Without a doubt, our most beautiful day in Europe was spent in Hallstatt, Austria. It's just stunningly gorgeous, and it's one of the places that I'd love to visit again one day.
I loved wandering around the Catholic cemetery. Plus it had a cat.
We also went into the Catholic church, and of course it was lovely. I really loved admiring the art depicting the stations of the cross in all the churches. It took me a while to figure out why every church had the same stories depicted, and finally one of them had them numbered, and it clicked.
The Lutheran church was not as ornate as the Catholic. I had read most of Eric Metaxas's Martin Luther before our trip (and finished it after), so I have a special place in my heart for the great reformer. When we first popped into the church, Eric's parents were behind us a ways. I mentioned to Eric that I wanted to sing a hymn to more fully appreciate the acoustics of the church. When other tourists had cleared out and we had the space to ourselves, we began singing "Abide With Me," which is one of our go-to hymns because Eric knows the bass part really well. We stopped singing when more visitors came in because we didn't want to make a spectacle of ourselves.
We wound our way back to Eric's parents, and then re-entered the chapel. In that second entry we paid more attention to the painting above the altar and realized it was Jesus on the road to Emmaus, which is what "Abide With Me" is all about. I asked Gordon to translate the words over the altar, and he said they effectively meant "Jesus Christ yesterday and today and the same in eternity. Lord stay with us."
We also enjoyed views of the lake and the mountains and the town. The mountains rise straight up out of the lake.
Eric basically belongs on boats.
After our boat ride, we rode the funicular to the top of a mountain. You can see the rails of the funicular in the below picture.
The views were amazing.
After Hallstatt we parted ways with Eric's parents and headed to our AirBNB in Lofer, Austria. Eric had hoped to visit Berchtesgaden, but we didn't have enough time. We saw a little lake on our way to Austria, and went for a walk. We saw teensy tiny frogs and a magnificently fat beaver. And we got ice cream.
1 comment:
Whoa I want to live there. That is a gorgeous place. How come we live in a desert when we can be by huge mountains and a lake? I love to hear you singing in the church. So how come every church has the same story? And what is the story. Anyway when we get together you will have to go more into detail about it.
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