Uh.......dwarfs.

B had a surprise for me when we visited Mirabel Palace in Salzburg, but she wisely saved it until we arrived on the grounds---

---there's a beautiful park ringed by statues of dwarfs.

Here's a comment from a travel site about this bizarre place: "The Zwerglgarten (Dwarves' Garden) is a small place in a corner of Mirabell Garden and very popular with children, but also with other visitors. There are about fifteen dwarves, they are about 1,20m - 1,40m tall and depict professions of daily life: A gardener, a salesman, a tradesman...

"There had originally been 28 dwarves, made for Ludwig I, king of Bayern, but he found them so disagreeable [emphasis mine] that he wanted them to be destroyed. They were scattered to the four winds, but fortunately about half of them could be found again and are now on dislay here. They are made of marble and look very funny and quaint. A nice photo opportunity!"

It took me a few minutes to steel myself to cross the little bridge to the garden but once I convinced myself "they're just statutes...just statues..." I calmed down enough to take these pics:

Well, they're just statues.

But you know, such creatures exist in the wild, and they are crafty. Dangerous. Powerful.

Especially if they have palindromic names, like Bob, Otto, Anna, or Ada.

Beware the Smalls. You've been warned.

Salzburg

Friday, we were up early (6 AM!) for a drive to Salzburg with the folks.

Actually, the folks were driving to nearby Strasswalchen to visit the graves of B's mother's family---her cousin was a famous mountain climber, a very unusual thing for a woman in those days, when women were expected to raise a family and be a housewife. Tante Erni died in a mountaineering accident in 1970 at the age of 34.

The folks stayed behind to visit friends. B and I hopped a train to Salzburg. We spent about five hours roaming around. Below, some of what we saw.

The almost-invisible man: sculpture in Salzburg.

 A "frozen" street performer who seems to float.

The Salzburg Festival is going on now. Result: big crowds.

The guy who owns Red Bull (an Austrian) also owns the Afro Cafe in Salzburg.
We ate lunch there. Nice setting, decent food.

There was a guy named Mozart who was some kind of big deal in the music world.
This is the building where he was born. Enlarge the pic and note Japanese tourists looking out the window. A lot of Japanese people love classical music and visit Austria.

 High above town is Hohensalzburg Castle.
We walked up there but didn't go inside; too expensive.
Instead we roamed through the woods nearby, eventually working our way back down.

In the woods, a huge water valve as "art."
Not sure what it came out of; maybe the city water works?

Another view of town from above.

 He kicked off his US presidential campaign in Salzburg.

 The gardens at Mirabel Palace.

Fountain in the Mirabel gardens.

More of the same.

A building adjacent to the main train station, Salzburg.

It had been a beautiful, sunny day.
But it rained on the way home.
Payoff: several nice rainbows.
I don't like the electric wires in the shot, but you take what you can get at 85 MPH.

Westlicht / Photos

There's a photography / camera museum here called Westlicht.

After German class today, I went there to see their Polaroid exhibit (you can read all about it on the link above.)

I kept wishing my buddy J. Don Cook could have been there with me; I know he would have appreciated not only the great photos, but also the fantastic display of interesting cameras they have on display.

(By the way, J. Don is a photographer of some note, nominated several times for a Pulitzer for his photography, and his new book SHOOTING FROM THE HIP: PHOTOS & ESSAYS is a must-see / must-read.)

I'd heard Polaroid made a few cameras capable of shooting 20 X 24 inch pictures; seven cameras, actually, of which five are still working and in use for special projects. I saw a number of shots from these cameras and they're stunning----no grain.

Before the museum opened, and then afterward as I roamed around, I shot some pics of life in Vienna:

Leaving the museum, I saw a guy's hand and feet through the exit at the bottom of the stairs.

Old building, partly reflected in the glass of a new building.

A clerk in an upscale menswear store.

I stopped for a beer at Cafe Alt Wien.

Another beautiful building in the light of the setting sun.

This is a video screen in the subway tunnel, at eye level with the cab of the lead subway car,
where the driver sits. He can look at the monitor to make sure nobody's in danger before he drives off.

This was a handheld exposure at about 1/2 second.
Usually I can get better results even at this slow shutter speed but I forgot and moved the camera before the image got fully recorded----but I kind of like the smeared look of the shot. Interior, Cafe Alt Wien.