New Rowing Experience
I was quite nervous when I first found out that I would be rowing in a pair this morning, with none other than our very own National Champ, Wendy, who won in the women's lightweight pair with Hanna this year!
Surprisingly, I had a much better experience doing that than sculling in a double for the first time. Technically, a pair is less stable than a double, but because I am more comfortable with sweep rowing, even though the boat was a bit unstable at times, I was more confident in making adjustments to make things work.
And to top it all, the water was was perfect this morning: no rain, not much wind and it was too dark for any water skiers.
The only down side is that I am a bit out of shape and wth a double, there is no rest at any time!!
All Good Things
Dan and I finally got home a couple of hours ago. Our last few of days in Prague/Czech Republic were great. On Thursday, Oct 12, while I was at the conference, Dan met up with Roman, his karate ontact in Czech Republic, who took him to a couple of interesting sights before going to his dojo near the border with Poland. Dan taught there for a few hours and was brought back to Prague afterwards.
That evening, May Shiu, Neil and I went to an Italian restaurant up the road, Trattoria Cicala (
http://trattoria.cicala.cz/eng/), and had a great meal. Only when we were leaving did we noticed photos of celebraties who have eaten there as well: Sean Connery, Johnny Depp, Anthony Hopkins and a few other faces that I recognize but could not remember their names. It was so good that we decided to book a table there for dinner on our last night in Prague.
On Friday, I attended the lectures during the day and then in the evening, we met up with Drs. Upjohn and Stockley and their wives. We went to their hotel for a drink first and then headed to this wonderful French restaurant in the Old Town called Le Terroir. This is restaurant has an impressive wine cellar and also has a cheese room, a cigar room and a cognac room! The food was exquisite and we all had a great time. That was obviously the most expensive meal we have had during the whole trip, but considering the standard of the food and wine, the restaurant itself and its location, it was a pretty good deal!
We spend our full day on an excursion to Kutna Hora, an ex-silver-mining town 1 hours east of Prague by train. The cathedral (St. Barbara's Cathedral), churches, notable buldings and the town itself was very nice, but the most intriguing part of our trip was our visit to the Sedlec Ossuary (Kostnice). In this Gothic style church, the bones of no less than 40,000 people were assembled into candelabras, coat of arms, chalices... most of them were stacked up into 4 huge pyramids.. One has to see it to believe it. And Dan could not resist it and bought a reproduction of a human skull, which we named Frank, after the woodcarver who was responsible for arranging the bones into what they are now (it was not really Frank, but something that ressembled Frank in Czech; in order not to butcher the language, we decided to just call him Frank).
We went to Trattoria Cicala again for our last dinner in Prague. It was delicious. Just a wonderful way to wrap up a great vacation!
The taxi came to pick us up at 5:30 am to bring us to the airport. And for once on this trip, our flight was on time. There was the expected long waits for security check at Heathrow, but we had 6 hours before our next flight, so we were in no rush. It was hard to kill 6 hours, but we managed it by walking a little, then find a place to park ourselves and nap a bit and then get up and walk around some more... The flight was on time and uneventful, but the security/custom check when we got to SeaTac was a pain!! We finally managed to pick up our car about 2 hours after we landed and went on to go pick up the pup from Camp Happy Paws.
Gander is one tired puppy!! In fact, he has been asking to be put to bed since 8:30 pm! As much as I have enjoyed our vacation, it sure was great to see my furry little guy! And what a relief to find that he did not cause any trouble (like chewing up electrical cord and dog beds) or hurt himself while we were gone!
It's not quite 10 pm yet, but I think I will put Gander to bed and hit the sack myself!! It's back to the salt mine tomorrow!
Second Day at Congress
Didn't post anything yesterday since it was not the most exciting day. Slept in last night and then had breakfast before being 'escorted' to the Metro by Dan, May Shiu and Neil so that I could attend the Congress.
I ran into Dr. Allen Stockley from Eagle Ridge and his wife. Chatted with them for a bit and then went on to attend 4 lectures: a couple of Derm and a couple of ENT. Quite informative.
After I got 'home', we all went to the beerhouse/restaurant which has been brewing beer since the 1400's. It was a pretty impressive looking place and the food was awesome. However, with my sore throat and congestion, the smokey air was not helping. We just wandered around for a bit and then we headed back to the hotel.
