August 25

August 25th (sunny)
This morning, we purchased tickets for the bus and took in the sights of Klagenfurt. Both of us remembered visiting “Minimundus” when we drove through in ‘72. It is a miniature version of the most famous monuments and areas of the world and to our surprise, it was still there. Klagenfurt has 80,000 people and is a perfect size for sightseeing. Next year the European Soccer Championships will be held here, but today they had their annual flea market and every street was full of people selling everything from their attics and basements. Our friend, Echo would have gone into rapture had she seen this.
We successfully resisted the culinary temptations, purchased fresh produce from the market, returned home for lunch and spent time sitting on the Worthersee lakeside people-watching, swimming and wading. We found out that this was the biggest festival weekend of the year called Altstadtmesse, (Summer Festival), and there would be all types of music and lots of food and beer all weekend. As one local put it, “Nothing happens in Klagenfurt all year except for this weekend and then, all Hell breaks loose!”
After dinner, we hopped on the bus again into Klagenfurt and were amazed at how orderly the jam-packed venues were. Everybody was out having a great time and the weather cooperated perfectly. We walked around listening to everything from rock-and-roll, opera, traditional Austrian oompah-pah, jazz and even bagpipe and drums. Of course, we chatted with different people we met and one lovely lady, Isabella, told us she has a friend in the logging business in Vancouver. His name is Friedl (Gottfried) Brukermann. Wouldn’t it be a coincidence if our good friend Ken Pringle knew him?
The food and beer was flowing and everyone was having a wonderful evening. The only downfall was that we had to wait over one hour for a bus back to the camp. When we did get back after midnight, we both crashed.
We both agree that Klagenfurt turned out to be a most memorable stopover.