It's All About Me...

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!

posted by Anne-Gigi @ 4:55 PM