Had to wake up 'early' this morning to come to the lectures.... not too bad, but the cold is not getting better just yet. Saw Drs. Upjohn and Stockely and will be making plans with them to get together for dinner at some point.
The next couple of days will not be too exciting until we get to go on an excursion somewhere... until then, it time to 'work'!
Prague Castle and More
Our dinner last night, as Dan said, was the best meal we have had since we started on our trip. We stumbled upon this fairly quiet cafe/wine bar/restaurant near the Old Town Square but away from the hustle and bussle. It is called U Zavoje (
www.uzavoje.cz) and you can see for yourself from their website what an amazing set-up they have. The food was excellent - Czech-influenced Nouveau cuisine - and so was the wine. And given the quality of the food,with wine and dessert, the price was extremely reasonable. We enjoyed it so much that we returned this afternoon for some wine and cheese on the way back to the hotel after touring the Castle.
Our itinerary today involved walking down the Karvoska cesta (Royal Way), i.e. from the Prasna Brana (Powder Gate) to Karvolo Most (Charles Bridge), across the river up to the Praszky Hrad (Prague Castle), specifically the Chram sv Vita (St. Vitus Cathedral) within the castle. This was the processional route the Czech Kings took to the cathedral for their coronation.
Next to the Powder Gate was the Obecni Dum (Municipal House) which is possibly the most exuberent building in Prague. We just took a quick peek inside and it was Art Nouveau from top to bottom, as May Shiu put it, definitely 'Hercules Poirot' style!!
We saw many more wonderful buildings along the way, including U Zlateho Hada (House at the Golden Snake) which was the first coffee house in Prague. If you have never seen hordes of tourists, try the Charles Bridge in Prague. I cannot imagine what it looks like in the summer when it is high season if we are at the shoulder season right now! We managed to take a few photos on the bridge without having too many people on the way... one has to assume that all the photos for sale of the bridge without a soul on it were all taken either at the crack of dawn in the middle of winter or befre Prague became a hot tourist spot!
In order to build up energy for our 'hike' up to the castle, we stopped for lunch soon after we got to Mala Strana (little Quarter), the neirghbourhood on the other side of the bridge. We found a restaurant with a quiet courtyard which served pretty good food. We were quite pleased that we were the only ones at the restaurant, away from the crowds, only to find out later that we were just the only ones in the courtyard for everyone else were in the cellar part of the restaurant! Why would they want to eat in the basement when it was so nice outside was beyond me!
On the way up the hill to the castle, we saw quite a few interesting emblems of houses: 'Three Fiddles', 'Green Lobster', 'White Swan', 'Two Suns' etc. This was how houses were identified until 1770, when house signs were banned in favour of street numbers. Back then, tradesmen, merchants and such would have their initials, symbols of their trades etc. carved on the front of their house which served as the address.
We just missed the changing of the guards when we got to the castle, but May Shiu and I did stand next to the guard on duty and had our photo taken. We did see the next set of guards on their way to the front gate later on. Apparently, after the fall of communisim in 1989, the Czech costume designer who did
Amadeus redesigned the guards uniform, replacing the khaki uniform with the current blue one.
The St. Vitus Cathedral was quite impressive. What's more, this was one of the rare times where there was no scaffolding of any kind that one could see on the front facade of an ancient cathedral! The interior is as one would expect of a Gothic cathedral meant for the coronation of kings. There was a maintenance crew on scaffolding on the back side of the cathedral, but at least they did not get in the way of us taking photos!
We had a coffee and dessert break at one of the cafes there and then finished walking through the grounds. We walked down the Old Castle Steps back to Mala Strana and then crossed the river via a different bridge. Eventually, we got back to U Zlatejo for some wine and cheese (and I had some blue cheese that I actually enjoyed...but not sure which kind it is...) before returning to the hotel for a nap before dinner.
Dinner at a steakhouse away from the main square was pretty good and now that I have identified a Czech dry red that I like, I am sticking to it: Frankovka from Moravia.
The conference starts tomorrow afternoon... *sigh* it's time to get back to 'work'.
A Day at the Jewish Quarter
11:30 pm, Mon, Oct 9, 2006Poor Neil cracked a tooth last night; even though he said that it was not hurting, they decided that it is best to get it looked at instead of waiting. Besides, May Shiu and Neil will be going on a sailing trip in Turkey right after their week here in Prague. Luckily, the hotel was able to get him an appointment right away with an English-speaking dentist and he got a temporary filling.
