Český Krumlov – Mondsee – Oberndorf – Kirchberg
With the brilliant blue skies of the previous day having changed to a low, cloudy gloom and a bitter wind blowing through the narrow streets of Český Krumlov, we made our way through the old town and over the river to where the bus was waiting, before setting off for what will be our final hotel for the trip (at least the official tour part of it), at Kirchberg in Tirol. A lot of place names throughout these parts are shared by multiple towns, so to differentiate they are given a location qualifier – such as Český Krumlov, or Rothenberg ob der Tauber. Such is the case for Kirchberg – the one we were heading for is in the Austrian state of Tirol/Tyrol. Soon after leaving Český Krumlov, the heavens opened up, and by the time we were approaching our first stop for the day at Mondsee, things had become very cold and wet. In fact, it was difficult to even contemplate getting out of the bus, however lunch was beckoning, and the church at Mondsee, famous for its use in the film The Sound of Music, was touted as being a must-see.
It is a short walk from the bus parking area at the base of the town, to the church at the top of the hill, and thankfully the worst of the rain held off as we made the journey. In the main square in front of the church, a small Christmas market was opening up, but as it was still drizzling we decided to head indoors instead.
On all of these tours through historic European villages, there’s often the danger of getting ABC fatigue (Another Bloody Church), but this one was something special. Having never watched the movie past the opening scenes, the fact that this church served as the location for the wedding scene in The Sound of Music held no significance for me whatsoever, however Vanessa was absolutely in her element, and I could still appreciate the sheer opulence of this beautiful space. We spent quite a bit of time in there, listening to the rain outside beat a steady drum, until such time as the worst had passed, and we headed into the small town centre to find something to eat.
Once again it was Grüner Veltliner and Weiner Schnitzel for Vanessa, while I opted for Frankfurters with potato salad. I ordered a beer as well, skipping over the Radler this time to order a Pilsner Urquell in a bid to restore my manhood. For dessert we shared a deliciously decadent Esterházy torte. There was a brief moment of panic as we noticed for the first time the sign inside the door that read “No cards – Cash only!”, but luckily there was a bank with an ATM just across the street, and I was able to run over and withdraw some Euros before we finished up.
The rain had eased to just a very fine mist by this stage, and it even cleared enough for us to see the mountains surrounding the town. Still, it was very nice to get out of the cold and back onto the bus ready to head to our next stop.
To be honest, I found the next stop a little odd, given that earlier in the week we had been told that it would have been impossible for the tour to have a stop for lunch in Pilsen instead of the two-bit dive that we stopped at along the motorway, because it would have meant arriving after 4:00 pm in Prague. Yet here we were, mid afternoon and still almost two hours away from Kirchberg, and yet instead of heading straight past Salzburg to the southwest for the alpine villages of the Tyrol, we were instead deviating north towards the town of Obendorf bei Salzburg.
Ostensibly we were here to see the chapel in which the hymn “Silent Night” made its first public appearance on Christmas Eve in 1818, at the parish church, the Nikolauskirche. Except we weren’t, because that church was demolished in 1910 after severe flooding destroyed much of the town, and a new church was built on higher ground further from the town centre. Where the original church had stood was instead erected a small commemorative chapel, so small in fact that we didn’t really see the point in queueing to see the interior, and instead spent the 40 minutes we had until we had to be back at the bus visiting the small Christmas market surrounding the chapel, as well as climbing to the top of the river bank to get a glimpse across the River Salzach (the same river that flows through Salzburg) over into Germany, and the town of Laufen.
Then it was back on the bus, up the motorway again, and back past Salzburg until we were finally heading into the Austrian state of Tirol, although not before a brief stint of border crossings that saw us heading back through Germany for much of the way, before re-entering Austria just near the town of Unken. By that stage the sun was setting, which made things a little scary due to the sheer amount of snow that had been falling since the night before. It seemed we would definitely be having a white Christmas this year.
Just outside of Kirchberg in Tirol we passed through another town called Obendorf, this one known as Obendorf in Tirol. Apparently a number of guides in the past have directed the tour bus to stop there, expecting to find the Silent Night Chapel there instead. Which doesn’t surprise me, as when you look at it on the map, if you were expecting to travel from Český Krumlov to Kirchberg with a stop at Oberndorf along the way, this one logically makes more sense. One wonders though if those groups ever did get to see the chapel, and if not, did it really matter?
The hotel we arrived at, The KirchbergerHof, is a large, typically Tyrolean chalet style building on the side of the hill overlooking the village of Kirchberg. It’s certainly one of the nicest hotels we’ve stayed at on the trip, with the possible exception of the one in Prague, which comes as a great relief, because we’ll be here for 5 nights. Disappointingly though, the promised “buffet style” dinner in the restaurant is still pretty much a choice of only one or two dishes, only this time each dish is deconstructed, with each component served from a separate bain-marie. So theoretically, there is slightly more choice, because if you want the potatoes and brown-onion gravy with the baked trout instead of the boiled beef, no-one is going to stop you. Unfortunately though, by the time we assembled at our prescribed time of 7:30 pm and our group of 9 paying guests had been squeezed into a space large enough to comfortably seat 8, the dining room had been open for an hour and a half, and most of the food had gone. Which is how I know that no-one will stop you pouring the gravy that was made to go with the beef onto the chips that were to go with the trout.