Well, not really, but it’s a song that gets a lot of air time down here. Our flight from Toronto was pretty exciting – a bit rougher than normal, which required the seat belt sign almost the whole way. What a wonderful feeling to come off the plane to 21* sunny weather. We were quite warm by the time we collected luggage and found our van into the city.

Our hotel is very conveniently located right down at Fisherman’s Wharf and everything is well within walking distance. Our first stop was for a quick bite at Boudin, famous for sourdough bread bowls filled with delicious clam chowder. Our next stop was to sign up for an evening tour of the city which also included the last two tickets available for Alcatraz the next day. We hadn’t booked ahead since we weren’t too sure of our schedule and the weather. We were very fortunate that things are a bit slow at the moment and tickets only sell out two or three days ahead!

We’re told that the weather is unseasonably warm this year, so much so that it was quite unusual that we were able to do the night tour sitting upstairs in the double decker bus. It did get a bit cold towards the end and hot chocolate was a welcome treat before turning in for the night.

On Sunday morning we got our assigned time for Alcatraz and had enough time to do one round of the Hop On Hop Off tour before having a quick lunch and heading to the docks. Alcatraz hasn’t changed at all since I was there in the 1990s with Barb and the kids, but they have opened up some other areas that we didn’t see. The audio tour of the cell blocks is as fascinating as ever and you learn a lot about the penal system from the 1930s to the 1960s. We were very fortunate that included in our ticket was admittance to an art exhibition by world renowned Chinese artist Ai Weiwei. The exhibit includes sculptures, sound and mixed media installations all made especially for the Alcatraz site. The exhibit explores how we define liberty and justice, individual rights and personal responsibility. We hadn’t intended to spend the whole afternoon there but found ourselves coming back on the last ferry at 4:30pm. A great afternoon! Dinner was at a simple diner so that we could enjoy a world famous must in San Francisco – a hot fudge sundae at Ghirardelli’s.

Today was our wine tour to Napa and Sonoma – a very long but delightful day in the country. We visited three small to mid-size wineries, all non-retail producers. Chardonnay and Pino Noir are the major grapes grown in the region but the third winery is of Italian heritage so they also produce some small batches of some special Italian wines. Now I know what to look for in Italy! Dinner tonight was at an Italian seafood restaurant. After our free clam chowder we chowed down on their seafood stew – shrimp, clams, mussels, calamari, fish and crab in a spicy tomato sauce. Wow!

Our last day in Prague dawned cloudy with yet another 90% forecast of rain. We began today’s tour at the Prague Castle – the most visited castle in the Czech Republic – the official residence and office of the President. We toured the castle grounds and St Vitus Cathedral and heard the history of the castle, which dates back to the ninth century. Situated atop a hill, one gets a panoramic view of the city below.

We then walked down the hill along a pretty little street which has retained so much character, including many homes with symbols over the doors (eg – swan, three violins) which was the way to give directions to your house prior to the numbering system we have today. At the bottom we crossed the historic Charles bridge which was completed in the 15th century. It is now a pedestrian only bridge and there were many stories about some of the more important of the 30 statues that adorn the bridge. We were also warned that this is the working place for many pickpockets.

The bridge joins the castle to the old town, which meant that we were back on familiar ground from the previous day when we arrived back in old town square. We said goodbye to our excellent tour guide and headed off on our own for lunch. As we were eating lunch the rain finally started and continued (just a light drizzle) for most of the afternoon. From lunch we walked to St Wenceslas Square, named after the patron saint of Bohemia. This is the centre of business and commerce in the new town and the traditional setting for demonstrations, celebrations and public gatherings. We wandered along one side of the broad street and then back along the other side, visiting some of the small Czech craft and crystal shops along the way. To fill some of the time until our bus came, George went back to the church we sang at yesterday to hear a youth choir from Leeds. He managed to talk his way in, even though the concert was in progress, but I wasn’t so fortunate. I went off on my own and bought a treat to share when he returned.