After May Shiu and Neil came back from the appointment, we headed out to tour the Jewish Quarter. We visited 5 synagogues (Pinkas, Maisel, Klausen, Old-New and Spanish), the Old Jewish Cemetery and the Ceremonial Hall next to the Cemetery; all but the Old-New Synagogue (New in the 13th century!) are managed by the Prague Jewish Museums and are used for exhibitions these days.
Pinkas Synagogue is now a memorial for the Jews from Bohemia and Moravia who were murdered by the Nazis. On the walls within the synagogue are more than 80,000 names of the victims. Amongst the names, we found surnames from both sides of Dan's family. In the upper section of the synagogue is a permanent display showing drawings by children from the Teresin ghetto/prison established by the Nazis. What surprised me when I saw those drawings was how colourful most of them are; they depicted daily life, e.g. the family sitting together for the Sabbath meal, flowers by the window and so on. I was expecting much darker drawings... Granted there were also drawings of the dormitories and communal showers, but I only remeber seeing one drawing about death - a skeleton.
The Old-New Synagogue is a Gothic style synagogue where services still take place. It is the oldest synagogue in Prague; it was called the New Synagogue when it was built in the 13th century, but when others were built in the 16th century, they changed the name to Old-New. Goes to show you that the whole age thing is all relative!
The other synagogues and the Ceremonial Hall all have exhibits that show the history of Jews in the region and all aspects of the Jewish culture and religion. They are all very informative and because they were built anything from the 14th to the 20th century, there was a huge variety of architectural styles with respective interior decorative styles. Of the 5 synagogues that we visited, I was most impressed by the Spanish Synagogue. It was so named because of its Moorish style - exterior and interior. The rich colours and the intricate details of the design was absolutely wonderful.
We took a break during our tour of the Jewish Quarter by having lunch at King Solomon, the oldest Kosher restaurant in Prague. It is a good looking restaurant with really good food. And when we were done with the tour, we headed back to a cafe at the Old Town Square to have coffee and dessert. I had apple strudel with my latte and I must say that the apple strudel here was much better than the one I had in Vienna!
We wandered through the alleys near the Old Town Square some more before going back to the hotel and discovered this carpenter who has made a huge marionette of Pinocchio over 6 feet tall and it was all rigged up so that it could paint! In fact, it is in the Guiness Book of Records for being the largest marionette in the world that could paint. The guy had another much smaller Pinocchio that does the same thing. He is an amazing carpeter/artist and this is his passion; his day job actually involves restoring old buildings. Quite amazing!!
After a bit of a rest at the hotel, we went out in search of a place for dinner. Our wanderings took us to an excellent restaurant... will write about that tomorrow. Since we didn't take a nap today, I really need to hit the sack now!
A Walk Around Town
1:45 am, Mon, Oct 8, 2006
Today was our first full day in Prague. I had it all planned out but things didn't quite work out as I had thought. Nonetheless,we had a very rewarding day seeing lots!
The plan was to visit the Jewish Quarter in order to visit the Cemetry and series of Synagogues, but when we got there, we found out that it was a Jewish holiday (again), so everything was closed until tomorrow. Today was the first day of Sukkot, a week for commemorating the Jewish people's wandering in the desert, and was treated as if it were Sabbath. Note to self: always check with the Jewish Calendar from now on whenever we plan to visit any Jewish museums, synagogues and such while traveling!
Since we were by the river (Vltava River), we decided to go for a walk along it all the way down to Vysehrad (High Castle). It was a gorgeous day and was perfect for walking and sightseeing. We first took a peek into the Ruldofinum, the concert hall, and then started our trek down the river's estern bank. There were countless of beautiful buildings along the way, not to mention the unbelievable scenery across the river. The styles of buildings varied from Gothic, neo-Reanissance, Art Nouveau, Cubist to the modern (Tancici Dum/Dancing Building).
We took a slight detour along our way to check out the Kelmentium, the Jesuit's college built in the 1500's. There happened to be a small antique fair in one of the courtyards, so we wandered around that for a while. There were a few really cool antique irons that would add nicely to our collection (at least we are trying to build a collection), but I didn't feel like bargaining (and I figured we would get screwed anyway), so we just moved on.
