| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Saturday
was a VERY long day on the train. We left Verona at 9am and
arrived in Vienna at about 7pm. We took a taxi to our
apartment and we treated like royalty in doing so. The cab
was a BRAND new Mercedes
Benz and the taxi driver
spoke fluent English. It was a nice treat.
Our apartment is another story
though. We are directly across the street from BI
on the outskirts of the city . The apartment is about the
size of my bedroom back home not including the bathroom or
the kitchen.
Our washing machine holds about 1 pair of
jeans per wash cycle and we have no dryer. So right now our
socks and clothes are hanging on various objects throughout
the apartment air drying.
The heater-AC does not work and we can´t
open the windows.
We have no phone or phone jack, Internet
connection or cable (we get 2 German stations on our TV
from 1930). Also, for some odd reason all of the plugs are
sunken in so we are unable to plug in anything.
We walked down the street for
a bit and did not find much besides a gas station, a McDonalds,
a bar and a restaurant. The restaurant turns out to be great
though. They are inexpensive and have a great garden
in the back for outdoor dining.
We are very close to the metro and I found a stop even
closer today (about 5 minutes) and of course the metro takes
us right down town.
We love the part of the city we saw though.
The architecture is absolutely amazing and each and every building
is different. The people here are very nice and we are
having no problems communicating because most speak English.
We went to the famous Central Cafe (it is in Dad´s 25 must
see book of Vienna) and we could immediately see why this
cafe is legendary. The inside looks like and old teak room with
peaked ceiling. There was
a live piano player and the service was great. I think we
will be back here often. We went back to the same restaurant
for dinner before heading home early.
I have been running
around shopping and getting
everything situated with the apartment. I am getting pretty good
at the subway system! I now only need to consult the map 10 or
so times a minute.
I was getting more comfortable about venturing
out alone as well until yesterday. The men here are very pushy
and obnoxious. They like to stare and make random comments at
women traveling along.
Luckily I have no idea what they are saying to me so I can
easily ignore them.
Yesterday however, my wallet got stolen as I was
coming home on the subway. It was in the backpack on my back and
someone must have reached in and taken it without me noticing
because of how busy it was. I cancelled the bank card and am
getting a new one but everything else is a wash.
So today I have been a lot more cautious and suspicious
of my surroundings. I am sure this will pass soon enough though.
I still do not know when ours tuff will
arrive here in Vienna or when we will
have Internet access
at the apartment. Hopefully,
it will be soon though.
We
are possibly going out of town this weekend to somewhere close.
We got our car yesterday, a Ford Focus Hatch
back. HOT!
We first went to the Hofburg
(which is the Emperor´s palace here). Inside we saw the state
apartments of Empress Elizabeth and Emperor Franz Josef I.
They we were cool and were set up like they live in them back
in the 1800s. They were apparently not a very happily married
couple because they had separate apartments (including
bedrooms and breakfast rooms) and he had to ring a
doorbell before entering her apartments. Her apartments were
sort of weird because she was OBSESSED with her looks and her
size. She had a mini gym set up in her dressing room were she
apparently exercised constantly and then was groomed for hours
by her servants.
Next to the apartments (but still attached)
there is the Sisi Museum which is a small museum dedicated to
the life of Empress Elisabeth. It went from how she was
shipped away from her family when she was only 12 to marry the
emperor all the way to her assasination.
We then went to the big Cathedral here in
Vienna, Stephansplatz. It is a huge old church and the inside
in very beautiful. Most of it was sectioned off so we could
not see it. (You have to pay for a tour) But all of the stone
carvings inside were amazing. They hold mass here in English
every Saturday night at 7pm. I am definitely going to come and
see what it is like.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
| |
| |
|
|
|
 |
It is Saturday here and i It
is about 75 degrees and sunny out with a nice breeze. We first
headed down to the Danbue River and sat down for awhile
next to it enjoying the scenes. The most interesting one was a
giant boat that was concerted to a beach-swimming pool. The
top floor had beach chairs and sand and the bottom floor had
bathrooms and showers. The best part was the giant swimming
pool (bigger than olympic size) floating in the river behind
the boat. I know where I will be lounging around on the hot
summer days!
