March 26-30, 2018   Schwaz Silvermine, Franciscan Monastery, Innsbruck

We have really been enjoying the landscape and beautiful views of Austria.  It is very stereotypical: huge mountains, gorgeous valleys, and alpine architecture.  If you are a skier, this is the place to be.  The pictures don’t do the views justice, they seem higher than the Rocky mountains, almost unnatural or “green-screened”.  For you CC folks, find the “Inn” river, you can follow it until it reaches the Danube….that’s right, we could put a boat where we are staying and take it down-river to the Black Sea!!!  We have seen an old Silver-mine, which started in the late middle ages that provided many riches to the region, a Franciscan Monastery, old Gothic church (built from all the copper and silver riches), hikes/walks around our house/town.  We also spent half a day in Innsbruck and had the best sauerkraut ever from a street vendor.  Thursday we went on a classic Sound of Music Tour in Salzburg….it was a lot of fun, and we saw more gorgeous views of beautiful lakes and mountains.  See it's own, separate post.    Rod

Two pics from our balcony

These are from our visit to the Silver mine.  We had to wear hardhats and protective suits, it was dripping water everywhere.

Taking the mine railway into the mountain.

Eager miners.

Done with the railway and walking further in on foot.

Five hundred years ago, the mine employed 10,000 miners that extracted 85% of the world's silver.

The ride out of the mine:  https://youtu.be/Mg6dAc3XLIA


Here are a few pics of the Franciscan Monastery.

Our Lady Catholic Church was expanded to it's current size around 1490 when the town population was increasing due to the silver mine.  When you mine for silver, you find even more copper because the two are deposited at the same time by the same mechanism.  The church roof is covered with 15,000 copper tiles.  Because of the expansion, the church has four aisles with two main aisles (left for citizens, right for miners). 

Here are some pictures of the only 4 aisle Catholic Church in Europe.  It was very much in the Gothic style.

Some citizens on the left side.  An unsavory group, if you ask me.

There are many large silver candle sticks in the church.  Here are four.

The church was set up for Stations of the Cross.

The Baptismal font.

The main altar.

The front of the right main altar.  These are painted wooden scenes set up for Easter. 

mountain view

 Here are some pics to "old-town" Innsbruck.  We enjoyed our stroll around town.  The food was fantastic!  Easter is a big "egg-decorating" tradition in our area.  There were huge, decorated eggs around the town.

Beautiful Innsbruck

Innsbruck

Beautiful old building.

There were large painted eggs through the main part of town.

The awesome food!  Rick Steves said street vendors can have the most delicious food, and he was right!

The New Court with the Golden Roof.  See description below.

Love the color of the buildings.

The Ottoburg.  A late Gothic tower house documented since 1476.

This was an interesting street vendor (notice the word street)......can you figure out what he is selling?  The kid's eyes went immediately to the suckers...Katie was about to buy three, until the owner said "Hemp" with a strong German accent!  Very, very, easy to get the items!

Pics from the sound of music tour in Salzburg will receive it's very own post!  Keep reading!

More scenes from a hike above our house

That is the full moon ....view from our deck!