We didn’t have a lot of time when we returned to the hotel to prepare for our last night on the town. Ellison arranged for us to go to U Marcanu. This is a family run restaurant that has been in business for more than 100 years. What fun! Dinner included traditional Czech fare with unlimited wine and beer interspersed with traditional entertainment. The emcee spoke a number of different languages and welcomed everyone in their own language. There were groups from Canada, US, Australia and Russia. Over the course of the evening she had people up playing instruments, dancing and generally having fun. At the end of the evening they said farewell to the Aussies by singing Waltzing Matilda, to the Americans by singing Home on the Range, to the Russians by singing a Russian folk song that we all hummed along to, and to the Canadians by singing Alouette. Everyone returned in good spirits ready to pack and head home. The yellow bus folk had to be up and ready to leave by 4am. I suspect some of them didn’t even go to bed.

This has been a wonderful trip and a great introduction to three countries in Europe. I’m sure we’ll be back again some day. We’re glad we came early rather than staying after the trip. I think we’re very ready to head home.

Weather reports for the past few days have been warning about a large weather system bringing cooler temperatures and significant rainfall. Today, the weather report called for an 80% chance of rain throughout the day. Most of us prepared by bringing raincoats, umbrellas, etc. since we were to spend a significant part of the day outside. Well, MFC must live in the 20% zone because while the temperature was much more comfortable, we didn’t see a drop of rain all day.

Our tour this morning was a 2.5 hour walking tour of the old town. We learned about some of the lovely old buildings, the Jewish quarter, the various churches and the most interesting astronomical clock. Our guide ensured that we arrived in the square in time to see the clock chime the hour…replete with moving figures. I’m told there are a number of good examples of how the clock works on YouTube.

After lunch we gathered in the St Nicholas Church in Old Town for the last of our concerts. This is a baroque style church dating back to 1737. For much of its history it was used as a Russian Orthodox house of worship. Today it is owned and managed by the Hussite church – a group that has broken away from the Roman Catholic Church. We had a choice after the concert to return to our hotel or to stay downtown until after dinner. We decided to attend the organ concert at St Nicholas, scheduled for 5pm. There was also another concert scheduled for 8pm…that would be the third concert today. The church is certainly well used! The organ concert included a few selections by a soprano soloist and was a relaxing way to spend an hour before dinner.

We returned back to the hotel and wandered over to the big shopping mall next door to check out Czech shopping. It’s quite interesting to see how many of the stores are the same as those at home – Tesco, H&M, Swarovski, Adidas, Nike, etc. We haven’t really done much shopping – mostly because there has not been much time – but maybe tomorrow we’ll check out the crystal since that seems to be ‘the thing’ here.

Now to cheer on the Netherlands!

Today was basically a travel day from Salzburg to Prague. Most of the travel was along major highways, but we did make one detour to the historic town of Cesky Krumlov. This is a small town in the South Bohemian section of the Czech Republic and is designated a UNESCO world heritage site. Most of the architecture of the old town dates from the 14th through the 17th centuries. During the communist era, the city fell into a state of disrepair. Since 1989, after the fall of communism, much of the town’s former beauty has been restored and it is now a popular tourist site. We only had a two hour stop over the lunch hour so there wasn’t a lot of time to do more than just wander through the town. Another place to revisit at some point!

The core of the old town is within a horseshoe bend in the Vlatava River and folks enjoy rafting on the river. Parts of it have been dammed up to create rapids – whitewater rafting Czech style. We enjoyed a few minutes sitting in the shade watching folks enjoys the ride down the rapids.

As we were disembarking from the bus, we experienced our first major injury of the trip. One of the women travelling with us (not a choir member) fell and opened the scar from a former knee replacement. Reports are that she is okay but evidently the arrival of an ambulance at the accident site was quite spectacular, including almost taking out a car. Ellison Tours local contact has arranged for her and her sister and brother-in-law to be transported from the hospital in Cesky to Prague by private car later this evening. She had evidently joked earlier in the day that as a nurse she was travelling with a suture kit, just in case anyone needed it but I guess you can’t do your own sutures.

We’re staying at a very contemporary style hotel in Prague and had a very nice buffet dinner tonight. The forecast is for a fair amount of rain over the next two days. It will be interesting to see if it affects any of our plans.

