Vienna

7 July, 2010

Last entry was in Salzburg and we are now about to leave Venice (9-7-2010).  In Salzburg we did laundry but decided to leave right away for Vienna.  Got to the Vienna train station and walked about a mile with our packs in the wrong direction before deciding to return to the train station and lock our packs in the locker.

The Wombat Hostel was full but they recommended another hostel.  The next hostel had room but required a two night stay.  Finally we found Hotel Ibis, a modern high rise hotel for E111.00.  I decided not to include the breakfast buffet for E30 (E10/person) although Laurie wanted to get it.

We went down to the center of town on the subway having purchased 24 hour train passes.  We had already arranged for a night train to Venice the next night.

Vienna is a really huge city that is built in concentric rings.  It originally was the center of the Holy Roman Empire and controlled places like Bohemia, Venice etc.

Our hotel room was on the 9th floor so we could see the endless sea of rooftops in all directions.

Vienna is so packed with monuments that it is hard to get a view of them from the distance.

The empire was both a Christian and a political empire.

Our hotel was just off Mariahilf Strasse which forms the main drag between the West train station, West Bahnhof and downtown.  With our 24 hour passes we took the subway down to St. Stephan's Church which forms the center of the city, although it was being repaired.

We had 3 sausages on the street, one regular and 2 curry although they had a bit too much curry for Laurie and I ended up sharing hers.  (Vienna sausages with curry are pretty much like hot dogs with curry powder dumped over them.)  They served them with brown mustard, sliced, a miniature plastic fork like a toothpick and a piece of bread.

The best way to eat it seemed to be to break off a piece of bread and eat that separately from the sausage.  (Do not try to eat them like a hot dog or a sandwich)

There are a lot of strange customs regarding food etc. here.  We walked around in every widening concentric circles until we got to the royal apartments which was basically the kings palace.

 That night Laurie and I went out at night and left Matt at the hotel.  We first cruised the tram for a little while but the tram from the hotel just seemed to go out in the boonies.  We next went downtown on the subway and cruised around on the tram down there but it was a bit hard to see out of.  What we should have done in Vienna was find out what concert was playing and go get tickets to it at the door.

The trams don't seem to be designed for site seeing that much.  Afterwards we went back to the hotel.

The next day we started out with some pastries for breakfast but we should have sat down and eaten them with some coffee like everyone else because they don't seem to understand coffee to go very well.  After eating the pastries on foot we went to tour the Royal apartments.  The royal apartments started off with the royal silverware and the royal dishes which seemed to go on forever.

The next part of the tour was dedicated to Empress Sisi (Elizabeth 1850-~1890) who was a Bavarian princess who married the emperor when she was 16, had some trouble adjusting to imperial life, sought seclusion, became a phenomenal athlete in horse riding and sword fighting, became increasingly depressed, especially after the murder suicide (or double suicide) of her son and his lover and was finally assassinated by an italian anarchist around 1890.

 The next rooms were the actual royal apartments.  The tour took until 1 PM and our train was not leaving until ~8 PM.

We walked over to the museum section and stopped at a little cafe.  Laurie ordered a coffee to go, she had been getting a caffeine headache.  They gave here about 2 oz. of espresso in a cup for E1.90!

Matt & I decided we wanted to eat at this place but Laurie did not want to eat there after the coffee incident.  I had what amounted to 2 foot long hot dogs with mustard, and bread, Laurie had the cream soup and Matt had another spicy sausage.  I had asked waiter to get Matt an Apfel Seltzer but them Matt decided to go for fruit juice but the waiter misunderstood us and brought me an Apfel Seltzer and Matt a Mango Juice.  We also ordered 2 cappuccino here so we got our caffeine fix.  I pointed to the large cups someone had at the other table and said "What's that?,  We'll have two of those."  Laurie also ordered some Apfel strudel in creme sauce which was like vanilla pudding.  They took a long time bringing the bill and I finally had to ask for it.

Afterwards Matt and Laurie went down to the Museum quarter to use the bathroom (E0,50).  Afterwards we just walked around looking at the buildings and parks.  I saw someone playing guitar in the city park so I played some blues harp as I walked through the park.

 

We walked past the Opera house but they had no more tours for that day.  WE bought a music box with a picture of Sisi on it.  We then walked back to the train station, shopped around a bit before picking up our packs which we had stored in the lockers at the train station.  We stayed at the station until the train arrived.