Palmanova & Halstatt

In the morning we headed off for Palmanova, the star-fort city built by the Venetians in 1593 AD. The site is best viewed from above, as in aerial, so here's a satellite view:


View Larger Map

We saw towns like this (probably including this one) in the map hall at the Vatican and thought that surely they could not be accurate representations of real places. And seemingly for that reason didn't bother to photograph any of them.

We weren't sure how much of it we would be able to see from the ground, but it was pretty neat. We started off in the center of town. The central piazza is surrounded by the tiniest moat ever. We figured it was the last line of defense. The whole city-town-fort was laid out on a plan that let the defenders defend from a number of concentric stars.

From Palmanova

The center of town also contained the (free) military museum. While not a big tourist destination, Palmanova remains an important military base, though surely less so with military aircraft in the picture. Most of the museum was dedicated to World War Two, and there was an old WW2 veteran there who seemed eager to show off some of the stuff to us. If I understood him correctly, he showed us a bicycle that disassembled that a paratrooper could carry on his descent, *his* helmet (from somewhere in North Africa), and a bunch of old radios that Joe and Josh geeked out over, propaganda (from both German and American sources), and of course guns and uniforms.

From Palmanova

From Palmanova

Parked outside the museum was a jeep with an old gun mounted on top, which the old war vet drove off in after he was done talking with us.

We picnicked for lunch near one of the city gates, and explored the Earthworks defending the city. They were pretty impressive. I wouldn't bother trying to attack this city without an airplane!

From Palmanova

From Palmanova

From Palmanova

Next up was the scenic drive to Austria, through the beautiful Alps. Along the way we passed an old castle and when we drove up there we found that they've turned it into a bird zoo.

From Austrian Alps

From Austrian Alps

Finally we arrived at Hallstatt, which might just be quaintest little town in the world, perched on a lake in the Australian Alps. It is famous for its salt mine, which is the oldest in the world. In fact, salt mining was such a big industry back then (and source of power and wealth) that there is an entire period of European history named for this little town. When we got there, we found water across some of the roads, flooding along the waterfront and into some of the lowest buildings. According to our host at the hotel, it'd been raining almost non-stop for a month, but was supposed to clear up around noon tomorrow, and would be followed by a beautiful Saturday, which she had off. She seemed pretty excited.

From Halstatt

We went to dinner at one of the few restaurants that was still open at 9pm and got lots of really good Austrian food (which seems much like German food). Mary got an incredible soup that was described on the menu as "Beef Consume with Pancakes". We thought surely this was a mistranslation, but Mary has had a lot of things called pancakes all over the world, and they have all been good. Well, it wasn't a mistranslation. There were thin pancakes sliced up like noodles in a beef consume soup. And it was really good. Will have to try making pancake soup at home!