Photos below: The Pinakothek (built 1826-1836) is still there. It's a huge neoclassical building with a large art collection of which approximately 900 paintings are on display at a time.

Between Munich and Salzburg

Via small and slightly larger villages the journey goes to the southeastern part of Bavaria towards Salzburg. Paddy spends the night in Rosenheim, Hohenaschau, Riedering, Söllhuben and Röttau.

"Each of these little  unmarked hamlets seems smaller in retrospect [...] They have left an impression of women scattering grain in their yards to a rush of poultry, and of hooded children returning from school with hairy satchels and muffled ears: homing goblins, slapping along lanes on skis as short and wide as barrel-staves and propelling themselves with sticks of unringed hazel. When we passed each other, they would squeak "Grüss Gott" in a polite shrill chorus." 

Photo below: the Late Gothic Parish church St. Nicholas, Rosenheim (1450).  

Photos below: the rolling landscape in the vicinity of the German villages Riedering, Söllhuben and Röttau where Paddy found overnight accommodations during his journey east towards Austria. Always with the Alps in the southern background.

Hohenaschau

The village of Hohenaschau, one of Paddy's overnight locations in southern Bavaria, is best known for its Castle. It's a 12th century ring castle built on a rocky ridge in the Priental. For centuries it was the seat of noble dynasties but fell into decline in the 19th century. Today the castle is owned by the German government and is used as a holiday and relaxation resort.

Photo below: Hohenaschau Castle.

Photos below: via Röttau (left) and Traunstein the route goes to Salzburg

Salzburg

"... I steered east and reached the banks of the Salzach late in the afternoon. A red, white and black pole barred the road. Inside the custom-house hung the last picture of the Führer. Uniform sleeves were ringed by the last swastika armbands and in a few minutes, beside a barrier striped red and white, an Austrian official was stamping my passport: 24 january 1934."

It's confusing but the Saalach river is a tributary of the Salzach and forms the border with Germany, west of Salzburg. The Salzach river flows straight through the city of Salzburg.

Photo below: one of the border crossings between Germany and Austria on the Saalach River a few miles west of Salzburg.

Photo below:  the Salzach River meanders straight through the city of Salzburg.

"By nightfall I was gazing at the statues and wandering down the baroque colonnades of Salzburg in search of a café. The windows, when I found one, looked out on a fountain adorned by stampeding horses and stalactitic with icicles."

The fountain that Paddy overlooks is the Residence Fountain. This 15 meter high fountain is the largest baroque fountain outside Italy, built between 1658 and 1661. It's made of marble from the Untersberg, a mountain near Salzburg. Its water-spouting horses reached world fame thanks to their appearance in the movie 'The Sound of Music'. 

Photo below left: the Residence Fountain at the Residenzplatz in Salzburg.

Photo below right:  Salzburg is Mozart's birthplace.

Paddy doesn't spend much time in Salzburg. He sees people going skiing everywhere around him. He loves skiing so the whole thing makes him quite sad and lonely.

 "I loved skiing and all this made me feel lonely and out of things. So, early next morning, turning my back on the Salzkammergut and the lakes and the beckoning peaks of Styria and the Tyrol, I slipped away; and soon I was plodding north-west and ever further from temptation through the woods of Upper Austria." [...] "St. Martin, one of Baron Liphart's castles, the earliest of those houses of friends to whom he had written on my behalf, is my first real landmark."

St. Martin im Innkreis 

Paddy stays in the 'Schloss' in St. Martin im Innkreis. This baroque-style Castle was built in 1630 but destroyed by a fire in 1723. A few years later it was rebuilt in the current rectangular shape. Unfortunately, the castle is poorly maintained and is currently closed to the public. I sneaked in.

Photos below: Sankt Martin im Innkreis. 

Eferding

After an overnight stay in Eferding, Paddy walks through a swampy area towards the Danube. 

"The scene was beginning to change. My path followed a frozen woodland stream into a region where rushes and waterweed and marsh vegetation and brambles and shrubs were as densely entangled as a primeval forest." 

Photos below: the city of Eferding

"This second meeting with the Danube had taken me unawares; I had reached it half a day sooner than I thought! As it streamed through those wooded and snowbound ranges the river made an overpowering impression of urgency and force."

Photos below: swampy area and parallel streams near the Danube at Eferding. On the right the first view of the Danube in some time.