Halfway to Vysehrad, we changed course so that we could test how long it would take if Iwere to walk to the Congress Centre (which is close to the Vysehrad) from the hotel. We walked past Karlovo Namesti (Charles Square), the Botanical Garden (part of Charles University) and a few churches (there are so many of them that we lost track!), but nothing too exciting. We ended up in a industrial/residential area where we could see the Congress Centre but could not access it because the road on the map that I thought we could take was really an overpass accessible only by Metro!
We ended up backtracking and headed up the hill to the Vysehrad. The view from up there was very impressive and the weather was just perfect. After a bit of wandering within the citidel and taking a peek into the Church of Sts. Peter and Paul (beautiful Gothic Church with twin steeples and interior described as 'a swirlng acid-trip of colourful Art Nouveau frescoes'), we went back down to the water and headed back to Old Town.
After a bit more wandering, we finally settled at one of the outdoor cafes in the Old Town Square for a late lunch and coffee. From where we were, we could see the Astronomical Clock ringing the hour without standing in the crowd and risking getting pick-pocketed!
We headed back to the hotel afterwards and napped for a few hours before May Shiu and Neil arrived. It was great to see them - we saw May Shiu last fall, but the last time we saw Neil was at our wedding 3 years ago. We walked out to the Old Town Square again and hung out at one of the cafes for a while before coming back. We had this amazing dessert: cottage cheese dumplings with plum fillings drizzled with poppy seed and melted butter - I don't feel guilty having such a rich dessert at midnight, after all, we walked about 32 km today!!
Forget Vienna! Come to Prague!
10:30 pm, Sat, Oct 7, 2006Ok, so we have only been here for 6 hours, but the moment we set foot in the Old Town Square (Staromestske namesti... no clue on how to add the Czech accents/letters), I told Dan, 'Now
this is what I expected to see in Vienna!' And we both agree that if one has to choose, we would pick Prague. True enough, Prague had escaped bombings and damages in WWII unlike Vienna, where there was a lot of rebuilding post-war. Without the deep pockets of royal families and what not, they were not able to recreate what was destroyed. But still,we have hardly seen the city and I am already chomping at the bits and can't wait to see more of Prague.
Our train trip from Vienna to Prague was quite uneventful. We called our hotel when we arrived and they sent a taxi for us - I was expecting a shuttle, but that was good enough! I was impressed by the hotel the moment we got in - the entrance was nothing spectacular, but we walked into a sleek and modern reception area beyond which was the restored/renovated interior of an old apartment building. There were spiral stone steps with wrought iron railings. We took the small elevator to our floor and found out that our room was right in front of the elevator. Dan went back down to ask for an exchange of room and was told that they would switch for us tomorrow - that is a big plus already.
It has been a while since I booked the hotel, so I have forgotten how the photos on-line looked like. We were both really pleasantly surprised when we found ourselves in a 2-room suite (now, that would explain the name Hotel SuiteHome Residence). The living room consists of a fold-out couch, TV, dining set and kitchenette. The bedroom is quite a bit smaller, but not a big deal. The bathroom is compact as we expected of Europe, but the design is modern and everything looks nice and clean - what more can one ask for? It is great to have the sitting area because when May Shiu and Neil arrive, it would be a nice place to hang out and chat.
Another thing which brought big smiles to our faces is that they have wireless connection here, so no need for proxy server and such - instant internet connection. Yeah!
We rested for a bit and then headed out to check out the neighbourhood. The hotel is located just at the edge of Nove Mestra (New Town) and it was a nice walk to the Wenceslas Square (Vaclavak namesti... this is
the Wenceslas in 'Good King Wenceslas'). So it is not really a square - more like a huge pedestrian strip lined with shops, hotels and cafes. There are some amazing buildings with facades of various styles - Art Nouveau, neo-Renaissance - along the way which help me overlook the blatant commercialism that exists, unfortunately, for me, the tourist.
This was just an intro/check-out-the-neighbourhood walk, but it was hard not to take photos of all the beautiful buildings and sights around us. We walked from Wenceslas Square to the Old Town Square and stopped on the way to have dinner at a small restaurant tucked away in a courtyard off the main passage. Having read my Lonely Planet Guide on the train, I found out what the 'standard' meal is and of course I had to start with that: Roast Pork, Sauerkraut and Dumplings. The the guide book writer was right - they sure are heavy on the salt. But it was very tasty overall and I love the dumplings because the texture is actually very much like the bun part of the Chinese Roast Pork Buns or Lotus Seed Paste Buns, or the rolls with Shanghainese food.
