Coming Home & The Extra Bits

Our transfer from the Intercontinental Vienna to the airport wasn't until noon so we quickly finished packing, had breakfast and headed out for a final stroll around the city. We didn't really have a destination in mind but just wanted to soak up a bit more of all Vienna had to offer. Oddly, the first thing we saw as we crossed the street was a parade of ducks. There was no water in the vicinity and they proceeded around the corner and down the street. 

We found yet another of the Habsburgs' Palaces as we continued. That family had more palaces than people I think! This one was quite extensive and had a greenhouse that had been turned into a butterfly garden. The German word for butterfly is schmetterling which I enjoyed saying too many times. 

As we walked through the passage in the palace we heard a band playing. There was a military band and other soldiers doing some kind of ceremony in a large interior square. It turned out that there was some kind of changing of ambassadors going on. We heard a few different national anthems and watched a few inspections before moving on.

When we started to feel raindrops and looked at the time, we knew we needed to head back to the hotel. This last shot of Vienna sort of sums up how the old and the new join together to make this city, and so many others in Europe, great places to visit and explore.

Extra Bits

Whenever we go on a trip, there are things we notice that are new or different or fun. Sometimes they get into the blog and sometimes I forget about them until we get home and I look at the pictures. We also do a kind of debrief together to see what we will change next time we travel or what new ideas we have based on the current trip. And, we always go over things we forgot to bring even though we had lists! This time it was sunscreen which we ended up buying in a store in Nüremburg I think. I had a bag of wires and connectors but forgot the one wire that charged both of our Ipad keyboards! 

We walked 154 km on the trip which averaged out to about 9 km a day. There were a few days with little walking when we were cruising from one city to another but we made up for it on other days. The walking could explain why we both came back a pound lighter than when we left. That was a major shock as we both figured we'd be 10 pounds heavier after all the food and beverages that we consumed. Another reason might be the portion sizes. When you look at the pictures, every serving is reasonable and most were less than we'd have at home. That's a lesson that we are determined to remember.

Europe loves bikes! Amsterdam was the most bike loving city we've seen and it seemed like there were more bikes than cars on the road sometimes. You really had to be careful in any of the big cities because the bike lanes were for bikes and you risked being run down if you walked in the wrong place. As a bike rider, I really liked how there were so many dedicated bike lanes and great bike/walking paths along rivers and canals. 

This is a bit random, but the most distinctive beer we had was a smoked beer from Bamberg. I mentioned it in the blog but want to say that you can get the same beer here in the LCBO. It's in the larger stores with the big beer coolers and looks like this:

This was our second river cruise and we can confirm that we really love this mode of travel. You unpack once and travel comfortably from place to place and have the opportunity to explore on your own as well as with guides. The food is amazing and the service is the best we've ever seen. The cabins are not large but they are well designed and comfortable with all amenities included. One of the great perks for past customers is that each person gets a free bag of washing each week. In theory, that should greatly reduce how much stuff you bring but we're still working on that part! Thanks for joining us on our trip! 

Exploring Vienna On Foot

Our last full day in Vienna dawned cool and sunny. It never really got as warm as was predicted and we both had warm weather clothes that we didn't wear. In talking with our local guide and researching ourselves, we had a list of places we wanted to visit and were contemplating taking the subway around. But, in the end, we decided to just walk as it would let us see more of the city. By the end of the day, we had walked 22 km which was a record for one of our city walks. 

We started off by walking through Stadt Park which was just across from our hotel. It wasn't as big as I'd expected but was well kept and had great paths for walking or cycling. There were also a lot of ducks and crows around. We had noticed that the crows were different from ours. Of course, I looked them up and they are called Hooded Crows. I think they're more distinctive than ours and they sound like the crows on Game of Thrones!

Vienna is on the Danube River and there is also a Danube Canal that cuts through the city. It's used for transport, flood control and recreation. 

Our first quest of the day was to find a couple of installations of building art by Hundertwasser, the artist whose work we had encountered at the brewery near Regensburg. The first location we found was an apartment building where each window is different. Below was a shop designed by the artist. We really enjoyed his non conformist style.

The second location we found was actually a museum and it was swarming with groups of school kids. They weren't very well behaved and were climbing on small trees, running around and being generally annoying. We were both feeling our teacher instincts and had to restrain ourselves from going over and sorting them out! 

Oddly, one of the most interesting parts of the building was the washroom. I can only speak about the male washroom and the couple of pictures below were taken after I was absolutely, positively sure no one else was present! 

Notice the uneven floor in there! This made using the facilities a bit of a challenge. I hope that's not TMI but every place we visited had the same type of floor. Just noticed it more here! 

The eye motif was present in the brewery too. This appears to be my second selfie although it wasn't intentional!

Okay, back to more normal stuff! We headed back to the canal and followed it back into the centre of the city. Our goal was to revisit St. Stephen's Cathedral so that I could climb the tower and get some above the city views. Marilyn was going to visit the Mozart House. Interestingly, along the canal there was a lot of graffiti but it looked more planned than vandalism. There were some interesting images.

This appears to be a nicely decorated pizza oven. 

There were some great views of the city as we walked.

We found the larger cities very bike friendly. I thought this was a cool idea. On the stairways up from bike paths that ran along the canal there were these ramps to make it easy to wheel your bike back up to the street. The pigeon jumped up each step ahead of us, I guess wanting the extra exercise. 