We are going to continue to walk up the river
towards the Prater (where the legendary ferry wheel is). I don´t
think we are going to stop in, we are saving that for later. There is a
renowned coffee house up that way.
Tomorrow we are thinking about jumping in the
car and making a day trip to a small nearby town, Melk.
It is Monday afternoon at 1:45pm here and I
am downtown near the Opera. This
weekend was an absolute blast. After I sent you the
e-mail on Saturday we continued on our Trek next to the
Danube to the best coffee
house I have ever seen. It is called the Kunst
Haus Wien
Café. (http://www.kunsthauswien.at/?page=8&counter=0)
We sat in a garden courtyard surrounded by plants and
beautiful flowers listening to live piano music. It is right
next to the Kunst Haus Wien museum, but we were not quite
sure what that was and therefore did not go go in. It was an apple soufflé served
with a berry stew. The berry stew sort or tingled in your
mouth like it was carbonated but it was heavenly.
By the way I am not sure if I mentioned our
car or not. It is a green Ford Focus Hatch
back. I have named the car Rolly
Polly but we just call
him Rolly for short. (Don't tell Spritz.
I don't want him to be jealous.)
We ate dinner at an outside patio looking at
the giant cathedral. (What a view!) Afterwards we strolled
through the town a bit before heading back to Cafe Central.
On the way we encountered a group of 5 boys who were about 10
years old. They were singing all by themselves for tips from
the crowd. These boys must have been members of the
Vienna Boys Choir because
they were AMAZING. There were all different voice ranges and
all I can say is WOW!!. I really hope they know how gifted
they are. (They were also making a fortune!!)
On Sunday we got up and made the 45 minute
drive to Melk. What a
treat this little town turned out to be. We first hit the
main attraction in town, the Bennedictan
Abbey (http://www.stiftmelk.at/englisch/index.html).
The Monks sure do know how to live. The abbey is simply
gorgeous both inside and outside and is enormous. We were
only allowed to tour through the visitors wing, the library
and the church but we were speechless by the end. The visitors
wing was set up like a museum. They had old relics, artwork
, books, writings and clothes used by the monks. Some of it
dates back to the 1st century! The library was very
impressive. It housed over 100,000 books. There are even
librarians working there. The church
was the best part though. I have never seen so much gold in
a church before. It was
extremely ornate. I have included the web
site. There is an English version and a virtual tour.
Definitely check it out!
After we left the abbey we strolled through
the monks gardens and their park. It was a beautiful path
through the gardens and they even had classical music
streaming in in various parts along the trail. I saw also
saw something that would
make Dad extremely
jealous. It had to be the
worlds largest aloe plant. It was taller than me!
We left the monks and headed into the little
town of Melk. There is
really nothing in town and life seems to revolve around
the abbey and the tourism the abbey brings. We did the drive
home and went for a walk around the block. It turns out
we live just down the road from the
enormous Schönbrunn palace (one of Vienna's best sights)
This is going to be great because it is going to take
several days to explore this entire complex as it has the
palace, a zoo, botanical gardens, a hedge maze´and a
planetarium. I think I will tackle this next week.
I have been keeping busy piddling around
the city. I went to the opera house but was unable to get
in the inside because it is only open for performances. I
also went back to St. Stephan's (at Alison' suggestion) to
go to the catacombs and was very glad I did! They were
very interesting and not at all like the ones in Paris.
(Paris definitely had more bodies!) You have to take a
guided tour of the catacombs but the guide spoke English
and had a great sense of humor. It was really a fun tour
even though it was through a graveyard.
