Last month, nine Mercersburg students and two teachers jumped the pond for an often vigorous, frequently instructive, and always-social three weeks in Germany and Austria: the group visited Salzburg, Munich, Worms, Koblenz (via a Lorelei cruise on the Rhine), and Heidelberg.

Here’s a full recap from faculty trip leaders Jim Applebaum and Peter Kempe:

Trips to foreign lands, as any Gulliver will tell you, are in part wonder and curiosity, pain and dislocation, and cultural and social window-shopping; we take stock of ourselves and our beliefs from new or different perspectives. Our three-week excursion had all this.

The extraordinary situation of Salzburg, Austria, is the stuff of postcards: a domineering fortress ruling over a red-tiled city of church domes and spires, fine baroque architecture, and crooked and lively shopping streets bisected by a lazy river; the whole scene is framed by a line of massive alpine peaks to the west and green hills to the east.

First and foremost, Salzburg is identified as the birthplace and true home of Mozart, and our group paid homage to the 18th-century musical genius when we visited his homes (now museums). Next comes the fortress Festung Hohensalzburg, the presence that sails above the city. We Wanderers climbed the sinewy path to the top where, winded, we captured the panorama of the city below and the imposing peaks of the Salzkammergut region – a Thoreauvian experience.

Our home for nine days was a clean and noisy student hostel where the “real” reason for throngs of international visitors to be in Salzburg in mid-June became evident: the Euro 2008 football (soccer) championship. Austria and Switzerland co-hosted the games this year, and Salzburg was one of the venues—so this coincidence attracted swarms of kids and their adult chaperones from Germany, Austria, Spain, Russia, and Greece—perhaps even a yahoo or two. And us. While the games were being played out in stadia, one of the prominent squares of Salzburg was revamped into a “FanZone” with theater-size projection screens, vendors of snacks and European soccer paraphernalia, and loads of police on the perimeter. On several evenings, ours was a tiny raft in a large sea of cheering, moaning, jiggling fans; many wore team jerseys and funny hats and waved their nations’ banners and sang hearty fight songs in different tongues (“Immer wieder, Österreich!”).

One morning, we hopped a local bus and shortly got off to explore the unusual Hellbrunn Palace and water park, a 17th-century confection filled with landscaped wonders, many of which spout water; a playground for the rich and influential of long ago. On another morning, we took a train into the alpine lakeside town of Gmunden and began a daylong odyssey up and down mountain trails, stopping to read and translate important markers. Courage toppled caution as we filed up steep, rocky inclines and sidestepped down equally steep hillsides. We tired and achy wanderers, all in high spirits, were making our way—after the demanding parts of the hike—down a hardtop gravel road when the low-hanging gray clouds opened up. That’s when we arrived at the mouth of a long tunnel, appraising its length and destiny and, ultimately, wondering whether we would arrive at the right spot and in time for a bus back to Gmunden, five miles off. But now, impossibly emerging from the tunnel, came a magic minibus, traveling a road that had been devoid of any vehicles. The driver turned around, took us in, and informed us that our rendezvous was purely serendipitous, off the usual route and routine.

On another day, we played a citywide scavenger hunt, with clues for the obvious and the arcane around the old city, ending atop a prospect—Salzburg’s modern museum of art. Then there was a short trip to the salt mines, deep within a mountain, now a museum; the source of Salzburg’s name and of its erstwhile economic success. Garbed in white protective top and bottoms, we went deep underground by foot, work train, and a set of steep, smooth slides, the last a joy to all former playground slide addicts. There was the cable car ride up the Untersberg and a short trek through mist around the snow-patched ridge. There was the absorbing tour or Salzburg’s historical preservation laboratories by its very engaging, expert restorer of historic documents: CSI in an archeological sense.

Footsore yet eager, we took a fast train to Munich and plunged into big city life. Hearty Bavarian meals, splendid fountains, a sober visit to Dachau, the art treasures of the great Alte Pinakothek museum—plus the superb air, space, science and technology displays at the Deutsches Museum—drove the group on. Three days later we waved farewell for a three-hour rail trip to the Rhineland city of Worms, home of our German partner school Gauss Gymnasium and five days of individual home stays for our students hosted by Gauss students and parents. In Worms, we were guided through the Romanesque Cathedral of St. Peter, the historic site of the Diet of Worms where Martin Luther’s excommunication was sealed, the Juden Friedhof (the oldest Jewish cemetery in Europe), the Luther memorial, and monuments to the Nibelungen (the great German epic). Some students and their hosts took day excursions; one group met up in the beautiful Alsatian city of Strasbourg.

On a windy morning, Mercersburg students with their German hosts shipped out from nearby Mainz for a day cruise up the spectacular Rhine, gliding past great hillside castles, the mythical Lorelei, and lovely riverside villages backed by steep mountainside vineyards to reach the city of Koblenz. A chairlift took us up to Festung Ehrenbreitstein and its commanding view of the Rhine and Moselle rivers. On another day and taking a different direction, we trained to Heidelberg and hiked the famed Philosophers’ Way, then threaded down to riverside for a reception at the Max Weber House (part of the University of Heidelberg). Over the old bridge across the Neckar, we climbed countless flights to reach the massive walls of Heidelberg Castle. Our Heidelberg visit was topped off by a reception and picnic at the home of Drs. Thomas ’73 and Susanne Puhl, where we were greeted by a group of German Mercersburg alums. Two days later, we were aboard our return flight to Washington and home.

(Note: Trip participants included Brea Davies ’10, Jenn Dillon ’09, Becca Galey ’09, James Gotoff ’09, David Hill ’09, Ariel Imler ’09, Ellis Mays ’10, Ben Wiley ’09, and Oliver Wilkinson ’09, as well as faculty leaders Applebaum and Kempe.)