Today was one of those travel days that not much went as planned. It was certainly one of those days where many of us were glad we’re not the tour managers. For us it began just shortly after I have posted yesterday’s blog and turned out the lights. I was just drifting off to sleep when I heard someone put a key card in the door and try the handle. I assumed it was someone who had the wrong room and that they would go away. When they tried again two or three minutes later I went to the door and told them to go away, someone was already in this room. About five minutes later the front desk phoned to find out who was in the room, what room I was in and whether I was alone! He kept saying that he had a driver there who needed a room. Rather scary for 1:30 am. Needless to say, it took me a while to settle down and get to sleep after all that excitement.

When I reported this in the morning, our tour manager followed up with the front desk and found out that they had made an error in room assignments and since they couldn’t find an empty room at that point for the bus driver, he ended up sleeping in his bus. This meant that there was a lot of discussion and upset this morning and in the end we were a 1/2 hour late leaving on our Sound of Music tour.

We weren’t in the bus very long before we realized that our guide was a dud. She continuously interrupted herself, kept saying “yah?” and “you know”, and didn’t complete the tour on time which meant we were late getting back to town reducing our lunch time accordingly. Everyone was disappointed given that a young couple in the choir had done the tour two years ago and had a blast. During the tour we saw the home that was used in the movie, the gazebo and the Abbey where the wedding scene took place. None of these were really part of the true Von Trapp story. We saw the real convent from a distance, the real fountain and heard about the place where the real Von Trapp family won a singing competition.

After a quick lunch we boarded our buses again to head out to the Eagle’s Nest. We ended up on a very narrow road, not made for buses, and at one point our drivers had to get out and help each other negotiate a turn so that the bus didn’t bottom out going around the corner. We heard tonight that the road the driver usually takes was closed so this was his only alternative. The Eagle’s Nest was built as a gift for Hitler to celebrate his 50th birthday and was used as a tea house to entertain visiting dignitaries. It’s situated on a ridge at the top of a mountain some 6000′ up. The road up is about 6.5 km long with five tunnels and one hairpin turn. The last section is done by elevator. Wow, the view was spectacular!

When we returned to Salzburg we headed off immediately to dinner and a concert at the citadel, on foot through the old town. Many of us got a little damp as a passing thunderstorm rolled through just at that opportune moment. Dinner was delicious and the dessert was quite elegantly displayed. I’m not sure if the musical theme was because they knew we were a choir or because they knew we were going to the concert. We wore off our dessert by climbing 150 steps to get to the concert hall – a room that dates back to medieval time and is still decorated in that style. The concert was performed by a string quartet but I think the musicians the other night were much better. It was still enjoyable though.

When we returned to the hotel, we found an apology note from the hotel manager and a nice box of Lindt chocolates awaiting us. More pounds!

Today we are off to Salzburg – famous as the birthplace of Mozart, the Von Trapp family and the Sound of Music. It was a four or five hour trip from Vienna to Salzburg but was broken up by a stop in the gorgeous town of Halstatt to perform at the Lutheran Church. It is a town that has literally been built into the side of a mountain and there is so little space that the houses are built on top of one another. No cars are allowed in the downtown area (except by special permit) and there were tourists galore. Our stop there was just under two hours which included a 45 minute concert. It would have been nice to have been able to stop for a longer visit.

We arrived in Salzburg about 6pm and just had time to stash our luggage in the room before heading down to a roast beef dinner in the hotel dining room. As a bonus we had two deserts tonight – one from the hotel and one compliments of the Ambrose family to celebrate John and Katherine’s 51st wedding anniversary. One could put on some weight on this trip!

After dinner we met our guides and did a two hour walking tour of Salzburg. History is everywhere here including a Fransciscan Church dating back to the 8th Century, Mozart’s birthplace, the building where his father taught violin lessons, the family gravesite (although Mozart is actually buried in Vienna), the Hohensalzburg Fortress and Salzburg Cathedral. We also saw the fountain that appeared in the Sound of Music movie. Tomorrow we will see more movie sites as we do the Sound of Music tour.

Back to the hotel now for a good night’s rest. Tomorrow will be another busy day.

Saturday’s tours were to Schonbrunn Palace and the Opera House. Schonbrunn is the summer home of the Habsburg family built in the 1600s. It has 1400+ rooms and extensive gardens and other buildings. Because of timing we only had a chance to tour the Imperial Palace – the living area of the family. We were due to sing outside at noon and up until about 10 minutes before concert time it was drizzling rain. It looked like it might stop eventually so we lined up and began our first song, thinking that if it continued we would call the buses and leave for downtown. The first song was Rise Up My Love, one line of which says “the rain is over and gone” – which it was! The sun came out and the rest of the day was quite nice.

