Day 50: Irdning

June 18, 2014

We are sticking in Irdning today, though the family will be at work or school until afternoon. This gives a little time for cleaning and maintaining the bikes, for stocking up on food for our ride tomorrow through the Gesause National Park (it's another holiday and places will be closed) , and for some fact checking here on the blog.

It seems that even with a bit of time, the mystery of Mohr and the Silent Night guitar can not so easily be resolved. (I bet there are readers here who are tired of it and also hoping for a resolution!). The web site silentnight.web.za/history/ notes that "Today books, films and Internet sites are filled with fanciful tales purporting to tell the history of "Silent Night." " I guess that now includes this web site!

Anyway, I recommend having a look at the article Silent Night: The Song Heard 'Round the World - by Bill Egan on the above web site. It does not answer the question of the guitar, but it does contain lots of info about the authors not readily seen elsewhere.

By the way, as maybe the final word, and for those struggling with any mangling of German language that may be found in this blog, we note that the Stille in Stille Nacht should not be confused with Stihl, the noisy chainsaw. The Americans, though, would not miss a chance to capitalise on the similarity. So have a look (for as long as you can stand it) at this video from Stihl's branch in America.

So, maybe this is the final word: In the book "Silent Night, Holy Night" by Dr. Max Gehmacher, is the assertion that since the organ was broken, Mohr, an accomplished player, used his guitar and did the accompaniment. The guitar on display, says Gehmacher, belonged to Mohr. When he died, it passed to the teacher Rupert Felser who gave it to his son, whose family then gave it to Felix Gruber (the son of Franz). From there it went to the museum.

So if all that is right, the window in the chapel is wrong. Remember the window? Here it is again (Arnsdorf is where Gruber was the school teacher):

The window in the Stille Nacht chapel shows Gruber playing the guitar?

Johanna ishidden behind a shouder here, but the photo shows her class, all in dirndls.

Having a day off bike here in Irdning was a unique experience, just because it gave us time to do things that ordinarily would not happen. For example, there was a chance to look (for better or worse) a bit more into the matter of Gruber's guitar. We swapped out all the brakes on the bikes, and cleaned the wheels. We checked out the schnitte at Steflback, and walked slowly to the Spar market.

At the market, instead of rushing in and out, we took the time to verify that yes, they really are lacking in some important categories, notably fruits and vegetables. This not only pops up in the fresh produce department, but also in the "deli", where there are no prepared salads - like Greek salad, carrot salad, etc. Hey, the fact that we are grousing about this probably means that after 50 days in Europe we are slightly tiring of terrific bread, salami, and cheese 2-3 times per day!

By the way, "Spar" comes from the verb "sparen", to save. We did not notice too much of that, today, in Austria!

One thing we sure did notice, though, was the Grimming. The mountain is right there, outside our door (though actually across the valley). Driving out with Christian this evening to pick up pizza in the next town (Stainach), I asked him if her ever tired of or failed to notice the mountain, the meadows, and the houses. He hedged just a little, but basically the answer is that this place is always a joy to him. I guess its a branch of that idea of living near a World Heritage site or major Radweg. Actually, to skiers this probably is a World Heritage site, and the Enns is a major Radweg. Christian would like to guide us some time to the top of the Grimming. To see the entire Ennstal from there, he says, is something else again!

Corn at Spar. Very expensive here, and all wrapped up in plastic.

Tomatoes, look good, but over 50 percent more costly thanat home.

Apples, same thing, look ok but lots more costly.

These raspberry slices are from the local bakery, which is something of a chain operation. The base is ok and there is the creamy layer - but the layer is rather fluffy.

Johanna is preparing her little bag of stuff to take on the vacation trip tomorrow.

The Grimming as it appears from just outside our door.

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