Hello, I’m Veronica
The sky is not completely dark at night. Were the sky absolutely dark, one would not be able to see the silhouette of an object against the sky.
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Following the Leader
Technology birthed the self-guided tour. More and more often, an admission ticket to sights worth seeing grants you a pair of headphones and a wearable device instead of a name-tagged human to show-and-tell you the way. Self-guided touring allows for a more convenient and less distracted experience. But it also removes the storyteller, and that, my friends, makes all the difference between a memorable tour and a forgettable one.
Budapest, Hungary Viking River Cruises, one of which we completed on the Danube River in early June (see Going With the Flow), provide a plethora of tour guide experiences. On any given day of the cruise, you disembark to one or two “land-based” locales, in the (sometimes) capable hands of a personal tour guide. Viking contracts with local agencies to provide these guides for small groups of its travelers. For example, having a Hungarian show you the sights of downtown Budapest is so much more satisfying than hearing someone drone on about it on a headset. Sharing a beer with a German on a tasting tour is almost like being invited into his house.
Nuremberg, Germany If I ask you to share one of your own memories involving a tour guide, you’ll probably recall a particularly good one. Maybe you’ll even remember a bad one. Regardless, your stories would support my theory: a top-notch guide can make the what or the where of the tour almost irrelevant. The guide himself or herself can make the difference between a memorable experience and a forgettable one.
Consider, I still remember a tour of a southern plantation with my family from almost fifty years ago. Why? Because the tour guide presented herself in a way that made me think we were being welcomed into her own house. She also had this soft, syrupy unforgettable Southern accent that had me hanging on her every word. Do I remember anything about the plantation? No, but I sure remember the tour guide.
Szentendre, Hungary So it was on the Viking cruise. We had good guides and we had outstanding ones. The very best of the dozen or so – ironically – was a young woman working on contract with Viking for the first time, as a stand-in for our scheduled guide in Munich. She was, in every respect, delightful. She started our tour with a greeting and a smile, then a little conversation and questions to break the ice. As she led us from one sight to another, she spoke with an energy and pride in her city that can only be described as vivacious. By the end of the tour, as the saying goes, she had us feeding out of her hand. I was so enthralled I forgot to take a picture of her.
But we also had a lesser guide a few days earlier in Vienna, who I’d describe as a speed-walking encyclopedia. He led us on a many-thousand-steps rush through the sights, filling our heads with facts and figure as he went, in a pretty thick Austrian accent. He never smiled and I don’t think we ever stopped walking. Can’t remember much about that tour (or him for that matter) because it was a rush-rush blurry overload of the senses. I need to go back to Vienna again someday so I can (literally) stop and smell their famous roses.
Vienna, Austra Courtesy of Viking and those many tours near the Danube, I present to you, therefore, the attributes of the consummate tour guide:
- A local, familiar with the city or sight at hand through regular exposure.
- A personality; warm, friendly, energetic, and engaging.
- An overflowing font of knowledge on his/her subject, able to answer just about any question thrown their way.
- A storyteller, able to weave anecdotes at will into the facts and figures to keep it interesting.
- In tune with his/her audience, making adjustments to the tour as necessary (ex. “Am I going too fast for you?”)
If you take enough sightseeing tours, you’ll know whether your guide is missing one or more of the above within the first five minutes. You’ll also know whether the next hour or two will fly by or drag on for all eternity. If your guide checks all five boxes, consider yourself lucky. Most of us aren’t cut out for the job (myself included), whether we like to think we are or not. It takes a special set of skills to be the leader everybody wants to follow.
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Dave meets “Evy”
Renting a car at the airport used to be so hassle-free. You’d book the vehicle online, walk or bus to the parking lot, and bypass the counter by signing up for the company’s free membership program. All of that still happens, so what’s the difference today? You never know what vehicle you’re going to get, even if you choose the make/model ahead of time. And if you’ve never driven an electric vehicle (“Evy”) before, renting one is a real adventure.
Blame it on my laptop keyboard. As I pecked my way through a recent Avis reservation, I inadvertently chose “Mystery Car” instead of “full-size sedan”. Mystery car? What the heck does that mean? It means more flexibility for the rental car agency. “Mystery car” means Avis gives you whatever it feels like giving you from its leftover inventory. Maybe you get what you wanted. Maybe you get a luxury vehicle for even less. Or maybe you get Evy like I did.I admit, I am not with the times of the latest vehicle technology. I couldn’t tell you the first thing about operating Evy, let alone how she works under the hood. So there I stood in the Avis parking lot, faced with the prospect of my first miles behind her wheel. The rental companies should put a beginner’s guide on the driver’s seat for people like me. I mean, imagine my hesitation (panic?) when I pushed Evy’s start button and nothing happened? Something happened, of course. The engine “started”; it just didn’t make any noise. Yep, this was going to be a different kind of ride.