The bus took us downtown where we had time for a quick lunch and then we were off to the Opera House. What a beautiful building. Originally built in the late 1800s it was bombed during the war and was closed for 10 years while it was rebuilt. From September to June they perform over 300 performances usually of about 50 – 60 different opera/ballets. There are 1700 seats and room for about 600 standing patrons. The intermission rooms are around the outside of the building and are all decorated in different eras. We also saw the Emperor’s private lounge where he entertained guests. It’s still decorated with the original furniture. The Vienna State Opera House had the distinction of being 99% full over all performances last year. 51% of their budget is provided by the state. I guess when you are a musical country you have a lot to live up to!

After a bit of down time and dinner we were off to a Mozart Concert at the Muzikverein – a large concert hall in downtown Vienna. Imagine our surprise when we arrived to find that our seats were actually on the stage! Evidently this is quite common in Europe. It was certainly a different feeling to listen to a concert sitting beside/behind the orchestra. The only drawback was that we couldn’t see the soloist’s faces but we didn’t have any trouble hearing them. Interestingly enough the program included a flute concerto and a selection of pieces from The Magic Flute, which of course we had heard last week at the Marionette theatre.

We arrived back at the hotel just before 11pm – a tired but happy crew.

Our internet is rather spotty since it is only available in the lobby making it difficult to keep up with the blog. This post covers a very long Friday – the choir’s first full day in Vienna. The plan was a guided bus tour and city walking tour in the morning followed by free time downtown. Since George and I had already done the city tour last week, we decided to strike out on our own.

Our first stop was the Treasury Museum which contains displays of the secular and religious treasures of the Hapsburg era. The jewels and household items were beautiful. I was particularly taken however with the embroidered clothing and altar cloths used in worship. They were really spectacular!

Our second stop was the Museum of Ancient Instruments. It was interesting to say the least and we kind of wished we had gone there first…but we will see it better next time welcome this way. On display were instruments dating back to medieval times, as well as instruments belonging to or having been played by the Masters. This is a picture of a piano played by Clara Schumann at the opening of a concert hall in 1870. The hall is still used today and is noted for its excellent acoustics.

After a quick lunch we met our bus and headed out to a small town about two hours out of Vienna. Our concert for the evening was in the Abbey and was a fundraiser for the local community. After we arrived the Abbott gave a formal greeting and told us about the history of the monastery, the various buildings, the 25 parishes that they serve and the way in which life has changed over the years (pre, during, and post communism). Dinner was served buffet style and we ate picnic style in the monastery garden. I think the dinner will probably go down as one of the best of the trip – roast beef, roast pork, sauerkraut, potato dumplings, a vegetable pie – all homemade.

There were about 200 people from the community crammed into the pews (straight backs, narrow benches…and not looking terribly comfortable). Our choir of 70 voices was also crammed into a very small chancel but the sound was magnificent. David, our director, said it gave him goosebumps and brought tears to his eyes. One of our pieces is a first nation’s piece that has three parts (a discordant drone, and two chorus parts in Mic Mac). It also calls for animal sounds which a number of our folks have perfected (birds, wolf, loon, chipmunk, etc). The folks who make the animal sounds go out around the sanctuary to the sound comes as a surprise from all directions. It was a favourite of our Ireland tour and I’d say it was a favourite of last evening’s concert judging by the faces. This is a picture taken while we were performing the Mic Mac song.

It was a late night getting back to Vienna but everyone agreed that it was an awesome day.

Our choir director is also doing a blog and has a few mor pictures on his blog. You can read it at mfceuro2014.wordpress.com.

Today was a long travel day to get from Budapest to Vienna. The trip was broken up with a stop in Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia. Since we arrived a bit later than planned, lunch was a very quick affair in one of the outdoor cafés on the Main Street. Our guides were waiting for us in the main square when we arrived and provided a two hour walking tour through the city.

