Vienna

  Vienna, Austria
Tuesday, August 7, 2007

Once again, I am thankful for our GPS and my ambulance driver!  Driving here is crazy!  We arrived late in the evening and our Hungarian-speaking hostess showed us to our very cozy room (narrow with uncomfortable twin beds... oh well, it was a deal).  Despite the late hour, we decided to take a stroll through town.  We stopped to enjoy the talents of some street entertainers and got a pretty good overview of the city, and scoping out some of the stuff we wanted to see the next day.

The Nipple Points the Way

In the morning, we started walking the Old Town in Rick Steves walking tour.  We started in the Royal crypt of the Hapburgs which had some pretty sculptures of skulls and bones.  After the crypt, we located a small bakery (also recommended by Rick) where I had the best apple strudel of my life!  Canadian strudel is a sad imitation of the original, I'll tell you!  It melted in my mouth.  SO GOOD!  We made our way over to St. Stephen's Cathedral

One Big Church

(hey look! scaffolding! I'm shocked!) and the Hofburg (the palace of the Austrian ruling family, the Hapsburgs) where we went through the palace and the Sisi museum.  Sisi was Elizabeth... the young bride (and cousin) of the Emperor.  She was not happy in her marriage (to her cousin, go figure) and had a sad and tragic life until her assassination.

Vienna Opera

When dark clouds started to roll in, we decided it was a good time to take a tour of the Opera House.  The Opera was not in session so we were able to tour the backstage area.  You would not believe how big it is!  It's like a stadium!  There was also a room that used to be the Emperor's that you can rent out for a cup of tea during intermission for only 800€!  (tea not included)

Dinner at City Hall

It was still raining when we finished the tour, so we ran for the Underground.  We didn't stay long... too scary!  Meth-heads and dope-heads everywhere!  Very scary.  We got off at the Rathaus (city hall) where there was a food fair on the lawn.  We found some schnitzel and beer (I had some Sangria with strawberries).  We chatted with some Austrians (who were very friendly, once we told them that we were Canadians, not American) who suggested we go to Prater for our evening activity.

Prater

Prater is a pay-by-the-ride amusment park on the river bank.  I tried scores of rollercoasters... though solo I'm afraid.  Attila watched from the sidelines but seemed to have as much fun as me.  After I was sufficiently windblown, we hopped back on the scary underground back to our hotel.

In the morning, we had hoped to explore the city a bit more, but after an unfortunate incident with a new bottle of murci (wine before it is wine) and a new dress bought at the local market (who new murci didn't come with a cork!) we decided it was too hot and humid to continue.  We hopped in our air-conditioned car and headed for Hungary.