Vienna (not what we were expecting)

Before embarking on our 18 day journey, each of the adults had our key destinations in mind. Mine was Budapest and Bratislava. Nicole's was to visit Prague and her ancestral homeland. My mom was Vienna for the culture and music. As it turns out, my Mom wanted more than that, which set in motion a bit of a detour.

Vienna is a short 1 hour train ride west of Bratislava. As we rolled into Vienna, both Nicole and I remarked, "I thought Vienna would be a bit hill-ier... Yeah, that John Denver's full of s%&t man." 

For those that don't get that reference: 

After the usual new city re-orientation process of figuring out the local public transport, and how to find our apartment, I took a quick power nap to charge up for dinner. 

I woke up to... "We're in the wrong city." 

Still groggy, "Huh? We're in Vienna, aren't we?"

Nicole said, "Looks like your Mom wanted the 'Sound of Music' place, which is Salzburg, not Vienna. She wanted to see the Alps."

Vienna sits at the very eastern edge of the Alps as they trail off into standard rolling hills and vast plains of wheat and barley. 

This revelation set in motion the necessary research to locate the closest thing we could find to the Alps, which ended up being Hallstatt, a picturesque town on a pristine alpine lake about three hours west of Vienna... a brisk 30 minutes from Salzburg. Nicole found the last available people mover (aka minivan) we could find for the following day. We had toyed around with finding a one night accommodation in Salzburg, but ultimately elected to make the 600km roundtrip journey in one day. Several hours later and we were all set for the morning. 

To maximize our daylight hours, Nicole and I went to the main train station to pick up the car. When we finally arrived, despite what was stated in the rental confirmation, we were asked to present our passports; documents we do not like to walk around with. We headed back dejected, precious time ticking away from our one day road trip. In addition to grabbing our passports, we grabbed the rest of the family and made the return trip to the train station. At least we knew exactly where to go. 

We presented our passports to the rental car folks, and after a long pause and a softly spoken German conversation, they turned and said, "We're sorry, but we don't have the car you reserved. We can get you a five seat vehicle instead." We gestured to the additional FOUR family members standing patiently outside, and suggested that math doesn't work. We put up a small fuss and showed them our reservation. Their response, "What do you expect when you rent a vehicle at 10pm the night before?" What came to mind was this classic Seinfeld scene: (https://youtu.be/4T2GmGSNvaM)

After a panicked attempt and going to the adjacent rental car companies to see if they had any options, the Avis folks waved us back and said that they mysteriously found an 8-seater for a little more money.... "Done!". Turned out to be a great Mercedes people mover that was smooth as silk and got an incredibly respectable 31mpg (of course the Euros wouldn't know what that means. That's 13.6kml). Win!

Our route to Hallstett came through the back door from a pleasant drive through the foothills of the Austrian Alps. It felt a bit like driving up highway 80 just past Auburn. As we neared Hallstett through a narrow valley between towering granite peaks, we came upon a gondola that we otherwise would not have seen...

It's incredibly hard for me to resist an opportunity to stand at the peak of a mountain. The top of this particular mountain was the five fingers lookout and a handful of glaciers. The urge was overwhelming, but just for me. The rest of the group was anxious to get to the nearby lakeside town and grab lunch. That's how I ended up on a solo adventure to look down upon Hallstett. 

Pics from above:

Notice the death grip on the rail. I still have that ridiculous urge to throw myself off very tall places. (And the older I get, the stronger the urge). That is not how I intended to reunite with the rest of the family.

Click Link for Video

Lots of soft limestone type rock make for easy rocky stacky

Pics from below:

Hallstett sits at the top end of the lakes region outside of Salzburg, and it's breathtaking. Chalk this area up as a potential landing spot for a retirement getaway, not unlike the Como area. 

One hour before Vienna, about when we were getting hungry for dinner, we stopped at a small village town called Melk. In part, because we were hungry, but also because one of our neighbors pronounces "milk", like "melk." It was dumping rain as we rolled into the town and we found a small pizza joint that clearly doesn't cater to American tourists with credit cards that much. During my frantic and haphazard search for an ATM, I stumbled upon a cute little old downtown with a monastery perched on a hilltop, which turned into a nice after dinner treat. 

Vienna... Take 2:

Now that we scratched my Mom's Austrian Alps itch, it was time to explore Vienna. My Mom had spent the better part of the past two days watching non-stop Rick Steve's videos (on full volume, no headphones) to get acquainted with the city. Her research indicated it was best to just get on the number 1 tram that runs along the main ring around the old town and hop on, hop off (bargain style)... so that's exactly what we did. 