Linz 

"A few miles on, round a loop of river, the city appeared. It was a vision of domes and belfries gathered under stern fortress and linked by bridges to a smaller town at the foot of a mountain on the other bank. When I got to the fine sweeping piazza in the middle of the city, I chose a promising-looking coffee house, kicked of the snow, went in and ordered two boiled eggs.. Eier im Glas!"

Photos below: approaching Linz with threatening weather.

Photo below: Linz's main square, the 'Hauptplatz'. Paddy found  a good coffee house here where he also spent the night. The coffee house owners even took him skiing the next day. Finally, after his sad departure from Salzburg.

"In the evening Hans and  Frieda, my hosts, took me to a party in an inn and next morning I set off down the Danube. But not immediately. On their suggestion I took a tram a few miles off my track and then a bus, to the Abbey of St. Florian. The great baroque convent of Augustinian Canons stood among low hills, and the branches of the thousands of apple trees all round it were crusted with rime."

The impressive Abbey of St. Florian has belonged to the Augustinian order since the 11th century. The abbey is named after Florian, the patron saint of chimney sweeps; soapmakers and firefighters.. and of the city of Linz!

Photos below: the Abbey of St. Florian.

Mauthausen

"I crossed the river to the lights of Mauthausen by a massive and ancient bridge. A tall fifteenth-century castle thrust out into the river and, under its walls, Hans and Frieda were on the quay, true to the vaguest of rendezvous; and I realized, as we waved to each other from afar, that another cheerful evening lay ahead."

The rendezvous with Hans and Frieda was in front of Pragstein Castle in Mauthausen. The castle was built in the 15th century on a rocky island in the Danube. Access to the moated castle surrounded by the Danube was only possible via a bridge. In the mid-19th century, the arm of the Danube separating the castle from the mainland was filled in and since the 1960's the Donaustraße has run between the castle and the Danube. About ten years later, Mauthausen became particularly infamous for the Nazi concentration camp that was opened here.

Photo below left: 15th century Schloss Pragstein in Mauthausen. 

Photo below right: the Heinrichskirche is located close to Schloss Pragstein. It is actually a chapel whose foundations were built around the year 1000.

Grein

"I slept in the village of Grein that night, just upstream from a wooded and many-legended island. Old periles haunt these defiles."

The village of Grein has been a popular tourist spot since the end of the 19th century, it's one of the most beautiful Austrian villages along the Danube. The name Grein probably comes from the German word 'grin' which means 'to shout loudly'. Paddy explains: "..it is said to stand 'for the cry of a sailor drowning in one of the whirlpools, for the rapids and reefs in this part of the Danube have crushed shipping for centuries. [...] .. the hidden spikes were never completely destroyed till the 1890's." 

Photo below: the central square in Grein.

Persenbeug

"After supper and filling in my diary in the front room of the inn in Persenbeug - I think I must have been staying there on the  charitable-burgomaster principle - I started to sketch the  innkeeper's daughter Maria while she busied herself  over a basket of darning."

There is only one inn on the central square in Persenbeug, see the photo below. I asked around to see if anything was known of previous owners of the inn. Since 2000, however, the inn has been owned by the municipality and has been completely renovated on the inside. Unfortunately, nothing could be found of a drawing of Maria, which is what I secretly hoped for...

Photo below: the central square of Persenbeug with the former inn next to the church on the right.

In the inn of Persenbeug, Patrick met a man who told him about an engraved tomb of knight Hans von Ybbs. "'A figure', he said, 'of knock-out elegance!'".  Patrick crosses the river the next day to the village of Ybbs to view the tomb. "The Knight, standing in high relief in a rectangle which is deeply incised with gothic lettering, was carved in 1358".[...] "His pointed steel cap is ridged like an almond and chain mail covers cheek, chin and throat like a nun's  wimple..".

Photo below: Ybbs an der Donau and knight Hans von Ybbs (the one in the middle ;-).

Pochlärn

Further east, Paddy meets two new friends in a kind of hunter's hut with whom he sails to the other side of the Danube, to the town of Pochlärn.

"When we reached the river , we rowed across to a circular bastion and a tall belfry glimmering among the trees on the other bank. As we climbed the steps into the starry town of  Pochlärn, a window opened and  told us to stop making such a noise".

Photos  below: the circular bastion and the bellfry (left picture) are still present in the little town of Pochlärn.

Melk

"Ceremonious and jocundi, Melk is high noon".

