Austria

We woke up early, walked around the center of Prague a bit more, shopping for souveniers and snacks for the train ride. We hopped (well not really hopped but more like crawled or dragged ourselves) on to the train going from Prague to Vienna around noon with fresh fruit, dark chocolate and a girly book for me and Spanish newspaper for Sean, and passed the time relaxing and seeing more of the Czech countryside. All in all from our long journey to Cesky Krumlov and the train ride to Vienna, we have seen quite a bit of this tiny country. We arrived to Vienna in the evening, immediately shedding our layers of clothes because the temperatures were much warmer. We schlepped our way to the city center, found a hotel and dropped off our things. I make this sound like an easy task, but again the weight of my backpack has been getting to me. I would draw less attention to myself if I had a monkey on my back, rather than a backpack that is almost the same size as me. I look tired and sweaty and achy from walking about 5 feet, let alone a couple miles to our hotel, up and down stairs and hills, etc. God forbid I drop something, like my map, where I have to kneel down to pick it up, and yes this has happened and yes I fall right over onto my butt and Sean has to help me up. It is quite a scene. So, we walked into the city, much lighter after having dropped off our things, and had dinner standing near the underground station at a walk up stand, where Sean had pizza (surprise!) and I had a brawtwurst to fit in with the locals, and we shared some super sweet, honey tasting baklava. We walked the city center - very big with lots of designer, and not so designer shops, a huge, beautiful opera house, cathedral, and millions of bright lights, cafes and restaurants.


The next morning, I woke up surprisingly early and we were out the door by 10am. By noon we had seen about every monument in the city. We stopped for an apple struddle at an outdoor international market vendor. We went to the most famous cafe in the city to try out what is known as the best coffee in the world for ourselves. The inside was very chic and pretty and rich feeling. We ordered a 'cafe melange', which sounded like the closest thing to a cappuccino. It was pretty good, but honestly, nothing and I mean nothing beats the cafe in Italy (oh how I miss it!). The coffee house experience in Vienna is famous and is known for being a popular place where great artists, scholars and writers spent their time in the 18th and 19th centuries. I couldn’t help but wonder if this is where the whole coffee house idea originated in the first place - if this is the reason Starbucks and such places are so popular today. I personally love this about Vienna. Where the cafe isn’t quite as good as Rome, it is nice to have the experience of sitting and relaxing and enjoying your time there, rather than standing at the bar and rushing out.


Vienna is very cool, it is similar to other big cities in Europe as far as monuments go, but is special for so many other reasons. For one, Mozart (as well as many other great composers) lived here during his most famous years. I even got to walk through what was once his house (for free because I went in the wrong way...totally an accident) where he entertained and wrote his most famous works, like the Marriage of Figaro.


For lunch we shared a huge soft pretzel with salt. It was delicious.
In the afternoon, we went to one of the many muesems in the city called Belvedere, where we saw my favorite artwork of all time, Gustav Klimt’s "The Kiss". I have had a print hanging in my room for as long as I can remember, and here it was, the original, right in front of me. It was so big and colorful and more beautiful than ever. The best part about the whole experience was that the muesum was virtually empty. We were able to stroll through at our own pace, and spend time looking at every painting, enjoying the serene atmosphere and being surrounded by beautiful art. I loved reading what each piece was about, learning about the story the artist wanted to tell. It was a very nice, relaxing way to spend our afternoon, especially after a morning full of walking and sightseeing.


In the evening, we wanted to see an opera, another of Vienna’s claims to fame, however weren’t really dressed for going into a glitzy opera house and were running late on time for buying tickets. We were rushing to the opera house to see what our options would be, and were pleasantly surprised to find an enormous, big screen tv outside showing the play, live, going on inside. We sat with a bunch of others on the ground watching the opera on the screen as if we had bought tickets and were in the theater. It was one of Mozart ‘s operas and was very pretty aside from the fact that it was all in German and we couldn’t understand a word. After resting our feet and listening to the opera we walked around some more and went to a pub, which turned into a techno night club. The atmosphere was very casual with lots of soccer fans, rowdy and excited over a win their team had earlier that night. We had a drink and decided to call it a night.

I really loved Vienna. It was a big city with a very big art and classical music presence. You can really feel that art and music are a huge part of the history and culture here and I appreciated learning and seeing all this. Even walking down the street we would hear street performers playing classical music on the violen or cello and people of all ages walked around carrying their beloved instruments in a case all over the place. I loved that Mozart was such a huge, important figure here and everywhere you looked something was dedicated to him. It reminded me of my brother Frankie and his love for classical music, and how I grew up seeing his many symphany or opera performances. I loved picturing the clothes they wore back in the late 19th century and the houses and how things were in those days. I loved the coffee shops and sophisticated yet casual atmosphere. We had a really nice time. Next, we are stopping in Salzburg, Austria - the birthplace of Mozart, before going to Munich.