Those Tricked Out Trick Fountains

Any afternoon that ends with someone drinking fresh mountain water out of a 400-year-old stone chair is an afternoon worth recording. I give credit to Melissa for deciding in advance, knowing we would miss the mountains, that we should catch a bus to Untersberg, ride another gondola, do a little hiking along the Austrian hillside, then head back to Hellbrunn Palace to explore. But what neither of us expected, after enjoying ice cream by the water, was that the palace had been literally “tricked out” with trick fountains several hundred years ago. The concept was so absurd, so unbelievably crazy that we walked around to the back and found a separate entrance where someone allowed us to begin walking the full lot of fountains that did indeed splash us both in unexpected ways. Might have been the best treat in Austria, getting splashed in the heat, even when we learned to expect it.