My first issue with Evy (or at least, the Genesis I rented) is the inexplicable need to make the dashboard wildly different than a conventional vehicle. You don’t find the basic needs (ex. headlights, windshield wipers) where you expect to. I actually considered talking to the vehicle instead of pushing random buttons, especially after my seat suddenly firmed up and vibrated when my I let my posture slip a little (“driver safety feature!”) Seriously, all I’m asking for is dashboard buttons and levers where I expect them to be.
Once I found a modicum of comfort with Evy, the real challenge dawned on me: I have to recharge her before I go back to the airport. And this, my friends, proved to be a challenge worthy of reality TV. Those who already know Evy are welcome to say, “Oh c’mon Dave, it’s not that hard!” but truth be told, my charging station experience was just as daunting as the first time I pulled up to a gas pump as a teenager.
Credit Genesis, you can look up the nearest charging station right there on the dashboard. The search gave me a choice of three. The first station was in an Urgent Care clinic parking lot… and wasn’t working. I’ve read that 15% of EV charging stations don’t work so now I’m a believer (EV Charging Flaw #1).The next charging station option was in a McDonald’s parking lot. When I arrived, both slots were occupied (EV Charging Flaw #2 – not enough to go around). I have no problem waiting in line at gas stations but charging Evy takes a lot longer. So I chose to drive another mile to the third option, a charger in a bank parking lot. Nope. No station to be found from one end of the lot to the other. Genesis needs to update its locator software.
So back to McDonald’s I
steamedwent (and not for a Happy Meal, mind you). The charging stations were still occupied, which begs the question, where do you form a line? If I parked behind either car I’d be blocking their exit. I’d also be blocking the McDonald’s drive-thru lane. The only option was the parking space adjacent to the charging stations, with hopes of quickly maneuvering into an available charger before the next person pulls up (EV Charging Flaw #3).This story only gets worse from here, so let’s keep it brief. Once a station was finally available, I pulled in only to realize I had to face the car the other way for the charging cable to reach (EV Charging Flaw #4). Then I tapped my credit card on the charger, only to find you have to download an app to make the station work; no cash or credit accepted (EV Charging Flaw #5).
Fifteen minutes later (because that’s what it takes when you only have one bar of wireless service – grrrrr) I got the app installed, the charging cable connected without electrocution (in pouring rain), and ta-dah… NOTHING! Nada! Zilch! No “PRESS HERE TO CHARGE” or some other obvious way to get things started. Instead, by the good graces of my EV-knowledgeable brother over the phone, I learned I had to zoom in on the tiny app map, identify the McDonald’s location of my charging station, and tap it (EV Charging Flaw #6). Suddenly Evy’s gods smiled down on me through the thunderstorm and declared “Charge”.
To say I was giddy to make it back to the airport a day later without a dead Evy is an understatement. To say I was the target of a sick joke when my very next Avis rental – same day, different airport – was a hybrid is undeniable. But hey, at least a hybrid gives you the option of gasoline, so you get to fuel up the “old-fashioned way”. Which brings me, humbly, to declare Dave Flaw #1: Get to know Evy very, very well before your life – or at least your transportation – depends on her.
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“Thoughtless Driving”
One of the inconveniences of living in a small town is the proximity to airports. In western South Carolina we actually have a choice of six, including tiny Augusta Regional just beyond the nearby Savannah River. But whether Augusta or one of the larger airports hours away on the East Coast, the drive to get there is mostly two-lane blacktop, speeding along and then slowing down through the small towns along the way. Correction. You’re supposed to slow down through the small towns.
Blame it on puzzle apps. My wife and I were just thirty miles into our eastward trek to Charleston International when we hit the pretty-much-forgotten small town of Springfield, SC. The speed limit sign suggested 25 through its residential streets. I chose 38 instead. Okay, I didn’t intentionally choose 38. I simply elected to ignore the laws of little Springfield, in favor of focusing on the puzzles my wife was trying to solve on her iPad. Maybe I missed the speed limit sign, but I did see the spinning blue/red lights on the police car sitting quietly in a church parking lot.
