boards for all to read.
I don't spend any time trying to tell you about this music that draws people from all over the World.
Search youtube for the opera names I have given. Some will be from Bayreuth over the last couple of years so you'll get an idea. If you are not curious then don't bother. The more people there are trying to get into Wagner operas the harder it is for us to get the seats we want-and that's not a good thing!
So my advice is to STAY AWAY. Wagner has been popular since the 1840s....170 years already.
Here's a video of our last evening on the Green Hill.....
As well as taking video on a tiny Canon HD camcorder I am also carrying a Canon Camera (Eos Rebel) to take some stills to show the details of what I am seeing around me.
So here are some shots from our walk through the Eremitage....
The umbrellas are part of the ice-cream cafe where the Wagners used to come for frosty treats.
The light drizzle soon passed
Near the tiny Biergarten
Our carriage awaits to take us back to the hotel. We will return to the Eremitage next time we are in Bayreuth. We are on the ticket wait-list again and the clock is ticking....
On our previous visit to the Bayreuth Festival in 1999 we were in the town for a full week and so when there was no opera we had a whole day to explore and apart from an afternoon spent in Nuremberg we took a trip out of the town to the Felsen Labyrinth in the mountains to the north-east of the town. A bit of a hike, figuratively and literally: clambering over huge boulders deep in the cool woods. That ate up most of the day but included a memorable lunch by a lake, ringed by mountains.
We didn't have the luxury of time to kill this trip so we chose something close by and it was The Eremitage.
I'll let the photos and video give you the flavor of this beautiful spot.
We drove there and on the way I found out that in Germany when you hear an ambulance following behind you with sirens and lights you don't have to pull over and stop ( I got honked by the car behind for doing that) but rather get over to the inside lane to let him pass but keep your speed as long as it doesn't trap the ambulance in traffic. If you are going to Germany to drive for the first time you should google "driving in Germany"as there is plenty to learn regarding road signage and rules. Basically you need to be (1) alert and focused (2) driving with two hands, neither of them holding a 32 oz coffee or applying makeup, changing diaper, knitting etc. The drivers there are focused and courteous and most of them don't drive like they are trying to escape the police which is the opposite of Chicago. Oh- they also don't drive "beaters" where the passenger has to hold the door on with a piece of rope out the window and the windows actually have glass, not plastic bags keeping the wind out.
I LOVE driving in Germany!!
The Jaguar rests at the Eremitage parking lot. From here in we use feet.
Thursday August 8th was our last full day in Bayreuth as next day we were going to drive to Vienna for a couple of days of NO OPERA. There we would relax and soak up the sights before driving back to Munich on Sunday to catch a flight home (boo!) on Monday. So a lot of driving ahead but then I am ....Drivin' Adair. (at your service).
So with a last day in mind we managed to pack a lot more in and stepped up the pace a little.
I breakfasted alone around 7 a.m and texted Ciaran. We arranged to meet at his hotel, The Poseidon.
We were going to stroll the pedestrian area on Maximillian Strasse with a side-order of the Wagner House. I opted to walk and leave the car in the underground garage at the hotel.
This is the river running near the back of the hotel. There is no river walk to stroll on unless you like wading through deep grass. The river is called the Rot Main (Red Main).
There's a Ring Road that helps to keep traffic from the pedestrian center. Delivery trucks can go in there to stock the stores and restaurants. There's even a 24 hour casino there. Maximillian Strasse is the pedestrian hub, rich in shopping and dining opportunities. From it Richard Wagner Strasse begins as you get nearer to his house, which is set back from the street. You could miss it if driving.
I met up with Ciaran outside his hotel and we walked.
This part of the street is open to traffic.
As you can see everything is spic and span. Squeaky clean and organized. The town was bombed near the end of WWII and was rebuilt to look the way it was before. Even the Festspielhaus was bombed and closed until 1951 when two of the composer's grandsons started up the theater again.
While we were down in this part of the town we stopped by to see the Margrave Opera House which had lured Wagner here with a promise of a stage big enough for his Epic operas but he hated the gilded interior and the orchestra pit was too small for the 120 or so musicians needed for some of his operas. But he liked the look of the town so he thought about building his own theater....
"Es regnet".... it's raining.
We did walk to the Wagner house to view it though the scaffolding.
They had some Wagner posters up along the security fence to stop people falling into the deep pit around the house...
Wagner in his 30's
And as a family man in his 60's
A little soft drizzle wasn't going to hold us back as we couldn't now put things off until tomorrow. Ciaran was going to be catching a train to England at 5.30 a.m so it was now or never for our one excursion during our time in Bayreuth. We were going to take a short drive of 8 miles or so to a fabulous tourist attraction called the Eremitage.