Bratislava has a population of about 500,000 people about 10% of the total population in the whole country. It is a very old town and like many European cities has been fought over and won by many different groups. It is also the only European capital that borders two independent countries. Since becoming part of the European Union, there have been many pluses and minuses. Housing in the city has become quite expensive, so people live in the border towns and then drive to Hungary or Austria for work. Many more people also live in the small towns and commute to work in Bratislava than was possible under communist rule.

We were interested to see farms throughout the countryside growing crops, but there were no animals – cows, pigs, sheep – in sight. Our guide, who just graduated in veterinary medicine, told us that farming is a very difficult occupation here and the farmers can’t afford to raise animals. This is one of the minuses from joining the EU. She also told the story of Danes coming in and buying farms in the south, subsidized by Denmark, because they have run out of land in their own country.

We finally made it to our hotel a little before 5pm, but it takes quite a while to get so many people off the bus and settled in the right rooms with their luggage. Dinner was supposed to be at the hotel but was moved to another hotel because the dining room here is under renovation…a surprise for our tour company late last week.

It’s nice to be back in Vienna and it felt quite comfortable walking the streets again tonight. Tomorrow we have most of the day on our own as George and I have already done a tour of Vienna. We’ll be visiting some of the other museums that we didn’t quite finish last week. It’s also a long day…we’ll be on the road until 11pm as our concert is at a monastery about 2 hours from here.

Yep, that was one long day! After 12+ hours on the go one can be forgiven if sleep is more important than the blog. It’s now 2:40 am and sleep seems to have evaded me for a while until the pain pill kicks in so here we go.

Our day began with a guided tour of the city. Budapest is actually two distinct cities divided in half by the Danube River. Pest is very flat and mostly commercial while Buda is very hilly and is mostly residential. Along the river there are some very spectacular buildings including the Parliament buildings on the Pest side and the Palace, St. Matthias Church and the Fisherman’s Bastion on the Buda side. Our first stop was at Heroes’ Square – the largest and most impressive square in the city. Originally built in 1896 and rebuilt after WWII, it celebrates the thousandth anniversary of the Magyar conquest of Hungary. Behind the square is a large city park that houses a zoo, an amusement park and one of several natural spas in the city. We then stopped at the beautiful St. Stephens Basilica, a neo-classical building that is the third largest in Hungary. We will return there later to sing. A brief drive across the chain bridge – one of eight automobile/pedestrian bridges connecting the two halves of the city – took us to Fisherman’s Bastion – a neo-gothic castle structure just in front of St. Matthias church. From there you get a panoramic view of the Pest side of the city. The church was the first parish church in Buda and has a number of different architectural styles associated with it since it has been rebuilt many times. The most interesting feature for me was all the frescoes on the walls. One last stop at the Citadel gave yet another panoramic view of the city along the Danube.

We returned to the Pest side for a few hours of free time. The bus dropped us off close to the Great Market Hall and Vaci Street – both very popular tourist stops. The Market Hall is a large three storey structure which has serves as a market since the late 1800s. It not only includes vendors selling fresh produce and meat but also includes vendors selling typical Hungarian products popular with the tourists and a number of stalls selling Hungarian food. Unfortunately it was very crowded and there was limited seating so we decided to look elsewhere for lunch. Vaci Street is our Yonge Street turned into a pedestrian mall. It is dotted with outdoor cafés, souvenir shops and other businesses. We found a nice, shady spot at one of the outdoor cafés and enjoyed a rest and a tasty lunch. A stroll down the street was somewhat like running the gauntlet with restraunteurs seeking your business and all kinds of others hocking their wares. We had a private unrequested concert by a gypsy with a very out-of-tune violin and were propositioned to purchase an iPhone in its original case. We were somewhat glad to get back on the bus!

Back we went to St. Stephens Basilica to change, quickly warm up and then sing three pieces during the 6pm mass. The acoustics were remarkable and the reverberation lasted for a number of seconds – meaning we had to watch the conductor and not listen to the sound since we were singing a cappella.

The bus then dropped us off down by the river so we could enjoy dinner at one of the waterfront cafés. During dinner the sun began to set and one by one the buildings along the river were lit up. It really is a beautiful city at night. After dinner we walked the promenade and found many of our Canadian friends at the ice cream cart! A nice treat to end a rather hectic but enjoyable day.