St. Ulrich to Trieste, Day 0 - Brixen / Bressanone

And away we go! 

Saturday June 20: Day 0. Turns out that the farther you section-hike, the longer it takes to travel back to the end point / starting point for the next section-hike. 

We took an early train from Steinebach to Munich Hbf and another early train to Brixen / Bressanone, and had a whole afternoon to be tourists once we arrived. This was a treat, since the last time we were in Brixen, we were just passing through.

Speaking of passing through, in the winter of 1550-51, an elephant named Soliman stayed in Brixen for two weeks on his way from Genoa to Vienna. The elephant was a gift from Portugal's King John III to Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria.

Had Soliman arrived 75-80 years earlier, perhaps the oliphant / pferdefant frescoes in Brixen's cathedral cloister and on the wall of tiny St. Nikolaus in nearby Klerant would have looked more like elephants.

S and I had been so enamored of the horse-like elephant fresco in Klerant when we hiked through two years ago, that we planned to revisit it this summer. Discussing this plan with S's brother and SIL over dinner before our trip, we searched online for information about the frescoes' painter, and thereby learned Mesiter Leonhard of Brixen, or his school, had painted another elephant a few years earlier in Brixen. Both frescoes were painted elephant-unseen--because getting a painter from Brixen to Ceylon, or an elephant from Ceylon to Brixen, took more time, effort, and money than Leonhard had at his disposal. This was when we also learned about Soliman, the real elephant who arrived 75 years later and had absolutely nothing to do with the frescoes.

We passed the Dom on our way from the train station to our hotel, so we entered the cloister,...

...passed beneath the winged lion (presumably also painted sight unseen)...

...and found the famous elephant / oliphant / Pferdefant. Beneath the elephant is Eleazar Avaran, who has just stabbed or is about to stab the noble beast, who in turn is about to die, crushing Eleazar (1 Maccabees 6:43-46).

Brixen cathedral cloister Pferdefant, ca. 1470

Across the street from our hotel, we encountered another lion, warning passersby "Ich bin ein schröcklich Leu" ("I am a fearsome lion"). (The building dates from the 15th c., but the lion was added ~1900.)

Schröcklich!

We were far too early to check in, so we dropped off our backpacks and went in search of lunch. 

As is often the way in South Tyrol, our hotel booking included a local mass-transit and museum-discount card. We still had some time to kill after lunch, so we swung by the nearby Hofburg Museum (free with the card). We soon figured out it was a diocesan museum in the palace that served as the bishop's residence from the mid-13th to early-19th centuries. 

I did not expect to enjoy the huge collection--three centuries worth--of Krippen ("cribs," i.e. nativity scenes), but they went well beyond stable scenes to include, e.g., the Slaughter of the Innocents... 

...and a scene with hyenas and PORCUPINES.

I was also fond of this ca. 1430 sculpture of Mary and Elizabeth. The way Mary holds wimpled Elizabeth's neck made me imagine what a 15th-c. childbirth preparation class might have looked like. Mary: "You're doing great! You're halfway through this contraction!" Elizabeth: "How can you know I'm halfway through until the contraction is over?" Mary: "I am highly favored!"

Good luck, gals

The Brixen card also included a free round trip ride on the not-quite-nearby Seilbahn up to Mount Plose (8,406'; the Seilbahn drops you off at 6,725'). After checking into our hotel, we caught a bus to the Talstation (7 road-km and 500 m elevation gain above Brixen, just past the village of St. Andrea), and headed up Plose for a preview of the Geislergruppe, where we'd start hiking the next day. 

To the right: the Geislergruppe

Did I mention that it was stinking hot in Brixen? It was noticeably cooler on Plose. FBOFW, we didn't stay long. We wanted both to hike and to revisit Klerant, so we took the Seilbahn back down to St. Andrea and headed on foot toward Klerant.

On the way, we passed through the hamlet Mellaun / Meluno, famous for yet another small church painted (in 1464) by the school of Meister Leonhard. No elephants here.

And then Klerant. Hello, old friend.

We were also happy to see the whale again.

From Klerant, we headed down, down, down to Brixen.

After dinner, Brixen treated us to a lightning storm. 

Meißen

On our last day in Sachsen, S and I spent the morning hiking a loop from Rathen to the Wolfsschlucht. On the train back, it occurred to me that I could continue past the Dresden train station all the way to Meißen. 

S and I had visited Meißen with E in 2012, and all I could remember about it was that I wasn't a fan of  factory-made slip-cast porcelain. But our friend Tobi had raved about what a life-saver the town had been during the pandemic--an easy train ride away, to a scenic place where he and his toddler could enjoy some outdoor adventures. I decided to give Meißen another try.

This time I skipped the porcelain factory, and aimed for the Altstadt.

Yeah, no.

As is my truffle-hunting tendency, I peeked inside the Frauenkirche, much modernized since its 1205 CE founding. My favorite item was this painting of Adam and Eve, showing that Jesus had to die because Adam and Eve listened to a snake.

I then headed uphill, past roof-top stork decor...

That's the Frauenkirche down below...

...past a Medieval gate...

...up above the rooftops...

...to Albrechtsburg Castle...

...and the Dom.

The entrance to the Dom museum was around back...

...and when I went in to purchase a ticket, the cashier said, "would you like to include the 3pm Dom Tour with that for 11 Euros total?" And I said sure.

Then I went into the cathedral to wait for the tour guide, who had been hanging out next to the cashier. She came in and said we'd wait another 5 minutes for the other ticket-holders--who turned out to number ZERO--and then we headed up into the first of the two towers for my private tour. Incredible. 

As is typical in Germany when you make an effort to speak German, the tour guide complimented my "excellent" grammar-error-ridden language skills, and I managed to convey that I had a fear of heights. The tour was thus perfectly tailored to an acrophobe who understood most of what the guide was saying and who was able to compliment the impressive architecture and views all the way up to the penultimate level ("we can skip the last set of stairs," said the guide; "the views are just as good here, and it isn't as exposed").  

We had views both inside...

...and out.

During WWII, the bells were removed--ostensibly for melting down into weapons, but safely stored instead due to their historical significance. 

We went as high as the level above the bells, then headed all the way back down.

The ground floor of the Dom was similarly impressive...

I think I took this photo for the date on the wall: 1291...

Yeah, no...

Here's Jesus on a rainbow. People surely saw rainbows before trying to paint them, but it took several hundred years to figure out how to paint them.

(Even Caspar David Friedrich didn't get them right. A friend suggests the problem wasn't understanding what rainbows look like, but having pigments with which to conceptually distinguish more than rainbow three colors. But even the lighting is off in Friedrich's painting, and he was a master of gilded skies...)

Gebirgslandschaft mit Regenbogen, ca. 1809-10 

Back to the Meißen Dom...

Eek

A view through the museum window's antique glass

13th-c. dog head

After visiting the Dom, I walked through the courtyard,...

...and down the hill behind the castle to the train station--an excellent way to spend an afternoon!