Alas, since I have not idea if beer will make me blow up in hives again, I had my dinner with Coke. Had a sip of Dan's Pilsner Urquell just for taste, but I did not like it too much. Just my luck to be allergic to the beers that I acutally enjoy drinking!
It started raining as we were in the Old Town Square and it got quite a bit colder too - just like home in October!! But I am so excited about all the sights that we will be seeing that a bit of cold and rain did not dampen my mood.
May Shiu and Neil will not be here unitl after 9 tomorrow night, so we will wait to visit the castle with them. Our plan is to visit the Jewish Quarter tomorrow and re-visit the Old Town Square.
Well, I'd better hit the sack so that we can have an early start!
Our Week in Vienna
Today (Oct 6) was our last day in Austria and we finally have reliable internet connection form our room. First of all, our failure to connect properly has nothing to do with the setting of Dan's computer or his attempt to reconfigure his computer. After a week of struggling with the connection, it turned out that the hotel finally fixed their proxy server... The following is the details about our trip:
1:40 am Vienna time, Monday, Oct 2 2006
22 hours from when we left our car at Master Park, we finally arrived at our hotel room in Vienna. That was almost 2 hours ago.
The first day of our vacation started pretty smoothly. We slept in a little and took our time getting ready in the morning. I had a last bit of packing to do since I did the late shift at work the night before (wow, that seems so long ago already!). We took Gander to Camp Happy Paws in the morning and had a leisurely afternoon around the house until it was time to head to SeaTac.
We got to the airport almost 3 hours before our flight thinking that we would have an early dinner there. When we got to the BA desk, there was already a message up saying that our flight was delayed for 2 hours and 15 minutes. That would mean that we would our connecting flight from London Heathrow to Vienna. ‘Luckily’, there was a later BA flight from Heathrow to Vienna and we were automatically rebooked onto that one already.
The flight to Heathrow was pretty unremarkable and I was able to sleep most of the way. Due to the heightened security alert, even though we just got off the plane, in order to connect to the next flight, we had to go through security check all over. It used to be if you were just connecting, all you had to do was get off the plane and get to the next gate without any hassle.
At least there were more variety of stores at the Heathrow terminal, so it gave us something to do while we wait for the next leg of our journey. I also got to test how consistent the Starbucks Chai Latte was across the pond: not bad at all!
When we finally found out which gate we were departing from, we were informed that this flight was delayed for half an hour as well. But when we ended up sitting in the plane for another hour before we actually took off.
By the time we got our bags in Vienna, it was almost 11pm. There were no taxis available (and it would have cost quite a bit), so we followed the instructions given to us by the guy at the car/taxi place (who did not seem really sure where our hotel is…) and hopped on a bus into the city centre, specifically, Schwedenplatz. We knew this was close to our hotel, but we did not have exact directions on how to get to the hotel from there. Lucky for us, one of the people who was on the bus was a crew member from Swiss Air and was able to point us towards the right direction.
We walked about 10 to 15 minutes from Schwedensplatz, and found our hotel: Hotel Resonanz. The room was quite spacious for European standard and the shower has good water pressure. The internet does not work due to the configuration of our laptop, so all I could do is start my journal and see when I can post it.
12:50am, Tue, Oct 3, 2006
Our first full day in Vienna has been good, despite the fact that we didn’t get to see a few things because they just happened to be closed today for different reasons or the guide book I have did not have the most updated info.
We started the day with a nice breakfast at the hotel: good selection of both cold and hot food and decent coffee in a comfortable breakfast room. It was overcastted with occasional drizzle throughout the day (despite sunny forecast from the BBC World website), but it was nothing compared to rain in Seattle or Vancouver, so it didn’t affect our walk around the city by much.
We took the tram from the hotel to Schwedensplatz and then the metro to Karlsplatz where the Staatoper (State Opera House) is located. We found out that dogs are allowed on public transport as long as they are muzzled and leashed... Pretty cool! We sure saw a lot of dogs around, but not as much poop as the writer of my guide book suggested, which is really nice (way better than Paris!)
