March 26, 2012

• Saturday and Postlingburg

  We woke up this sunny, Saturday morning, got ready, and headed out to the flea market. The city was abloom!

  

   

   Every Saturday in the Hauptplatz, there is a big, open-air market. I bet this has been the tradition for hundreds and hundreds of years. And we got to be part of it!

  

  They had all sorts of things–jewelry, china, old medals, DVDs, stuffed animals–all sorts of good junk to paw through! Not knowing how to count to ten was a hindrance since we could not barter. But, really, I didn’t see anything I thought was worth stuffing in my suitcase and dragging home. 

  

   

  Okay, truth. I did buy an ice cream cone. Maybe I’ll just have to drag a few extra pounds of ME home instead of some trinkets.

  Another item on the Top Ten was Postlingburg. (There is supposed to be an umlaut over the o, but I don’t know how to type that.) James kept saying it was a castle, and I kept saying it was a church. It turns out, we were both right!

  The church of Postlingburg is perched on a high hill and overlooks the city of Linz. We opted for the train (tram) to take us up the very steep slope. 

  

   

  Once at the top, we weren’t really sure what to do, so we followed the crowd. First stop was an overlook. It was a hazy day, but it was a great view!

            

   

  Then, we weren’t sure what to do next, so we went to the church. 

   

              

   

  But the front door was closed. Did we ride all the way up here for nothing?? Then we saw someone come out of a side door. I was brave enough to go through that door and another door to peek inside. Success!

  What a dear church! It’s a Catholic church, but it looked like a real church. There were children’s drawings down a hallway and it just felt like people would be there Sunday morning greeting their friends and listening to the priest. 

  The church seemed to focus on family. The side altar to the left featured a painting of Jesus’ birth, and it was flanked by statues of Mary’s parents.

         

   

  The right-hand side altar had Jesus’ presentation at the temple with statues of Anna and Simeon.  

  

   

  There was a statue of Joseph with little-boy Jesus.

  

   

  The altar at the front was something to do with Mary. 

  

   

  This is the view facing down the aisle

  

   

  And the other way

  

   

  This was up high, about half-way down the aisle. I didn’t know what it meant, so I looked it up. 

  

  It turns out, it’s not just some cool Latin saying. It’s a chronogram! Now, what’s a chronogram, you might be asking? It’s a way to show the date using words. This saying shows the date 1774.  Wikipedia says this is how you do it:  ARA Beatae LV GENT I NE S C E M F iliac Q V OT IDI E PR IVIL EC I ATA (= daily = MDCLLLVVVIIIIIIIII).That’s a pretty good coding. Even when it’s bolded out for me, I still don’t quite see how I was supposed to know for sure which ones were the numbers!

  The words translated mean “Preferred altar of the Blessed, is grieving the death of her son.” (Unless a Latin scholar wants to dispute that, I’m just going to go with what Google told me.)

  One thing I saw here which I had not seen in any other church so far in Austria was stained glass.

     

   

  After we finished our wandering through the church, we wandered outside. And guess what? We found the ruins of a castle! 

  

   

  It even had a moat.

  

   

  And what was in the moat? Deer! 

  

   

  Granted, it was not too difficult to find this castle since it was about 50 feet from the church, but let’s pretend we explored a bit.

   

   

   

   

     

   

  There was also a kid’s amusement park of some sort there, but at 6 euros per person to get in and three tall persons for children, we decided to pass.

  

   

  We found out later that there was also a zoo nearby, but as our NEW FRIEND Natalie said, “Unless you like birds and goats, it is good to skip it.”  This was more my idea of a petting zoo anyhow. (This was next to the gift shop.)

  

   

  Guess what? Wednesday, we take another train. This one to Berlin, Germany!

  • 2:30 pm
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