Here’s something all four of my life’s speeding violations have in common. As soon as each of them happened, I pulled over pretty much the moment the cop reached for his lights. My thought process went, “Hey, I’m breaking the law”, followed by “Hey, that cop noticed me breaking the law” and finally, “I think I’ll just pull over immediately and save him or her any further trouble”.
38 mph in a 25; yeah, that’s pretty bad. Totally deserved the ticket. At least it wasn’t another school zone this time. My last two speeding tickets, one in the middle of 1992 and the other around 2013, were earned as I passed by primary schools with loads of children on their playgrounds. Even worse, the 1992 ticket was collected from the driver’s seat of a midlife crisis two-door convertible Alfa Romeo Spider. Bet the cop loved ordering youngish me to traffic school in lieu of the ticket.
Speaking of “in lieu”, my Springfield, SC cop (who had nothing better to do because there’s nothing at all to do in Springfield) gave me a no-brainer choice in settling my flagrant speeding violation. Option 1: Pay the fine as advertised and earn four points against my driver’s license (“Ouch!”) Option 2: Pay an additional 30% on the fine and avoid the points entirely (not-so-“Ouch!”) Maybe Springfield’s not a bad little town after all… even if the ticket mocked my violation with a description of “thoughtless driving”.
Here’s the nice thing about making peace with a speeding violation before the cop even reaches the driver’s side window: you have a pleasant conversation. Officer: Do you know why I pulled you over? Me: Why yes sir, I do, and here’s my driver’s license and registration. Officer: Okay Mr. David, let me spell out your options here (spells out options). Me: Why thank you sir, I’ll take Option 2, if you please. Officer: Okay then Mr. David, pay the fine online and enjoy the rest of your day. Me: And you too, officer! It was almost as if a friendship was born over a speeding ticket.
I can’t talk about three of my speeding tickets without a mention of the fourth. I made it through my high school driving years before ever getting pulled over – but just barely. It was on a graduation trip, where my parents loaned me their car and paid for enough gas to get me and a buddy a driving tour of the Western U.S. And right there in the middle of Colorado, streaking up the interstate towards the Rockies, I earned the blue/red lights for the very first time.
I will always remember two things about that first ticket. First, the officer gave me a personal escort to a nearby mailbox so he could watch me mail the check for the violation (no online or credit card option in 1980). Second, I turned to my buddy afterwards and said, “My parents are gonna kill me!”… which wasn’t true at all, but it’s how most teenagers feel after they get a speeding ticket in their parents’ car.
I doff my hat to those who make the effort to plead down a speeding ticket. I also admire those who continue driving after a violation, as if they don’t think the police car in the rear-view mirror intends to pull them over. Me, I embrace the fines for my brushes with the law. It’s easy to claim accountability when you’ve only had four instances. And for the foreseeable future, I’ll be the most well-behaved driver behind the wheel. You just won’t find me anywhere near Springfield, SC.
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Connection Protection
The college my wife attended many years ago was a small Midwestern campus, maybe twenty buildings in all. Because of the extreme winter temps, the college had the foresight to install tunnels between the primary buildings, allowing for warm, comfortable walks from say, the dorms to the central dining hall. It’s the same concept my wife and I discovered in Nuremberg, Germany last month, only this tunnel complex was on a much larger scale. And getting from Point A to Point B wasn’t its only intent.
Nuremberg, Germany You’ll find Nuremberg in the center of Bavaria, the forested southwest region of Germany. The city served as the final destination on our recent Viking River Cruise on the Danube. Like Salzburg, Austria a few days before, Nuremberg is known for its “Old City” area (now surrounded by modern-day sprawl). Once inside those towering protective walls, it’s like you’ve stepped back into the Middle Ages. If there’s a more preserved city of the period, with its moats, castles, towers, and bridges, I’m not aware of it.
A walking tour of Nuremberg is impressive enough with the history, architecture, and stories, but what trumps everything about it is what lies beneath the city. My wife and I signed up for an excursion called “Flavors of Nuremberg”, expecting to enjoy a culinary sampling of regional delights. Indeed we did. Our first stop was for a plate of Nuremberg’s famous white sausages (with a tall beer to wash them down). This could have been lunch alone, but we pressed on for more.Our next stop was for Lebkuchen, or gingerbread. It’s even more famous than the white sausages. Here are two things to know about Nuremberg gingerbread. One, it contains no ginger. Two, it’s not nearly as sweet as its American counterpart (typical). Okay, let’s add a Three: Lebkuchen is absolutely delicious. We packed a pile of gingerbread cookies into our suitcases to give to family members (but most of them ended up in our own pantry).
