Here are some emails, photos and greetings from my travels abroad this past year. Hope you enjoy!

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We walked some more and in another window the interior walls were smooth and flat. Until you noticed what they were made of---perfectly stacked bones! OMG! Every two feet or so there was a skull sandwiched between them. Is it Halloween yet? Since the catacombs were associated with St. Stephans, they had a make-shift altar to give last rites to some of the victims. Then the coffin was carried below.

      Austria is home to the Danube River, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sigmund Freud, musicians like Haydn and Strauss (A 2001 Space Odyssey).

Thanks Rosie for steering me to Vienna.

And special thanks to my tour guide and wonderful new friend Isabella (Izzy)!

Hope there's not too many photos....

-Fran

 I left off with Dubai. After a desert climate, it was nice to be back in Switzerland.    Going in and out of air conditioning on the plane and the hotel both Gabriel & I brought back head colds. OMG----I went through a box of tissues!

     Despite this he & Regina wanted to take me to the top of a mountain...and do it fast before winter set in with snow. So we hit the 10,000 foot "Titlis". Mode of transportation? Cable Car of course. The Gondola rotated as you ascended to give a panoramic view. 

     I appreciate everyone giving me tips on what to see on my travels. Vienna wasn't on my original list but my sister Rosie really wanted me to go and meet her friend Isabella.

     Apparently "Izzy" has met half the Volz family over the years. When she gave me a hug on the train platform it was clear she thought highly of those she'd met. So I had to be on my best behavior!

     She speaks English very well and anyone else might have gone crazy answering all my questions in the museums, churches and Palaces.  But she took everything in stride and we had fun. (Maybe she just made up the answers.   ) What she didn't know she would ask a curator in German.

     When you talk about Austria you talk about the Hapsburg dynasty.

Remember my earlier e-mail about William Tell and the Swiss Army defeating the Hapsburgs in 1291 AD? Now I was in Vienna where their Palaces are. The Hapsburgs were everywhere over history. Marie Antoinette in France ("Let them eat cake"'). Even in Mexico, Kaiser Maximilian was a Hapsburg. World War One started when Arch Duke Franz  Ferdinand was shot and assassinated. The Hapsburgs were very Catholic and were the protectorate of the Holy Roman Empire against Islam, as well as the Protestant Reformers.

Just like in Paris, these Emperors and Empresses lived in luxury. Marriage between Royal first cousins and uncles/nieces was common. 

      Royalty continues to this day in England, Austria probably would have done the same, except after WW II the Allies dissolved the Hapsburgs. So the Palaces are now museums and apartments. Izzy took me to one of the museums  filled with Knights and their armor. Unbelievable! Cross-bows, chain mail, swords---even pistols and rifles.

      Have you seen those white dancing Lipizzaner horses? Vienna is their home. We watched them practice at an indoor Royal arena. No pictures were allowed but even though I got yelled at by a guard,  I got a few shots (see photos).

     We went to the Mozart museum---actually it was one of his apartments. As great of a musician as he was, he drank and was addicted to gambling ---always in debt. They still don't know how he died but his drinking is suspect. In the museum they showed a new instrument for the time--a Glass Harmonica. Have you ever rubbed your wet finger on the rim of a glass & heard it "ring"? A series of glass bowls were attached to a 3 foot long horizontal rod. When the bowls spun, you used your wet fingers on each to produce music. Mozart even wrote sheet music specifically for it. The inventor of this new musical instrument? Our very own Benjamin Franklin!   Click here for a demonstration, it's amazing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XPfoFZYso8&feature=related

     I've seen many churches on my trip. But St Stephan's in Vienna  had a special tour. Their catacombs! We weren't allowed to take pictures. But maybe it was just as well. When a Hapsburg Noble died they removed their innards. Izzy & I saw shelf after shelf of what looked like bronze kettles containing these--still preserved! We followed the tour guide (our group was only about 5 people) through the arched brick  tunnels. It was dank, damp and under-lit . Beneath our feet was cobblestone and dirt. We stopped at a a brick wall with a 3 foot by 3 foot window about waist high. It had iron bars, and a light glowed from inside. Peering in you saw.......OMG!  3 raw skeletons still laying there from the 1600s on what looked like planks of wood. At first I thought it was a funeral pyre & the bodies had been burned. But no, the flesh had decomposed and the wood was the decayed caskets. The room we were standing in had bones stacked to the ceiling at one time. But were removed during WW II to make it a bomb shelter. Our guide led us to another window with bars. this time we saw the bones piled to the ceiling. What was the source of these bones? The Bubonic Plague! People were dying so fast that they had a hole in the street above to throw the bodies into. Once you got the plague you were dead in two weeks.