("Holiday in Vienna, Austria" for those of you who don't speak German.)
Thursday, Dec 14, 2006
Our trip starts with a long drive from Baltimore to Dulles Airport. We have a flight at 5:50PM. The traffic gods are smiling upon us as we have a painless 90 minute drive to the airport, park in long term lot and ride the shuttle to the terminal. As Kevin is using the frequent flyer ticket from Arthur, he is on a different flight from Melissa and Levi and has a layover in Brussels, Belgium. (Melissa and Levi fly direct to Vienna.) The two flights depart only a few minutes apart from each other.
Kevin's 7.5 hour flight to Brussels plus a long 2.5 hour layover there plus a 90 minute flight to Vienna plus 6 time zone changes makes for a long, long day. Melissa and Levi get to Vienna a few hours before Kevin. Arthur meets Kevin at the CAT station and they return to the apartment to meet Melissa and Levi. All too quickly, 6PM Thursday has become 1PM Friday for the three of us (but sleeping during some of those hours was never really an option).
The weather is cold (35 degrees F) and cloudy. It is like this every day of our vacation. Some days we get lucky and the wind blows a bit more but mostly the wind is calm.
MOVE YOUR MOUSE OVER THE PICTURE TO SEE A DESCRIPTION.
Friday, Dec 15, late afternoon
With Arthur as tour director, we head off on foot from the apartment to a holiday market a few blocks away. During the Christmas season, many of these markets are setup around the city. The markets sell small gifts, Christmas decorations, candles, food, and punsch (a hot drink with Amaretto or flavored liquor.... very good!) Arthur leaves us and returns to his apartment so he can sleep before going to work at midnight (he works midnight to 8AM). Melissa, Levi and Kevin stop in at the Centimeter to warm up, have soup, and sample the beers. We then catch the tram ride down to the city "ring" where we ride around and sightsee some. 7PM comes and we are back at the aparment, dead tired from sleep deprivation. It's lights out.
Saturday, Dec 16
14 hours of sleep sure feels good! Arthur meets us at the apt and we take off for the
Museum Quarter and the
Leopold Museum. We see paintings
by Schiele and Klimt and have a
snack at the cafe (where Kevin tells the German speaking waitress that "She doesn't speak
German" when, of course, he meant to say "I don't speak German". Oh, those crazy Americans!)
After the museum, we walk to the Lipizzaner Museum and
Stephansdom (St. Stephans Cathedral). Arthur has to
get back to his place for the evening so he says goodbye. Melissa, Levi and I take the
U-bahn to the
Volksoper where we are to see The Sound of Music at 7PM.
Sunday, Dec 17
The three of us walk quite a ways to the stadium where the Lippizaner horses perform. I watch only 30 mins of the
show before my allergies start to bother me so I step outside for some fresh air. Arthur meets us after the
show and we tour the
Hofburg apartments and silver collection. We
stop in at the Cafe Mozart for coffee and pasty before Arthur takes off for the evening. Later in the
afternoon, we tour Mozarthaus, an apartment where Mozart lived
in Vienna. We have a small Italian dinner before seeing a musical show featuring works by Mozart and Strauss. It's
raining after the show so we catch a taxi (5.60 Euros) back to the apartment.
Monday, Dec 18
Athur comes to the apartment and we are off on the U-bahn to see the
Schonbrunn Palace (south and west of Vienna). Melissa
enjoys 2 punsch drinks and is feeling quite lieblich. Kevin has 2 very good egg punschs. We walk
through the Palace "backyard" (Levi's word) and see the folly (fake Roman ruins) and the Gloriette (which
provides a great view of the city from the top of the hill). We see the 30+ rooms of the Palace and use the
audio guides to learn more about the Palace. After the tour, we enjoy the holiday market and some more punschs.
Kevin hears English being spoken and walks in that direction. We chat briefly with a woman and her two sons. They
lived in Virginia but moved to ? last August. They were vacationing in Vienna. She asked if we were in town
yesterday because she saw someone wearing the Univ MD knit cap I was wearing there. I don't
imagine that many people in Vienna wear Terps hats. Small world, huh?
Later Monday, we ride U-bahn over to Karlsplatz and Karlskirche. Melissa and I ride the elevator up the temporary scaffolding and enjoy an "up close" view of the renovations being done to the ceiling. We return to the ground floor, gather Levi, and head outside again to the Christmas Market. It feels colder and I'm tired of carrying the backpack so we decide to ride over to the tourist area near Stepensdom and exchange some dollars for Euros (we are low on Euros). We get back to the apt by 6PM to relax a bit. Towards 8:30, we walk over to a restaurant and enjoy a wonderful (and not terribly expensive) dinner.
Melissa lived in Vienna for a year in the late 1970s. Below is the front door of the apartment she lived in.
Tuesday, Dec 19
We are headed to the Belvedere Palace today. We saw more exhibits by Klimt and had great coffee and streudel in the museum cafe. After that, we took the trolly to the Hausdermusik. It is a 4 story music museum... very interesting with plenty of hands on exhibits. Later, we return to the Karlspatz (very crowded with punsch drinkers!), have a bite to eat, play foosball and darts at the Cafe Les Fleurs, and see a quartet perform at the Musikverein. We thought about seeing the opera tonight, but, at 150 euros, the tickets were too expensive (way too expensive, in fact).
Weds, Dec 20
Today, we are off to see the Heeresgeschichtliches Museum
(museum of military history) south of Vienna. Unfortunately, the tank park is closed for the winter. We breeze through this
museum and stop outside at a playground to pet the dogs and let Levi run around.
We are headed to the Prater (amusement park) next! It's a BIG park with a lot more to do that ride the rides. As it is winter, only the Riesenrad (giant ferris wheel) is running. We enjoy a slow ride around the wheel and take several pics from the top. The view of the city is great.
Wherever he goes, Kevin always wants to see the water. Melissa, Arthur, and Levi indulge him so we take the u-Bahn to the Danube river (are you happy now, Kevin?)
Thurs, Dec 21
Kevin flies back home around 7 AM, leaving Melissa and Levi to their own devices. Melissa, Arthur and Levi
visit the Kunsthistorichesmuseum
Friday, Dec 22
Melissa and Levi have 10 AM flight back home. Levi took a few pics of another plane making the trip
west across the Atlantic.
