Vienna

Mckay:
We left Sopron early (again) and took a 9-ish train to Vienna. Already relatively certain I would fall madly in love with Vienna, I was excited to finally confirm my expectations. It’s a lot more modern than I expected with clean, efficient, and extremely well-marked public transportation (SO refreshingly wonderful!) Our room in Vienna was lovely with high ceilings, wood floors, and an informative hostess. Consistently, though, we are reminded that Europeans don’t like queen-sized beds (but favor two twins pushed together) and take showers in tiny phone booths. It’s just different. The weather in Vienna was lovely (we’d been rained on and chilled yesterday) and we took our first few hours in Vienna to tour the Art Museum. Rob and I saw some great Renaissance pieces, Italian and northern ones (ones I’m less familiar with, but growing to like), and I picked up a poster of one of my favorite paintings.

After the art museum, we walked and rode trams to some of Vienna’s sights: the Opera House, City Hall (where I was ecstatic to dine on some perfect Chinese noodles!), and St. Stephen’s Cathedral. We thought we would get some Vienna cake that evening, but were dismayed to find that our desired destinations closed at 8, along with many others.

A note on the international food market in front of City Hall. This is where I got those amazing noodles. Rob and I walked up and down all the booths to find exactly what we wanted. Each booth represented a different food ethnicity. Rob followed his nose (and is usually rewarded for such behavior) and ordered what he thought was from a big stewing pot of Mediterranean meaty goodness. It turns out that he ordered a salad. Rob almost cried. Of course, it wasn’t just a salad. It had potatoes, and thinly sliced chorizo (which Rob said tasted like liking a horse). Knowing he “made his own bed,” he slept in it and ate most of the salad but finished off my noodles.

The next day, we got to the Schonnbrunn Palace just when it opened (a brilliant touring suggestion for anyone!) and toured the rooms and halls with hardly any other people! We looked later and saw the halls teeming shoulder to shoulder with lines like Disney World. We win at touring.

The rest of the morning, we toured the palace grounds and gazed amazedly at the sculptured gardening and different idea of “far” in those times before metros and cars. The Palace was the country getaway, taking about half a day to get there from the city center. It took us about 15 minutes on a metro.

For lunch, we hit a great outdoor café and finally got our Vienna cakes. They were wonderful! Light, moist, flavorful, fancy, and perfect with a cappuccino. The rest of the day we filled with shopping and touring any last-minute sights around the ring of the city center. While I was shopping, Rob had been smelling a sausage stand so we dinner-ed there and could not have been more pleased! Rob let me taste his (I was holding out for cake) and I decided he would have to get another one because I would be eating this one. It was basically a large pig-in-a-blanket, but it was also so much more. Mmmm. Next stop: Croatia!

Rob:
They say Vienna is like Paris without the French. I’ve never been to Paris but I really like Vienna. The people are kind, the city is beautiful with a great mix of old and new, and who needs the Eifel Tower anyway (Cobraaa!) This was the home of the Hapsburgs when they weren’t in Prague hiding from the Ottomans. These are the guys that ruled about half the continent for 600 years and lost it all in WW I. Needless to say they had cash. If you can think of a way to Bling something they have done it. Their palace in the country rivals Versailles with a minimum 150 acres of forest and lawns for grounds. The inside of the palace would make the most extravagant rappers blush with envy. They also had two other large palaces in the city which were equally lavish, with smaller grounds. I can’t even fathom the amount of money this takes. One of the longest sitting Emperors was Josef Franz, seeing the people’s need for rights and the beheading of some of his relatives in the French Revolution, he became a very frugal and hard working ruler. The people liked the change and they felt more included in the government.

Vienna is not a late night town. Our previous attempt to get cake had been shut down by the early closing of EVERYTHING. We figured it was Sunday night; that makes sense. Monday evening after the “hot dog” in the square we planned on another round of cake. Again! Everything in the main square shuts down at 8PM. So lame.

We had about an hour in Bratislava, Slovakia, before we had to be at the airport. We decided to take a tram downtown and see a little of the town and then catch the bus to the airport. To our dismay once we got to the town we couldn’t find the bus stop for our bus; 25 other buses but not ours. It went by but didn’t stop. Anyone who spoke English either didn’t know or didn’t care how to help us. There was a driver for a different line who spoke no English who tried to help but could not understand. When we broke down and asked what a good price for a taxi was, his eyes lit up, “Taxi, there, there, is taxi” and proceeded to show us where the taxi was. We knew where the taxi was already and just paid one to take us to the airport. It was an adventure.