The baroque Abbey of Melk towers over the small town and is truly enormous, it is actually more of a palace than an abbey: the building is 320 meters long and counts 1.365 windows. The abbey is governed by Benedictine monks and is on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

Photos  below: the abbaye of Melk.

"The footpath along the southern bank was leading me into the heart of the Wachau, a region of the Danube as famous as those stretches of the Rhine I had traveledat Christmas or the Loire in Touraine. Melk was the threshold of this unspeakably beautiful valley".[...] "I sat under a birch tree to sketch Schloss Schönbühel. Gleaming as though it were carved ivory, it sprang out of a pivot of rock which the river almost surrounded and ended in a single and immensely tall white tower crowned with a red onion cupola".

Photo below: Schloss Schönbühel.

Mautern

"When I crossed the bridge at Mautern and saw the low country opening eastward, I knew that a big change was coming. I hated the thought of leaving this valley. After something to eat beside the barbican of Krems I doubled back, halting for a coffee in Stein by the statue of St. John Nepomuk, whose monument dominates the little town."

Photo below: the village of Mautern.

"In a mile or two, safely back in the wide and winding canyon, I got to Dürnstein. It was a little town of vintners and fishermen. [...] I was soon clambering about the wreckage of the stronghold that covered this low mountain top. ],,,] This wreckage was the fortress where Richard Coeur de Lion had been imprisoned". 

The castle of Dürnstein became famous through the legend of Richard the Lionheart. Upon returning from the Crusades, the English King tore up the Austrian flag and refused to share his spoils of war with Leopold V. Consequently, Leopold V held the English King prisoner in the castle from 1192 – 1193. The royal prisoner was permitted to receive travelling singers (Troubadours) for his entertainment. This is likely where the saga of the singer Blondel comes from. The story says that the King’s faithful minnesinger travelled from castle to castle until he found him in Dürnstein by singing a refrain, which the prisoner sang back. Richard the Lionheart was released after the payment of a ransom of 150.000 silver marks. 

Photo below left: Statue of St. John Nepomuk, a Roman Catholic saint from the Czech Republic, at the Rathausplatz in Stein.

Photo below right: the ruins of Dürnstein where Richard the Lionheart was held captive.

Abbey of Göttweig

"Crossing the river by the little ferry from Dürnstein, I struck southward. By early afternoon I was approaching an enormous white buildingthat I had espied the day before from the ruins of Dürnstein. It was the Benedictine Abbey of Göttweig, a stately rectangle lifted high above the hills and forests, with a cupola at each corner. [...] Having enlarged so freely on the wonders of Melk, I daren't say much about Göttweig: only that it is a resplendent and worthy rival to its great sister abbey at the other end of the Wachau".

Photos below: the Benedictine abbey of Göttweig (on top of the hill).

"The most famous part of the Abbey is the Grand Staircase, a wide, shallow and magnificent flight where elaborate lanterns alternate with immense monumental urns at each right-angle turn of the broad marble balustrade". [...] .. Napoleon is  believed to have riddenhis horse up these stairs: he passed this way, crossing the river near Krems, in the late autumn of 1805, between the victories of Ulm and Austerliz". 

Photo below: the Grand Staircase of the Abbey of Göttweig.

Photos below: another view of the grand staircase with urns and lanterns and baroque details in the abbey of Göttweig.

Vienna

On the day after his 19th birthday, 12 february 1934,  Patrick gets a lift in a truck to Vienna. On this day armed forces in the city of Linz searched for the paramilitary movement of the SDAPÖ, which was banned but still existed. Skirmishes broke out and escalated to other cities, mainly Vienna. Ultimately, Patrick ends up at the Salvation Army hostel in the grim 'Kolonitzgasse' in Vienna where he meets a new friend, Konrad, from the Frisian island of Norderney. 

"The surroundings were even more depressing by daylight. The hostel lay in the Kolonitzgasse in the Third District between the loading bays of the Customs House and the grimy arches of a viaductand an overhead railway track, silent now like the whole derelict quarter". 

Photo below left: the Salvation Army Kolonitzgasse 2 in Vienna, 1934 (source: Heilsarmee).

Photo below right: the same location in 2024, nowadays an apartment complex.

The biggest problem in the first days in Vienna is that Paddy is broke. He has not yet received his envelope with the monthly £5 postal remainder delivered by his family. Konrad has a good idea: Paddy is going to make portrait drawings. Together they look for suitable neighborhoods after which he performs his drawing skills. Despite all of their expectations, things are going quiet well, and they earn some money for simple dinners. After a few weeks it is time to say goodbye to his friend Konrad who wants to try out a career as a smuggler.

