April 2 ~ Touring Northern Tyrol

Written by: The Bridge on Tuesday, April 4th, 2006

On Sunday, we went to Innsbruck to visit the famous Goldene Dach, where Jakob Hutter was burned at the stake. I’ve seen lots of pictures of it, however, being here and actually seeing is another thing. That section of the city is very old, we’re lucky that we’re here before tourist season, they say it can get really crowded. It was Sunday morning and the bells in the neighboring churches started ringing. We went into Der Dom zu St. Jakob, which is another huge Catholic Church. I was watching from the back when the priest and his procession came in. The acoustics in the building were impressive, once the organ started playing and the singing started. I watched as the priest went through some of the traditional customs, but then the others wanted to leave and I had to hurry on. Just outside the church is a building that was used to hold prisoners before they were burned. It a good chance that Jakob Hutter was held prisoner there for a few days before his death. Everything is so old and well preserved, the whole atmosphere of the place can take you right back to the 1500’s. After that we went touring another church and a few other tourist attraction.
Being Sunday, we decided to go to a church for a service; Linde Lederer told us of a church that were ‘wiedertaufer’. So towards evening we went there. We came in late, there weren’t too many people there, it was more like a large meeting room then a church, nothing fancy like all the Catholic churches that we had been seeing. The songs they sang were Peter Strauch songs, the same songs that we sing at home with the choir. Eddy V. and Judy B. were asked to go up and gave a short message. The people were very interested and afterwards we spend a bit of time talking with the people, that was the best part. It seemed like the people in the area are not impressed with that church because they are going away from the Catholic church, it looks like the same problem that this country has had before.

One couple invited us home for supper so we went to their place, which just happened to be up on the mountain. So we wound our way up, hairpin turns and all; there was still quite a bit of snow on the ground because of the high altitude. We spend a nice evening at their place, and again experienced the friendly hospitality of these people. We started talking about music and they played for us a few songs that the wife had made. She started to sing along and it was ‘echte Tirolishes yodeling.’ They give us a few harmonicas as a gift.

Showing 9 comments

Jeny said:
On: 4th Apr, 2006 at 21:37

Lance… your descriptions take us back to the 1500s, never mind actually seeing it. It all sounds wonderful, and I’m happy for each and every Hutterite that has the privilage and opportunity to see our place of origin. Thanks again for keeping us posted.

Ian said:
On: 4th Apr, 2006 at 22:56

Hi Lance
Great to see that all of you are well and enjoying yourselves!
Take care and God bless!

Lance said:
On: 5th Apr, 2006 at 04:58

Hi Everybody, thanks for the Comments. Keep them up, its a good insperation to keep up the journal.

Mandy said:
On: 5th Apr, 2006 at 08:55

Lance, i want to say thank you for the time and effort you put into this journal. Especially for those of us who might never be able to experience it first hand. And clearly as with everything, our history reflects who we are today, so thanks a lot…God be with you thru this journey.

Psalm 25, 4,5

Lynda Waldner said:
On: 5th Apr, 2006 at 10:11

Looks like your getting regular workouts with all the mountain/hill climbing you’re doing! No need to go jogging there! Glad you’re enjoying yourselves, thanx for the updates. Take care….

Lance said:
On: 5th Apr, 2006 at 12:46

Climbing Mountain is quit a workout, however we didn’t get to do that to much, lots of visiting and looking thou. So hopefully some of you are getting into shape for the full marathon this time, not just the half!! nicht? Otherwise I’ll have to do it by myself in June sometime in Africa, hmmm theres an idea.

Lynda Waldner said:
On: 5th Apr, 2006 at 19:19

Okay! You do the full marathon in Africa, I’ll do the full marathon here. Deal? (I think I get the better part of the deal, seeing as it’s doesn’t usually get much hotter than thirty celcius in june around here)

Lance said:
On: 6th Apr, 2006 at 01:29

Du ol!!! Scha hetz… mihur we schaung.

Matt said:
On: 7th Apr, 2006 at 09:59

Lance, Try recording some of the singings.