End of Sept and early Oct

Most of my adventures lately had been small-scale compared to the Salzburg weekend.  I've been to another WWII memorial, an old fortress, a blue church, and several local museums.  The usual.

Okay it's actually not usual to see many WWII memorials in Austria.  The war was a very serious matter, and many Austrians don't want to admit that their country was on Hitler's political side.  But that's a whole different discussion.  Anyway, a group of us went to the edge of Vienna where Hitler occupied an underground manufacturing plant during WWII.  It is now partially filled with water and called the "Seegrotte."  It was too dark inside for any good pictures of the cavern walls.  But there wasn't much to see anyway.  We walked along a long mining corridor and past a few larger cave sections.  One section was used as a stable.  Another section is now the remaining props from the "Three Musketeers" movie.  A couple sections now have war memorials.  And one section had old aircraft parts where the first jet fuel injectors were manufactured.  To finish off the experience, we took a short boat ride in the lower section of the mine where water has seeped in.  Overall it was a fine little stroll.  Learning about its history was the most interesting part.  Walking could have been more exciting had we played ghost-in-the-darkness or some other dark, spooky game.

Brigette (the host lady), Emma, and I went to the little town of Dürnstein at the beginning of October.  As we drove closer, I recognized it as one of the places I biked past while going from Melk to Krems.  It was really nice to enjoy the town.  First we saw the fortress.  It was a short but steep hike, and definitely worthwhile.  The view of was almost as nice as seeing the crumbled ruins of the fortress.  It looked out over two more villages and a short stretch of the Donau river.  Next we returned to town and saw the blue church.  This is quite unusual.  Most of the churches and monasteries are yellow or white.  Blue is a symbol of their wealth.  Back in the day it was very pricey to collect the mineral required for the blue hue.  Hence, it must have been a source of great pride when it was first established.