We said farewell to the Bavarian Alps and drove towards Prague in the Czech Republic. To help break up the five-hour drive we stopped at a couple of interesting places along the way.
A bit over the Austrian border and just north of Salzburg is the town of Oberndorf bei Salzburg. In the town is a little round chapel along the riverside. It is a memorial chapel that marks the spot where the world’s favorite Christmas Carol was first performed. In 1818 Franz Gruber was the organist at St. Nicola’s church in the village. On Christmas Eve the organ bellows broke and Father Mohr came to Gruber and asked him if he could write a simple song for the little congregation to sing at Midnight Mass. Fr. Mohr gave Gruber a poem he had written a couple of years before and “Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht” was the result. The two men sang the carol that night with just a simple Tyrolean guitar. Within a few years the little song became known throughout the world as “Silent Night”. Sadly, St. Nicola Church fell into disrepair and was pulled down in the early 1900’s. By 1937 the townspeople erected the Stille Nacht Kapella to mark the birthplace of the world’s most beloved Christmas hymn. As we arrived we heard a group of French motorcyclists singing the last lines of the hymn in French.
Street sign 
Original St. Nicola Church foundation
Silent Night Chapel in Oberndorf bei Salzburg, Austria
Altar inside the chapel
Nearby was a funny little American Store. Arnold the owner was very nice and it was fun seeing how Austrians perceive American culture and merchandise!
It was full of a lot of motorcycle biker leather, t-shirts, and cowboy items.
Outside of Oberndorf the rolling hills of the Austrian countryside gave way to pretty farms and hamlets. One such hamlet we discovered had a very interesting name…Fucking! Yep, you read that correctly! So here’s the backstory on this little hamlet of 15-20 houses set in the luscious green Austrian farmland. It seems that in Austrian the name Fuck came from a famous warrior who lived in the area. The suffix “ing” means “place of” in German. So Fucking literally means “the place of the warrior Fuck”(pronounced in German “Fook”). Gotta love cultural anomalies!
That’s the official village sign. It’s a typical Austrian sign used in every town. 
The village of Fucking, Austria
The rest of the day we drove through the countryside, returning briefly to Germany before crossing into the Czech Republic. The region around the border was thickly forested. It was easy to imagine the big bad wolf or evil witch in her candy house lurking in the dark, black forests. I just caught a glimpse of Little Red Riding Hood’s cape as we drove by!
The sun peaked out from behind the clouds as we drove into Prague. Our apartment was perfectly located on the edge of Prague Old Town. We had a charming balcony that overlooked an onion domed church spire and baroque buildings. Robert and the kids headed out to find the local grocery and exchange some Euros for the Czech Koruna, when the church bells began to ring calling people to Vespers. As I stood on the balcony the evening sunshine cast it’s rays on the church spire and set the old cream walls and orange colored tiles aglow!
Beautiful staircase leading to our apartment 
Standing on the balcony
In the tree covered courtyard was a local brewery.
The Czech’s are known for beer making! 
So of course we had to eat dinner in the brewery below our back window!
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