On Saturday morning we continued our pilgrimage, leaving gorgeous Pannonhalma behind and setting off for the Austrian alps. After a night of heavy drinking, the bus was pretty quiet and no one was paying much attention to where we were going...including the bus driver who was blindly following the GPS. Unfortunately, about two hours into the journey the bus came to a sudden halt as the road before us tapered off into a dirt path leading straight into a dense forest. There was nothing to do but turn around and head back the other way. Needless to say, it took a very, very long time to reach our next destination.
Finally, in the late afternoon, we arrived in the city of Mariazell, Austria's most important pilgrimage site. The city's main building is a large church which was erected in 1644, but the real reason why Mariazell is so special is because the church houses a small, miracle-working image of the virgin Mary carved in lime-tree wood. According to Wiki, the image was brought to Mariazell in 1157 and it now resides in a lavish chapel inside the church. Unfortunately, as there was a service in progress when we arrived, I couldn't take any photos of the icon but I did manage to take some other pictures of the church's interior. It was very impressive and definitely one of the most beautiful churches I've ever seen anywhere.
After checking out the church, we wandered around the main square for a bit and after finding ourselves confused by a very cryptic sign on the footpath, decided to wash away our troubles with a few glasses of nice, cold Austrian beer. Then it was off to dinner at a nearby restaurant where we were presented with the most enormous meat platter I've ever seen. Even our table of five famished travellers couldn't manage to finish everything on the plate.
On Sunday morning, while the other pilgrims attended a mass in the church, Daniel, Laima and I ventured out on our own and took an awesome gondola ride up to the top of the nearby Bürger Alps. While the gondola service now uses an overhead cable system, it was originally a funicular, and the first of its kind in Austria when it was built in 1928. Travelling up the mountain in the gondola allowed us to take in some lovely views of Mariazell and the surrounding area, and we enjoyed a quick look around the summit before rushing back down to meet up with the rest of our group and the bus. Of course, we needn't have rushed as we were amongst the first to arrive even though we were 25 minutes late. Hungarian timekeeping (or lack of) drives me crazy at times!
From Mariazell, we headed straight for Vienna and one of its most famous attractions, Schönbrunn Palace. Since Daniel and I had been there before and were pretty unimpressed by it, we both groaned a little when we discovered we had 45 minutes to kill there. As it turned out, however, 45 minutes wasn't even close to long enough! Last time we visited the Palace, we took an audio tour inside, but this time we roamed around the forecourt for a bit before discovering that it was possible to go around the building too. And so now we know that Schönbrunn Palace also has some amazing gardens, full of cool sculptures and impressive fountains.
Back on the bus again, and this time we were deposited close to the city centre so we could all walk to Stephansdom. I felt like a real pilgrim as our group charged through Vienna's streets, following behind a priest holding aloft a big wooden cross. Anyway, we eventually made it to Stephansdom and our fellow pilgrims gathered together to pay their respects to another religious icon (this time, an original painting of Mary and Jesus, the copy of which is currently in the church here in Máriapócs). While they prayed, Daniel, Laima and I admired the rest of Stephansdom. Again, we'd been there before, but it looked absolutely amazing this time around as the entire interior was bathed in bright colours by the stained glass windows.
After a quick trip back to the bus, we set off for the Hungarian town of Győr, enjoyed a traditional gulyás for dinner, and then arrived home at about 1am yesterday morning. Iago was very pleased to see us and even deigned to vacate his freshly-dug sleeping hole to welcome us home.
- Amanda
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