Our final stop – of course -was at a Nuremberg brewery for several glasses of local beer. But what I wasn’t prepared for was how we would get to our beer Instead of just walking through the front door of Hausbrauerei Altstadthof, our guide took us to the top of a stone staircase, set right into the middle of a nondescript Nuremberg street. The stair was surrounded by modest iron rails but otherwise would’ve been something you’d walk by without pause. Our guide explained how the original brewery was located on this spot centuries ago, marked by a plaque in the street.
What followed might have been my favorite moment of the tour. Our guide excused himself to “go get the key”, so he could unlock the imposing door at the bottom of the stairs. The key was held by some nearby merchant and our guide had the credentials to borrow it. I find that charming, versus typing on a computer keypad or gaining the approval of a German guard. You just open the door with an old brass key.Our guide returned, beckoned us down the stairs, opened the door, and away we went. Or should I say, down we went. Even after passing through the door fifteen feet below street level, we continued down what must’ve been the equivalent of three more floors of stairs. Our guide stayed behind to lock the door behind us, so we kind of descended on our own. The walls closed in and it got darker as we went. Suddenly beer was the last thing on my mind.
Which way do we go, Mr. Guide sir? What followed was the equivalent of rats in a maze. Seriously, if I planned to gulp fresh air or glimpse daylight ever again, I was entirely dependent on the movements of our tour guide over the next forty-five minutes. He’d turn here or turn there, beckon us down one tunnel or push us through another, and he stopped several times to click on or click off the bare bulbs weakly lighting our way. We passed through several intersections where we could’ve spun off in half a dozen directions, to be hopelessly lost under the city forever. We saw what looked like dungeons and prison cells. Suddenly I really wanted a beer. Above ground.
Dungeon, or just storage? Our guide stopped us would-be-spelunkers at several junctures to explain the fascinating history of Nuremberg’s miles-long network of hand-dug tunnels, originally used in the making of beer, then used as the city’s prison, and finally, remarkably, used to hide the thousands of residents the Nazis sought during WWII. It’s an amazing history I can’t begin to do justice in this post, but you can read more about it here. Suffice it to say, us tourists had a taste of what it’d be like to live in suddenly protective, seemingly endless tunnels for months on end. Not for the faint of heart.
Watch your step! At long last, we carefully ascended another long, irregular staircase, and our guide unlocked the final door at the top, where we burst into the sunshine and fresh air of Hausbrauerei Altstadthof‘s colorful outdoor biergarten. It was a surreal moment, being thrust back into modern-day civilization from the medieval tunnels below. The several beers that followed not only quenched my thirst but also calmed my nerves. This “flavors” city tour was unquestionably the most adventurous excursion of the entire river cruise.
Relief in a glass There was a time, when we lived in Colorado, where my wife and I considered connecting our house to our nearby barn. We thought, why not string together a series of shipping containers below ground, to act as a tunnel to keep us warm during the frigid winter months? After our subterranean tour of Nuremberg, I wondered what we were thinking. Better to just hoof it through the snow than to get lost in the grounds of Colorado forever.
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Do-Re-Mi… Oh My!
Salzburg, Austria, a day-trip destination from our recent Viking River Cruise, is a popular draw for tourists. On most days you’ll find more internationals roaming Salzburg’s Old Town than you’ll find Austrians themselves. The compact city is famous for its historic buildings: churches, palaces, and fortresses dating back 1,000 years or more. Mozart was born here. But try as they might, Austrians will never be able to separate Salzburg from what attracts many to its streets: The Sound of Music.
I can think of only one movie we forced our kids to sit down and watch while they still lived under our roof. Close to Christmas one year (an arbitrary connection because of the lyrics of “My Favorite Things”), the five of us spent three hours together in front of our not-so-big-screen TV watching the somewhat true story of the von Trapp family. I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve followed Maria, the Captain, and those seven engaging children as they outwit the Nazis.For all of the movies I’ve watched in my life (and I’ve watched quite a few), The Sound of Music stands alone. I’d describe it as a jewel you display in an elegant glass box on the shelf, taken down every once in a while to appreciate up close. The Sound of Music is a feel-good story – if not accurate – produced in 1965 at the end of the Hollywood’s Golden Age. It remains the most successful movie musical of all time (adjusted for inflation), but I question whether today’s movie-goers would appreciate it as much as I do.