We walked down Karntner Strasse, Graben and Kohlmarkt, the main shopping strips of the city; it could really be anywhere in Europe/North America with fairly familiar brand names like Starbucks, United Color of Benetton, Hugo Boss, Rolex, EMI, HMV... But one thing that distinguished it from North America is that so many of the buildings have been around for a few hundred years and the facades were all maintained; most of the new buildings also blend in with the old ones quite well. I have to say I enjoyed exploring the smaller side streets along the way much more than the main strips.
We saw Stephandom (St. Stephan’s Cathedral, a Gothic cathedral) and Peterskirche (St. Peter’s Church, a Baroque church) . While it never ceases to amaze me how detailed everything is in these churches and I always wonder how much manual labour was put into building them, after seeing so many different churches and cathedrals in various European cities, they have kind of blended into one (except for La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona).
We intended to visit the Jewish Museum, but it turned out to be Yom Kippur today (the last day of the High Holidays) and was closed… we will return tomorrow. We arrived at Hofburg, via Michaelerplatz, which is an impressive plaza surrounded by beautiful buildings and the centre of which Roman ruins were found. The Hofburg is the Imperial Palace which now houses a huge selection of museums. We visited the Collection of Arms and Armor, Collection of Ancient Musical Instruments and the Ephesus Museum. There were a couple other things we wanted to see, but we they were closed for the day or by the time we got there, so we will return another day.
We stumbled across a small restaurant on a side street. It was quite nice and most of the patrons there looked like locals on their lunch break and I had the same daily specials as everyone else – veal with potatoes. Yum. After visiting the Monument Against War and Fascism at Albertinaplatz , briefly looking at the Minoritenkirche (Minorite Church)and a bit more of wandering around in the same neighbourhood, we headed back to Karntner Strasse to have Melange (Viennese cafe latte) and apple strudel. By then, the walking and jetlag caught up with us, so we decided to head back to the hotel for a nap before heading out again.
For dinner, we went to Cafe Restaurant Vienne, a Viennese restaurant in the Schwedensplatz neighbourhood that was established over 200 years ago. Of course we had to have the Wiener Schnitzel and it was delicious. We also saw a couple other restaurants that we would like to try in the next few days.
5:00 pm, Tue, Oct 3, 2006
I was up until quite late last night typing and planning today’s itinerary. And then I had a hard time falling asleep. However, I did not have too much trouble getting up at 7 am to start another day of sightseeing.
We left the hotel around 8:30 am after breakfast and took the tram along Ringstrasse. This is a series of 9 boulevards that marks the border of the city centre (Innere Stadt) with the Danube Canal completing the ring along the north to northeastern side. We saw some really amazing and majestic buildings along the way and got off at the Hofburg. We had another hour or so to spare before the museums we want to visit open, so we walked around a bit, checking out the buildings that house the Natural History and Art History Museums and the MuseumQuartier.
We were both very impressed by the MQ buildings. These only started operating 5 years ago and have both old style architecture with more modern style buildings, all blending in together.
The Globenmuseum was our next stop. This museum is all about globes – terrestrial, celestial, lunar and even ones of Mars and Venus. Did you know that the entire surface of Mars was already mapped by 1841?? Absolutely amazing what the astronomers were able to do so many years before the computer came along; all they had were those ‘little telescopes’! Maps, especially ancient ones, have always intrigued me and it was great fun seeing all those globes and what they put on them before they really knew where everything was.
Next, we went to the Jewish Museum. As always, hearing and learning more about the plight of the Jewish people over the centuries, and especially during WWII, makes me very sad. But in a strange way, it is also makes me hopeful: to see a group of people who have been repeatedly persecuted for so many years yet remain faithful to what they believe in and bounce back ever stronger as a community is definitely inspiring.
I learned a lot about the Jews of Vienna as well as the Jewish culture a lot. Over the last 7 years, I have learned a lot about the culture through Dan, but it is good to see all the articles in front of me and have them explained systematically. This was the first year I have ever received Rosh Hashanah greetings with the gift of honey and was aware of when the Jewish New Year was; this was the first time I have heard of Yom Kippur and what it meant.
We meant to go on a guided tour at the Spanish Riding School, but when we found out that we could come back the next day to see the morning exercise, we decided to do that tomorrow instead. There is no point in seeing the horses in stables; it would be much more meaningful to see them in action even though there are no shows available this time of the year.
