For my 30th birthday, my first partner, Carl and I took train trip through Europe. We started in Paris. From there we traveled on to Munich, Salzburg, Prague, Berlin, Amsterdam and back to Paris. It was one of the best trips I have ever taken. It was also the only time I have had my belief system shaken around the existence, for lack of a better word, of ghosts.
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As an agnostic, at my core I have an abiding skepticism. I usually find "tales of the unexplained" are easily enough explained when examined closely. Consequently, while I find ghost stories entertaining, I am more likely to chalk them up to an unexpected event coupled with an overactive imagination. However, as a man of reason, I still cannot explain what happened to us in Salzburg Austria in a 17th century guest house in the heart of this worthy UNESCO World Heritage Site.
It's difficult to overstate just how beautiful Salzburg is. A storybook city of spires and domes, your eye is lifted to the Hohensalzburg Fortress on a majestic cliff overlooking the city and to the Alps beyond. We had three days to wander through its lovely cobbled streets, immersed in one of Europe's most architecturally and culturally rich cities to be found.
I have been racking my brain trying to remember the name of the B&B we stayed at that first night. It was on the Linzergasse, very close to the St. Sebastian Church where Mozart's father Leopold and wife Constanze are buried. The cemetery is a Baroque gem in its own right. Simultaneously beautiful and morbid, the graves and mausoleums are often decorated with disturbing images of skeletons climbing from their tombs, reminding the living that they will soon join them.
The B&B we booked for the three nights was a two-star affair, cheep, cheerful yet well-appointed. The proprietor was a pink-cheeked grandmotherly figure who's family had owned the property for generations. As is usually the case with buildings this old, over the course of time it has seen many alterations and become labyrinthian.
We were led to our room through a series of corridors, eventually finding ourselves at the top rear of the property in what was surely a former attic space. If not for the authenticity, it would have been the cliché of picturesque. The rough hewn beams and goose down comforters veritably shrieked the name Heidi from the top of the Tyrolean Alps. We were charmed.
Travel is both exhilarating and exhausting. I have always found that combination a difficult recipe for sleep. When my head finally found the down pillow that night, my body wanted to shut off as my mind tried to reconcile all it had explored. I was restless. So was Carl. We both finally managed to fitfully doze off. It wouldn't be long before we were both awake again at just around 2:00 a.m. and would sit up the remainder of the night, every light burning, trying to make sense of what had just happened.
I woke up hearing someone screaming, actually there were two people screaming. One of those people was me, the other Carl. We were both freaked out to the point of cold sweats. It was at this moment that my dismissal of the supernatural forever came into question. Both of us, in our sleep, had just experienced the same terrifying event.
What had woken us so petrified happened to us both in the same moment. We both felt a presence hovering directly over us. Not standing by the bed, but horizontal, floating just inches away from us. I still get goosebumps thinking about it. It felt angry, threatening and malevolent and it wanted us out. I have never felt so frightened before or since.
Did we experience an actual ghost that night? My logical mind tells me no, that it was the Schweinsbraten and red cabbage repeating on me. But for us both to have had identical experiences that night, I often wonder just what the hell that was.
As soon as light broke the next morning and our grandmotherly Frau showed up for work, we got the hell out of there. Even though we had booked for three nights, she gave no argument when we cancelled the remainder of our stay, not charging us for their two-day cancellation policy. I don't think we were the first guests to flee that room after just one very long night, leaving skidmarks on the down behind.
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