There were two parts of the
catacombs, the old and the new. The new part was the
public graveyard and the graveyard of the plague victims.
We were only allowed to view the coffins (in the public
graveyard) and the stacks of bones (from the plague
victims) through little windows but it was still very
impressive. The catacombs were used as a public
graveyard during the 18th century. Thousands of
people were buried (in coffins all stacked up) but
the catacombs had to be closed in the1780s because the
stench got so bad chruch could not be held! (the catacombs
are directly below the church).
The old part of the catacombs was equally
(if not more) impressive. It is about 700 years old! We
saw the coffins of some of the Hofburg rayal family. Their
buirial ritual was very odd as they were buried in three
places. The heart, the intestines and the bodies were all
buried seperately to keep all of the Parishes in Vienna
happy and because 3 is a number of god. So we saw urns
that contained intestines and some of them were leaking
the alcohol the body parts are preserved in.
The old part also contained the coffins of
the archbishops of Vienna (the last funeral was just two
years ago) and the high priests of St. Stephan's Parish.
Another interesting fact of the catacombs is that the old
part were just renovated 4 years ago so they are very nice
and new looking. The new part was never renovated so it is
what you would typically think of catacombs being like
(dusty, dirty, dark)
This weekend we are heading to Budapest,
Hungry.
|
|
On
Tuesday I ventured over to the Central Cemetery and the St. Marx
Cemetery to see the famous musicians graves. My first stop was the
Central Cemetery, which is about the size of Ridgefield. (They
even have a bus system running through the cemetery) I have never
seen so many graves compacted into such a large area before. They
were shoulder to shoulder, there must have been hundred of
thousands in total. It took me about an hour and a half to speed
walk from the back of the cemetery to the front where the graves
of Beethoven, Brahms, Strauss I and II and Hayden are located but
it was probably one of the best experiences I have had here in
Vienna. Each of these people has impacted my life in some way and
now the history was a reality.
I
got back on the S bahn and headed over to St. Marx where Mozart is
buried. This was a much smaller cemetery and Mozart’s grave was
right near the entrance. This year is the 250th
anniversary of Mozart’s birth so there is quite a bit of
commotion in and around Austria. They have really done a nice job
of manicuring the location where he is buried. There are all new
benches throughout the cemetery and there is a bed of flowers on
his grave that are in the design of a Treble Clef. Mozart’s
headstone was not as impressive as those of the other musicians,
which were very ornate. His was a simple one with a sole cherub
and a tower that looked like it had been broken (it was designed
this way). I am figuring that this is because he died a pauper
while the others did not. On
Wednesday we had a visitor – Matt. We headed up to Schonbrunn,
the palace near our house, in the morning. This palace is
absolutely enormous and was built for the sole purpose of showing
off how big a palace could be. The emperor wanted to beat the size
of the palaces in France so he built this palace with over 14,000
rooms. Man it must be awesome to play hide and go seek inside. We
did not go inside of the Palace because of the steep entrance fee.
But instead we walked all through the grounds, which contain
ornate gardens, a botanical garden, a zoo, a labyrinth made of
hedges The
grounds are ENORMOUS but very beautiful!
We
decided to go to the Prater (the giant amusement park in the North
of the city). We rode the Reisenrad, (the famous Ferris wheel) and
then poked around.
The rain started
coming pretty heavily so we had to leave the park.
|
|
|
|
Paris,
France June 10 - 14
Brussels,
Belgium June 14 - 17
Brugges,
Belgium June 17 - 19
Strasbourg,
France June 19 - 21
Luxembourg,
Luxembourg June 21 - 24
Dijon,
France Jun e 24 - 27
Turin,
Italy June 27 - 30
Rome,
Italy June 30 - July 3
Florence,
Italy July 3 - July 6
Verona,
Italy July 6 - 8
Vienna,
Austria July 8 - ?
Trip Home Page
|
|
|
|
|
Elizabeth 