After having lunch on Grabner (Cafe Europa), we got on the tram again to complete our quick tour of the Ringstrasse. We had a glimpse of the Votivkirche (Votive Church), a twin-towered Gothic church , which we both agreed worth a visit tomorrow. By now, sun finally came out – great for more walking and sightseeing.
We got off the tram and headed to Judenplatz where the Holocaust-Demkal stood. This paid homage to the 65,000 Austrian Jews who perished during WWII and below it was the ruins of a medieval synagogue where dozens of Jews committed suicide in 1421 in order to escape the forcible baptism by the Christians. We were not surprised to see an armed policeman stationed outside the Museum Judenplatz or the vault-like set up to protect the ruins within the museum.
We are now back at the hotel for a quick rest/nap before we head out again. After our unsuccessful attempt to get tickets for a show at the Staatsoper, we decided to fall for the tourist trap and bought tickets to see the Vienna Hofburg Orchestra perform at the Imperial Palace tonight. We know it’s a tourist trap, but then again, we can’t really not attend a classical music event in Vienna! Besides, I love Strauss and Mozart’s works, so it will be a nice to see it. I will just have to just have to attend an opera some other time somewhere else.
5:45 pm, Wed, Oct 4, 2006
Last night performance by the Vienna Hofburg Orchestra was pretty good. The room, although a rectangular one with no obvious sound system had decent acoustic effect. The repertoire included familiar work by Mozart and Strauss with performances by singers from the State Opera House (or so we were told). A few of the singers were good while the others were impressive. After hearing them, I definitely would want to attend an opera for real.
After the show, we walked down Karntner Strasse again and went back to the same place where we had lunch to have late night coffee and dessert. We did a bit of people watching while we were there and enjoyed a very yummy strawberry sundae.
We got up early this morning to see the morning exercise at the Spanish Riding School. We were amongst the first in line, and got really good seats for the ‘performance’. Even though we didn’t see any jumps or very fancy moves like one would see at the real performance, we did get to see how they were trained and one set of horses (we saw four altogether) did practice certain formations and moves.
We then headed to the Prunksaal (State Hall) of the Nationalbiblioteck. It was a bit pricey to get in even with the Vienna Card discount, but the shelves after shelves of leatherbound volumes in that hall was very impressive. Along the way, we took a few more photos of buildings and such (what's the point of bring 4GB of memory and not use it all up!).
We got our lunch from a wurstelstand (I had the Kaiserainer, which is a Brat infused with melted cheese … Chep eats!) and went on a guided tour at the Staatsoper. It was very interesting and it would be great to one day see an opera there and perhaps even attend the Opera Ball – surprisingly, it only costs 215 Euros per person to attend the ball which goes from 10pm to 5am the next day. They really mean it when they say they dance the night away!
I wanted to have coffee at Hotel Sacher and try the Sacher Torte, but there was a long line at their cafe, so I think I will just have it tomorrow…
We took the tram and went to the Votivkirche just to find it largely covered with scaffolding for repair or maintenance. We wandered around a bit more and hopped on the tram again to go ‘see the Danube’. So there is a reason why it was not mentioned in the guidebook: there is not much to see. Well, at least the part where I thought was easily accessed via the tram that usually take us back to the hotel. We ended up getting to the residential/industrial region. We did pass by this fairground in Prater where one could get on the ferris wheel and look at the surrounding scenery. We took the same tram back and are now taking a break before we head out for dinner later tonight. We also plan to do some wandering at night and take some nighttime shots of various buildings.
I originally thought of taking 2 days for day trips before we leave for Prague, but since the ones suggested by my guide book mostly require taking a car, we decided to just take one day to go check out Krems and maybe Durnstein in the afternoon if Krems does not take long. Tomorrow will be for sleeping in and maybe visiting a few more museums.
10:15 pm, Thu, Oct 5, 2006
Last night after our naps, we set off to look for a place to have dinner. We decided to wander around the neighbourhood near the hotel and see if we could find anything. Not much except for a few nice looking wine bars, but they did not seem to be serving any food and they were also quite smoky inside, so we just kept walking until we found a restaurant we saw on the first night and wanted to try.