Salzburg, Austria Most tours of Salzburg include references to buildings and locations included in The Sound of Music. Our own tour – cut well short because of the flooding of the Danube – was a brisk walk around the Old Town, with only an occasional mention of the movie. What surprised me was not how little of The Sound of Music was actually filmed in Salzburg (most was done on sound stages back in the States) but rather the Austrians’ utter disdain for the movie.
Salzburg’s Nonnberg Abbey Consider, when it was first released The Sound of Music was only twenty years removed from the end of WWII. The Nazi overtones of the film didn’t sit well with citizens of Austria and Germany. Reviews (and box-office receipts) were not favorable in either country. Coupled with the liberties the producers took with the story, you can see why Salzburg residents don’t exactly “Climb Ev’ry Mountain” to claim the movie as their own.
You’ll find endless trivia about The Sound of Music at IMDB.com and elsewhere. Most facts are meant to point out discrepancies between the film and the actual story. Here are fifteen of “My Favorite Things”:
1) Julie Andrews was cast as Maria, of course, but only because Audrey Hepburn declined the part. Hepburn also denied Andrews the opportunity to play Eliza Doolittle in the movie version of My Fair Lady. Each played the opposite role in the original stage adaptations on Broadway.
2) Andrews kept getting knocked off her feet in the famous opening scene where she sings and spins in an Alpine meadow. She couldn’t keep her balance because the hovering helicopter used to film the scene generated too much wind.
Not as easy as it looks! 3) Andrews’ hair was meant to be worn longer but a bad color job forced the pixie cut, which Andrews kept for most of her acting career
4) Christopher Plummer was not a fan of The Sound of Music. He reluctantly agreed to the part of Captain von Trapp and regretted every moment on set, especially those with the children. He described working with Julie Andrews as “being hit over the head with a big Valentine’s Day card, every day”. He nicknamed the movie The Sound of Mucus. Much later he acknowledged the film’s worldwide success, as well as the Oscar-nominated talent of Andrews.
5) Plummer regularly drowned his acting sorrows in Salzburg bars and restaurants. As a result his outfits needed to be resized towards the end of filming to accommodate his added weight.
The gazebo (moved from its original location). The interior scenes were filmed In a much larger stage set reproduction. 6) The von Trapp children are Rupert, Agathe, Maria, Werner, Hedwig, Johanna, and Martina… not Liesl, Friedrich, Louisa, Kurt, Brigitta, Marta, and Gretl. Also, none of the nine leads are Austrian (which certainly didn’t help the appeal of a film based in Salzburg).
7) Auditions for the parts of the von Trapp children included the four eldest Osmond brothers (not Donny), Kurt Russell, and Richard Dreyfuss.
8) Kym Karath, who played Gretl, the youngest of the von Trapp children, created her fair share of challenges. She had a cold during much of the filming. She almost drowned in the scene where the boat overturns in the lake because she didn’t know how to swim. And she ate enough sweets on set to where her weight was too much for Christopher Plummer. As a result, in the final scene walking over the Alps, Plummer is carrying a stand-in actress instead of Karath.
9) Nicholas Hammond, who played Friedrich, was not a natural blonde so his hair was bleached for the movie. The coloring process caused some of his hair to fall out, which is why you see him wearing a “Tyrolean Traditional Alpine” hat when he’s seen singing “Do-Re-Mi”.
10) The day after the real von Trapp family left Austria (by train to Italy and then to the U.S., not on foot over the Alps to Switzerland), the Germans shut down all of Austria’s borders.
Salzburg’s Schloss Leopoldskron, where lakefront and garden scenes were filmed 11) The real Maria von Trapp is on screen at the beginning of the movie.
12) The real Maria also claims, if you can blieve it, her own personality was livelier than Andrews’ on-screen version.
13) The real Maria taught Julie Andrews how to yodel. Watch the lesson here.
14) The film’s production demanded 4,500 extras, including those in the sold-out theater for the music festival. The audience sings “Edelweiss” as if they know the song, but only because they spent time beforehand learning the words.
15) Despite the aforementioned Austrian disdain, The Sound of Music is played nonstop on the televisions of most Salzburg hotels.
Maybe all of this trivia changes your opinion of The Sound of Music. Not mine. There are countless reasons this film includes the tagline, “The Happiest Sound In All The World”. The Sound of Music will always be that jewel in a glass box, waiting patiently to be enjoyed once more. Suffice it to say, I’ll never say “So Long, Farewell” to the adventures of the von Trapp family.Some content sourced from the Internet Movie Database (IMDb), and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.
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The sky is not completely dark at night. Were the sky absolutely dark, one would not be able to see the silhouette of an object against the sky.
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