How shall we describe Vienna: grand, regal, plumb, level, heavy, and a bit creamy. Whereas most cities in Europe have a somewhat motley feel of different colors and architecture, the entire city of Vienna is like a polished and carefully manicured museum. This city was clearly built on huge piles of money. Our wanderings took us through the center of old-town where marching bands in lederhosen play jaunty polka style songs at random statues, and tourists ride in horse drawn carriages. There are some pretty impressive cathedrals and museums everywhere. This is a culture-lover's haven. We also stopped for some famous Viennese coffee and pastries. 

As we have come to expect, the public transit in Vienna is spectacular. This station was literally across the street with trains coming every five minutes.

It's the home of Mozart...

Pride on full display everywhere in Vienna!

Lovely rose garden in town

Come on Bryce... Flaunt it!

That unappetizing looking pile of lumpy things was a delicious bread pudding thing called Kaiserschmarm, a local special. Once you got over the texture, it was quite lovely. 

Pleepleus found a friend just hanging out at a cafe

The entire old town district looked like this

Jaunty fun music. This was the third band we saw while out and about.

Nicole, my Mom, and I took the afternoon to visit the Schoenbrunn Palace, the quaint summer cottage of the Habsburgs. And by quaint, I mean an estate that puts Versailles to shame. It really is shocking to imagine just how much wealth one family had accumulated and how overtly they went about flaunting it. Regrettably, we timed our visit one day after a large outdoor concert in the gardens and it was teeming with roadies moving heavy objects this way and that.

Spread about town are concert ticket hawkers at the entries of many key tourist zones. They know how to sniff out their prey... Not more than 10 minutes into our walkabout, a nice chap in an old Victorian coat approached my mom, worked his magic, and we bought three tickets to see the Wiener Royal Orchestra: one for my mom, myself, and Yaeko. Of course we "...got a great deal! Three tickets for the price of two. Balcony for the best view! You can't believe this. Best show in town!"  You know how sometimes your spidey senses put up warning signs? Especially when they only accept cash, and the tickets are torn off a booklet with hand written seat numbers. I figured, these folks are everywhere, and Vienna is known for it's classical music. What's $80 if I get stiffed. I didn't want to spend a bunch of time figuring out how to find just the right concert, and my Mom was giving me that look of... "Well, it sure would be nice to see some classical music in the birth place of classical music."

Fortunately my worry was unfounded.  Our one-day tourist sprint through Vienna was capped with another cliche'd experience, watching a small orchestra play in a random old ballroom. I don't know classical music beyond what I know from the soundtracks to Tom & Jerry, Disney classics, and Little Einsteins. Which, as it turns out, is all I needed to know! I suspect the Royal Wiener is like the minor leagues of baseball. The players are really good, but haven't quite made it to "The Show." But if I had never really seen baseball, going to a minor league game in an intimate setting would be really fun. The two-hour concert included some dancing and a bit of audience participation as well. My Mom loved it, Yaeko always loves music, and I didn't feel completely lost. Win, win, win. 

After the show we had a nice evening walk back to the metro...

If you look very closely at this statue, it's actually made entirely out of pennies. (that little white patch was some ne'er do well looking for beer money)

While our time in Vienna wasn't exactly scripted, we still got a feel for the place and hopped on the train to Prague satisfied. 

Other Random Thoughts:

• Travelling with mom has been fun, and also a bit fretful. She can get lost coming back from the bathroom in our AirBnB. Seriously. It's mostly the first step. She will head left, when the first step is right. From there it's over. We all seem to take turns making sure we have eyes on her at all times. (Note to self, when we travel with her again, we need to give her a GoogleFi SIM card so that she can have her phone on data the whole time.) 
• Travelling with her is like unlocking all these random memories and thoughts - like we're walking down a long corridor with all these little doorways into her past and present. We see something, and it represents a tiny key that opens up one of those little doors. We'll be wandering along, and the next thing we know, she's staring off at something, and then turns and makes some kind of non-sequitur comment. She looks up a lot. 
  
  
  
• We're definitely at a point where it's much easier for us to give the kids the freedom to do their thing in a foreign land. Zane stayed home one morning to re-charge, and Bryce / Yaeko got a bit tired of looking at old buildings, so they just got on the metro and went home. Having said that, for good measure, we have their locations showing on our Google Maps.
• Vienna is a place to come when we're a bit older and all we want to do is museum hop, sip coffee, and eat pastries.
• Weather has defined some of our itinerary. During our entire time so far, there has been a weather front all week, creating random spurts of rain and clouds. We heard from several people now that the weather really has changed in the last 30 years.

Other Random Pics:

Back to crappy washing machines with no dryers. Ahhh Europe....

New grad. Smart words.

Yep, I'm that guy on the metro that reads the magazine hanging on the hook. How these metros even have magazines that aren't immediately trashed says something about a town and it's people. Do I look like a tourist?

Mexican food while we were watching the concert

Next Stop: Prague