The restaurant is called Greichenbeisl, meaning the Greeks’ Inn, and has been a restaurant since 1447! Part of the building itself has been there since the 1200’s and consists of the only existing original city wall. The interior was very interesting and they have various rooms with slightly different decorative theme (though all traditional). According to the waiter, the current owners have owned the place for the past 3 generations. They serve traditional Viennese food and I tried venison for the first time. Everything tasted wonderful and though a little pricey, it was totally worth it.
We slept in this morning and started the day with a visit to the Kuntshistorische Museum (Art History Museum). There were a lot to see, but as always for me, after a while, all the paintings just meld into one… also, the Roman and Greek antiquities look just like the ones in the British Museum, the Louvre and in Greece, so I have had enough by the time we have been there for 2 ½ hours. Having said that, we did see work by David Teniers, Pieter Brueghel and Giuseppe Arcimboldo that we quite liked.
After having lunch at a cafe at the MuseumQuartier, we decided to check out the Museum of Modern Art Shop – we figured it would give us an idea of what would be on exhibit and, therefore, if we would want to go see them. There were some interesting stuff there, e.g. Warhol’s work, but overall, I have to say that I don’t really get modern art. We rested in the sun (yes, it was finally sunny, though gusty) for a bit on these comfy benches at the MQ and then headed back to the main shopping area to check out the tacky souvenir shops and look for a cafe to have coffee and cake.
We were on the lookout for a nice beer stein and we are still looking. We had mélange and Sachertorte at one of the cafes where we did quite a bit of people watching. The cake was a decent chocolate cake, but nothing that spectacular. As much as I love chocolate, I do prefer the apple strudel.
We took the U-bahn to Franz-Josef Bahnhof to get schedule info for our day trip tomorrow. There are many trains going and to and from Krems throughout the day, so there shouldn’t be any problem getting there and back.
Napping for a couple of hours before dinner has become our routine, so we went back to the hotel to do that. Afterwards, we checked out the restaurant literally next to the hotel (our bedroom is actually above the dining area). This place serves Uzbekistani food and sushi – yes, a very unusual combination. We had Schurppa (soup), Tabaka (fried chicken) and Manti (steamed dumplings that look like gyozas) along with a selection of salads. The food was excellent and we were lucky that we ate there tonight, because the restaurant is owned by Jews and tomorrow night being Shabbaat, it will be closed.
We were so full that we could not even contemplate dessert. Besides, we got a few treats (macaroons, java cakes and noughart) from the supermarket, so if we ever get puckish, we will have something sweet to eat.
10:10 pm, Fri, Oct 6, 2006
Today, we visited a 1000-year-old town called Krems. This is one of the larger towns in the Wachau region and is located on the northern bank of the Danube. It is about 1 hour train ride from Vienna and the scenery was beautiful on the way there. We finally saw part of the Danube which was more like what I expected. There were actually parts of the Danube and the Danube Canal accessible from the city that are much more scenic with nice walking trails on each side of the bank; however, we discovered them a bit too late, so we never got to walk along them. We have got pictures though!
Krems is one of the many towns in the Wachau region whose economy depend mostly on the wine industry and is surrounded by terraced vineyards. We visited the 4 churches they have in the town and wandered around the cobblestoned town. We never tried any of the wines... a bit unfortunate, but we didn't get around to it.
We got back to Vienna around 5 pm and did a bit more wandering around in the Innere Stadt. Had dinner (I had to order the Wienner Schnitzel one more time!) and then did some night time sightseeing and phototaking.
When we got back to the hotel, the first thing Dan did was to reinstall Internet Explorer and reboot the machine. And, Voila! I can post my blog!!
Tomorrow, we are leaving Vienna and will be taking the train to Prague. If all goes well, I could actually post my blog on a daily basis... but you never know!
My overall impression of Vienna: got some really cool sites and buildings. Impressed by the history. But they have got to cut down on the smoking (all of Europe, in fact) and I don't find Austrians a friendly or cheerful bunch.
But the one thing that impressed me most is that I love the idea that dogs get to go everywhere, including on public transport and INSIDE some restaurants. The owners have to pay in order for the dogs to ride the trams and trains, etc., and I really got a kick out of seeing this in the automatic ticket machines at the train stations: 'Child/Dog - Half Price'. So the people aren't warm and fuzzy, but they got their priorities right when it comes to their dogs!
