Austria Eastern Promises 2007
In the summer of 2007 we had a unique opportunity to get 4 weeks off in a row, and we decided to travel Eastern Europe via Planes, Trains & Automobiles (and Boats).
(click to enlarge)
Flying with LTU airlines we are instantly immersed in our vacation, as all the announcements and sky hostesses are German. 9-10 hours later we landed in Dusseldorf, we spent some quality time in a German Starbucks, and after a long layover in the airport we flew with Air Berlin into Vienna.
Vienna (Wien), Austria
After catching a cab, we wind our way into the heart of Vienna, our hotel is a short walk from the old city. Seems like a nice place, good location, cute streetcars roll by outside, but it's hot, damn hot. We'll be sleeping with the windows open tonight.
The view from our room
After quickly settling in, we head out to the streets of Wien. We are immediately struck by the detailed architecture, every building seems to be a work of art. Historical buildings, statues, and beautiful carvings.
We wander into the Rathaus area and find ourselves in the midst of the Vienna Film Festival. A huge screen has been erected in front of the Rathaus, and there is a huge assortment of food vendors setup throughout the park, offering everything from Frankfurters to Curries. We settled on Greek souvlaki. The Rathaus and it's neighboring Votive Kirche (church) were amazing structures, but nothing compared to the parliament building and it's statues and fountains.
After taking in more of the ambience of the film festival, and the historical buildings of Vienna's old town we grab a couple strawberry smoothies and walk back to our room, and past these 2 golden bears, I am sure they must mean something.
That night we would discover just how loud the area was if you left your windows open to cool down. At 4 am delivery trucks start coming, the street cleaner goes by, sounds like a jet in our room. Then they do recycling pickup, and we enjoy the sound of an entire Smith-Rite of glass bottles smashing into the back of a garbage truck. At 5:30 the streetcars start coming by, with their stop right outside our 3rd floor window. After a really bad night of sleep with every possible noisemaker outside our hotel, we are up early and enjoy our free breakfast before heading back to the Inner Stadt of Wien. We laugh at the cultural differences between North America and Europe with this "Die Simpson's" poster, and wander it's park areas, including this tribute garden to Mozart.
Our first stop is the huge Hofburg (Imperial Palace), it is massive, with a large garden, a butterfly house, and many unique statues, some of which don't seem quite right.
After admiring the palace we check out a few smaller churches, but they are having morning services, so we wind our way to the very busy Stephansdom (St. Stephens Cathedral).St. Stephens Cathedral is the very center of Vienna, and it's bell tower has 343 steps to the top. At the summit is a small shop selling souvenirs, if he sold cold water, he would have made a killing as it was so hot, especially after the climb.
After enjoying some of the breeze blowing through the top of the tower, we climb back down and head through St. Michael's square. There is a section cordoned off where they have found historic Roman ruins during a construction project. That doesn't happen in Vancouver.
We decided to check out the Staadtsoper (Opera House), but apparently it is closed during the summer months to do reno's and upkeep for the next season. This attraction is not focused on tourists and is usually sold out all year (Sept - June). They do a different show every night to rest the singers voices, and tickets range from 2.5 Euros for standing room, to 185 Euros. Luckily we can get a tour to see what it looks like inside, the entry, the lounges, the auditorium, and try out some of the Opera costumes.
The outside of the building is not as extravagant as the other buildings, but the inside is beautiful. Apparently the 2 architects were heavily criticized about the buildings external appearance, "it looks like a train station". The first architect hung himself, and the second one died of a heart attack 2 weeks later. They never saw the opening... sad.
After the tour we had a couple Schnitzels, and then were caught in a sudden rain storm, we are in shorts and tank tops, no umbrellas, no jackets. We find refuge in the impressive Karl's Kirche (St. Charles Church. We take our audio guides and explore, made easier by the fact they have some wobbly scaffolding in place for renovations, including an elevator that takes us to the top of the frescoe painted ceiling. We discover that the marble at the upper sections of the church are actually just 'Pollock' style painted to look like marble.
We made our way back to the hotel in the pouring rain, where we dry off, snooze a little, and then head back out to catch a Strauss/Opera concert in the Hofburg Palace. The show consisted of a full orchestra and five different Opera singers. It was an amazing experience to see this great performance live, in Vienna, in a palace. Oddly, we knew most of the songs.
After the show we grab a couple slices of street pizza, I ask for the one without the bug, jokingly they tell us the one with the bug is more expensive. We head back to the room for a night of sleep with the windows closed. After another free breakfast, we get on the local bus and head to the Sudbahnhoff, where we catch a train to the nearby medieval town of Sopron, just across the Hungarian border.
Sopron, Hungary
Sopron (pronounced Show-prawn), is a small town about 45 minutes from Vienna. The train ride took way less time than it took for us to find the tourist info. Our guidebook had a poor map, and no-one in town seemed to know where it was. After walking from one end of the town to the other with our luggage, we found one of the recommended hotels, Hotel Wollner. Unfortunately they were full, but the receptionist was very helpful and called over to reserve us a room at the nearby Hotel Palitinus. Nice room with a shower, and at less than 50 Euros, was probably the cheapest of our trip. After checking in we headed back out to explore the town, and were finished in about 2 hours, maybe a day trip would have been better.
They had some very interesting buildings, and the remains of a roman settlement along the town wall. Sidewalk based restaurants would be the norm for most of our trip, and I ate my Ham, pineapple, mandarin, cherry, and Walnut pizza in a classic square with a fountain and statue.
We wandered around some more, enjoying some of their quirky fountains, and shop signs.
After a lazy afternoon we head out for dinner and come back just in time to hear how well the narrow stone streets can echo. A few doors down from our room, a girl is having a 'Meg Ryan' moment... everyone in the area that had their windows open knew all about it.
The view from our room
The next morning we used our extensive language skills to buy train tickets to Prague... The ticket girl spoke Hungarian, we spoke english, somehow Norine and her figured out in German what we needed. We were back on an old train with a private compartment, and after a couple of customs officers came by to stamp our passports, we left Hungary, we would be back soon enough.
Our trip would have a short layover back in Vienna, so we grabbed some sandwiches and Iced Teas at a bakery and sat outside the train station to wait for our train. We could see what I presume was a street person tweaking at another table, he was dirty, unshaved and wearing nothing but a pair of shorts. After a while he got up and wandered into the bakery. Norine and I were at a small table, with our backpack on one chair, there was several other empty tables nearby. Mr. Fruit-Loops comes straight over and looks at the chair with the bag on it. He picks up some empty coffee cups on our table hoping for a free sip, and says "I think you have a problem with me sitting there". I reply to him "here's lots of other seats, so there's no problem".
He is very distressed, and wanders away after a group of young girls, and I can hear him yelling "well I have a problem with that!" So he comes back again. "I have a problem with that, I want to sit there!", again I say "There is no problem, there's lot of other seats, go ahead and sit at any of them." "You have a problem with me sitting there", "There is other seats, go sit there, no problem.", he says, "you go sit at other seats", I reply rather abruptly "No, we are already sitting here" He stumbles a bit with a "you, you're a..." and wanders back into the bakery. We took that opportunity to use the other entrance and head into the train station and board our train before he comes back and makes a bigger scene.