When we got back to Mozart House, which was kind of hidden on a back street, Marilyn decided not to go in as we had learned quite a bit about Mozart in another museum. So, she decided to go shopping while I climbed the tower. The tower I climbed was like these but on the other side and it was a bit taller. I met a rather large group of young students at the bottom but managed to pass them at a half way point where there was an open landing.

There were 343 steps like this. It was a tight spiral of stone steps that had been worn smooth with age.

 

When I reached the top, the first thing I noticed was the defibrillator! I could see how it might be needed. I managed to get my photos out of the open windows before the kids arrived. When they did, it looked like this. You don't even want to know how it sounded!

I always find it interesting to see a city from above. You can see the mixture of old and new buildings.

This shot was through glass as they didn't want to risk someone throwing things into the crowds on the pedestrian mall below.

One of the more interesting things about the tower was that it was used during the war by snipers and lookouts. Some of them carved names into the stone. There was intense fighting in the city as the Russians battled the remaining Germans. The city was extensively bombed as it had a refinery and a major train station. 

When I got back down, Marilyn told me she had found a Swatch store and had bought a new Vienna themed watch. That's Strauss on the strap and the design on the other end is from the roof of the cathedral. The white horse is from the Spanish Riding School and in the middle is the Ferris wheel.

After a quick lunch back at our hotel, we headed out to the Naschmarkt which is an open air market with all kinds of food. We wandered around a bit but didn't buy anything as we'd already eaten and were going home the next day.

After the market we went back to a statue and fountain we'd seen on our way over. It turned out to be a memorial to Russian soldiers. The Russians had insisted on having it built at the end of the war as they did in a few other cities. 

We arrived back at our hotel and realized that we hadn't tried the local cake called Sacher Tort. Nor had we sat somewhere and had a coffee. So, we went to the hotel lounge that overlooked the street and took care of both items at once. Actually, we tried both the Sacher Tort and something called Anna Cake which was a layer cake inside a nougat box!

The cake eating and all the walking made us a bit tired so we rested up before dinner! 

We had some less than stellar schnitzel on the ship and were directed by two local guides to a place that served authentic Austrian food. Reservations were for 7:00 but I was thinking about it in the morning! 

The place where we had dinner, Gasthaus zur Oper, was part of a 3 restaurant chain run by one person. It had all kinds of authentic Austrian food but we just wanted the schnitzel and it was a good choice. They gave us the recipe and we'll be trying it at home!

Our dinner with our Australian friends was fun but bittersweet as we knew we'd be saying so long to them at the end. We discussed how we wanted to visit Australia and plans started to formulate. By the end of coffee I think we had pretty much decided that Australia will be our next major trip. So, it was more of a "see you soon" than "goodbye". 

We were pretty wiped by the time we got home and did some final packing. Our last night view of the city was of the sun setting behind the cathedral. 

Sunday In Vienna

On Sunday morning, we said our goodbyes to some new friends and left the River Duchess. It's neat how you can become friends so quickly sometimes. We hung out most often with a couple from Tennesee and another two couples from Australia. Now we are thinking of doing a driving trip to Tennessee in the fall of this year and possibly an Australian adventure the following fall. 

Since we were doing an extension of the cruise with Uniworld, we were met by a local host named Christian. He had been with Uniworld before retiring and now worked for them in this new capacity. He was excellent in getting us set up at our hotel and then taking us on a walking tour. His knowledge of the city and its history was impressive. Our first stop was at a large statue of Beethoven were he told us about the composer's life and times in Vienna. 

There are numerous streets and squares named after famous composers in Vienna, which is known as The City of Music. 

We moved on to an old school building where we learned about the darker side of Vienna. The Austrians were apparently fairly staunch supporters of the Nazis and many Jews were taken from the city. The school was the first to allow anyone to attend, including Protestants and Jews. Previously, schools would only accept Catholics. In 1938, many teachers and students were taken from the school and sent away to camps. This sign on the school indicates that they remember the ones who were taken.

We moved on to the House of Music which is a museum decicated to famous composers who were born or lived in Vienna. We had a little test and Marilyn got most of: Haydn, Beethoven, Mozart, Schubert, Mahler and Strauss. I think I got one because we had just seen the Beethoven statue! There was a room dedicated to the life of each of them and a lot of interesting information was presented.

Beethoven in his younger days!

This piano was made in London for Beethoven.

 

The church seems to have more power over here. Even in a major tourist centre like Vienna, most things are closed on Sunday. Even though it was Mothers' Day, many restaurants were closed and the ones that were open were swamped. We had a rather expensive lunch in a cafeteria styled place and when we came out, it had started to rain. And it rained constantly for the rest of the day. We had our rain gear but soon our shoes were soaked but we kept going because you only have so much time to see what you want to see. We took a bit of refuge in St. Stephen's Cathedral. It was another fairly dark church but it was still very imposing.

The rest of our day was soggy. We stopped by the park near our hotel where a food festival was going on. It was not too festive. There were lots of stalls with food and drink from all over Austria but there were very few customers. We were thinking of having dinner there but it was closing at 5. 

We met up with our Aussie friends for a beer and then walked back to our hotel. On the way I took a few rainy day shots with my phone.

Golden Strauss in the rain! (I thought it was Mozart)

When we arrived at the hotel, we were cold and wet and decided we didn't want to go out again to find food. So, we ordered a pizza from room service and had a couple of the beers that Marilyn had bought a few days earlier. We also had some cheese that we had gotten at the festival and were cutting with the little knife on my cork screw. Not as classy as our dining on the ship but it was comfort food!