Almost 5 months later, the Christmas trip post continues. After leaving Hungary, we crossed over into Austria and visited Vienna for a couple of days. We planned to be in Salzburg for Christmas day, stopping in Melk and Linz along the way.
The drive into Salzburg was AMAZING. We stopped at a rest area off the main highway and this was our view…
Salzburg is a darling city. Its Baroque architecture is so well preserved and it is sooooo clean.
For all you Sound of Music fans, Salzburg is the “mother ship”. The supposed bus stop where Maria Von Trapp waited and worried.
The Christmas markets were still hopping on Christmas day.
Most of the shops in the Altstadt (old town) have these fancy signs that sit just outside their door.
Since it was Christmas day, we made a quick side trip to Oberndorf bei Salzburg, where the song “Silent Night” was written. 
That was a small town, very quaint. I wasn’t terribly interested in the story of the song so wandered around on the grounds instead. Much to my surprise, just up the steps from the small church, the view was stunning!
These photos are much better. Way more poppy :-).
ReplyDeleteI cannot hear the name Melk without thinking of Christian Slater in The Name of the Rose with Sean Connery.
Odd isn't it how a square building says Mitteleuropa, and that odd slope on the apse has you wondering.
Thank you, yes. It's amazing what a sunny, blue sky day will do to a photo isn't it. I know I can't blame my camera entirely, but it's been on it's last leg and the pictures when the light is good prove it. This camera couldn't take a bad picture if I tried, but the last couple of trips I think the mechanical issues I was having with it did lessen the quality of shots. The first two and the last set were taken in low light, facing the sun (what was there anyways) so they came out really dark. The top ones have been edited to an inch of their life. I really dislike that oversaturated green.
DeleteThis is the first set of pictures I've edited using iPhoto instead of Photoshop - trying to get off the PC completely. The retina-display screen on the Mac is incredible...it makes everything look REALLY good. But I don't know how that's translating elsewhere. I printed a couple out the other day and the quality was poor in comparison.
Anyhow, I haven't seen the Name of the Rose movie. Was it filmed at the Melk Abbey? It has a beautiful church and a cute little colorful town. After returning from the trip I saw the movie "Monuments Men" and they found a large quantity of stolen art in Linz at the end of WW2 - according to the movie anyhow. It kind of meant more having just returned from there.
Welcome-to-my-world :-D. And no, but this place http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacra_di_San_Michele. I answered the Q about the camera on my place. I needed to see the flow.
DeleteThat looks absolutely gorgeous! A European tour is on my bucket list... Hopefully that will happen. :)
ReplyDeleteOh yes, do it! Lots of beautiful places made even more beautiful decorated for Christmas.
DeleteWow, thanks for sharing these wonderful photos with us!
ReplyDeleteThese photos are amazing. They really make me miss Europe and want to travel more.
ReplyDeleteStopping by from Mama Kat's (and thanks for stopping by me!)
For some reason Firefox won't let me nest comment.
ReplyDeleteThat issue you have with ISO is one that was a big problem with all cameras until about two years ago. And even now on some is hit or miss.
I read magnificent things about the photo software in the Mac. In fact I believe adobe's Lightroom was built to counter the shift to the Mac.
I suspect the settings on the printer are called calibrated for a PC, and that's the cause of the poor prints. In general, you'll have two. Try both.
Yah, it could very well be my settings. It's not a photo printer per say being an MFC, but I've had good prints before. So I will check!
DeleteDoes that mean that some newer cameras do a better job when the light is poor? I can't seem to decide what I want and if I can justify the expense (any expense really) right now, but if the newer cameras help deal with that, SOLD! :) That's not really true, because what I'm really trying to decide is if an SLR is just too much camera for me. With the phone camera anymore I only use the "real" camera when I travel.
There are not as many options with iPhoto as photoshop has (or at least as far as I know right now), but it's really easy to use.
Oh, that looked lovely! Now I must go there! :)
ReplyDeleteI want to step right into your photos!
ReplyDelete