"We headed for a coffee house in the Kärtnerstrasse called Fenstergucker. Settling at a corner table by the window near a hanging grove of newspapers on wooden rods, we ordered Eier im Glass, then hot Brötchen and butter and delicious coffee smothered in whipped cream. It was s morning of decisions, separations, departures; and they weighed on us both".

Café Fenstergucker (1886) was a well-known café in Vienna at the intersection Kärntnerstraße/Walfischgasse. It is named after the "window peeper" on the old Kärntnertor, a copy of which the house's architect, Ludwig Tischler, had installed on the first floor corner of the facade. The bust can still be seen there (red circles in the photos).

Photo below left: Café Fenstergucker in the late 1930's (the fenstergucker can be seen in the red circles).

Photo below right: same location in 2024. Nowadays there is a clothing store here.

It takes almost a year before Paddy heared from Konrad again. He received a letter from him in Constantinople. "The smuggling, to which he guardedly referred as 'hazardous trading, dear young', had become ancient history by then. All had gone well; he was back in the islands and teaching English [...]. I was overjoyed by the idea that his English idiom might not be wholly lost".

After parting with Konrad, Paddy is not completely alone. He finds shelter with the sister-in-law of an old friend. Through her network he meets an English literature teacher, Basset Parry-Jones, with whom he explores the city. 

"Meanwhile, there was Vienna".[...]. I had heard someone say that Vienna combined the splendour of a capital with the familiarity of a village. In the Inner City, where crooked lanes opened on gold and marble outbursts of Baroque, it was true; and, in the Kärtnerstrasse or the Graben, after I had bumped into three brand-new acquaintances within a quarter of an hour, it seemed truer still..".

Vienna had always been 'a temple for the cult of horsemanship'. Basset and Patrick are impressed by the craftsmanship of the riders in the Spanish Riding School. "We had lolled over the balcony like Romans at the games while virtuosi in glistening jackboots and brown frock-coats - the scarlet was kept for Sundays - evolved beneath us".

Photos below: the Spanish Riding School in Vienna.

Paddy describes an interesting link he discovers between the Turkish attacks on Vienna in the 15th century and Richard the Lionheart's capture at Dürnstein Castle some five centuries earlier upon his return from the third crusade. The ransom paid for Richard was used to build the strong city wall that held back the Turks. "So the King's fury on the battlements of Acre [a city ​​in Israel that was liberated from the Muslims by Richard the Lionheart] had been the first link in a chain which, five centuries later, had helped to save Christendom from the paynims [muslims]".

A description follows of Gothic and Baroque highlights in Vienna such as the many cupolas; relatively small, most often dome-like, tall structures on top of a building. "The greatest of these, the dome of the Karlskirche, floated with a balloon's lightness in an enclosing hemisphere of snow and the friezes that spiralled the shafts of the two statue-crowned guardian columns..".

Paddy describes that 'Styles of architecture become an obssession in this town'. About the Gothic St. Stephens Cathedral: "Bristling with finials and unloosing its gargoyles, the Cathedral lifts a solitary and warning steeple which dominates every dome and cupola and bell-tower in the city".

Photo below left: Karlskirche (unfortunately partly under construction).

Photo below right: St. Stephens Cathedral (Domkirche St Stephan).

Paddy stays in Vienna for three weeks. "I had met many people of different kinds, had eaten meals in a number of hospitable houses, above all, I had seen a lot." 

Photos below: a few of the many impressions of Vienna, places Patrick stayed, visited or just described. Statue of emperor Franz Joseph I, 13th century St. Michael's Church, one of the many carriages, the Schreyvogelgasse where he stayed with the sister-in-law of a friend and the Parliament Building (1883).

Paddy feels a little guilty that he stayed in Vienna for more than three weeks. On the day of departure he is taken to the east of the city to continue walking towards Hungary. "The friend who had driven me through the eastern suburbs of Vienna drew up under the barbican of Fischamend: 'Shall we drive on?' he asked. 'Just a bit further?' Unaweres, we had gone too far already. The road ran straight and due east beside the Danube. It was very tempting; all horsepower corrupts. But rather reluctantly, I fished out my rucksack, waved to the driver on his return journey to Vienna and set off."