Day Three: Salzburg

Our second day in Salzburg began with a wonderful breakfast at the hotel consisting of fresh fruits and vegetables, bread and cheese, yoghurt and boiled eggs. It reminded me a great deal of breakfast in Turkey, only missing the feta cheese and olives.

Our tour included a visit to the Residenz, Salzburg's palace, which was the seat of the Salzburg prince-archbishops. I saw the rooms where Mozart played as a child. We also visited Mozart's House, where I bought my first tacky tourist item: a Mozart t-shirt. We then took a walking tour of the city center, including the open-air market, where we ate lunch and chatted with our fellow travelers. Unfortunately, one member of our group was the victim of a pick-pocket and lost all money, credit cards and her husband's passport in the process.

At four that afternoon, we arrived at Stadtpfarrkirche Saint Nicolas in Bad Ischl for rehearsal. The church is beautiful! Of special note is the organ: it is called “Organ of the Emperor´s Jubilee” as was donated to the church in 1910 by the Emperor Franz Joseph I for his 80th anniversary. The organ was redone by Rieger again in 1993. It has 3 manuals, 59 registers and pedals and 3.789 pipes. Our tour organist had to send in credentials and letters of recommendation in order to be allowed to play it!

We were scheduled to perform four selections during the evening Mass and then do a concert following the service; although, upon arrival, we still did not know which selections the priest had chosen for the service.

After rehearsal, we jogged down the street to Cafe' Sissy where we nearly inhaled our Wiener Schnitzel in order to be back at the church to change into our concert attire (in a glass-walled room) for the evening's services. In the midst of this chaos, our director's husband (Rusty) realized that he'd left his tuxedo pants at the hotel. Thankfully, another choir member had been wearing black pants that day - so Rusty ended up wearing a tuxedo on top, and black jeans on the bottom!

With three minutes remaining before the evening Mass began, Billye (our director) ran into the room where we were waiting and hurriedly gave us the order of service before herding us out the door and to the organ balcony (which was up a narrow spiral staircase). The service went off without a hitch and the concert received a standing ovation.

I think that our tour guides were quite taken aback. After suffering through the whining about all of the walking and myriad complaints from our older choir members, they were pleasantly surprised to learn that we could really sing!

Upon our return to the hotel, a group of us met in the lobby bar for a few cocktails before heading off to bed. All-in-all, it was a magnificent day!