Sunday, November 29, 2009
Who shot J.R. Ewing?
The train-ride out was once again Courtney’s opportunity to read extensively through our guidebook and plan at least some of what we would accomplish in our brief trip to Vienna. This time the ride lasted 8 hours – a bit long, and going forward we’ll probably look into flying that distance. We departed Heidelberg at 7am and the train ride again took us across Bavaria. We passed well to the north of Salzburg this time, however, and across the rolling hills and plains that dominate northern Austria, arriving in Vienna around 3pm.
Arriving at the Vienna WestBahnhof, we found our route to the hotel with help from the info-haus in their now-familiar brusque manner. The U-bahn in Vienna is well laid out and easy to navigate. It’s also quite clean and free from vagrants, despite the “honor code” which governs paying for travel. We purchased a 72-hour Vienna card, which permitted use of any of the local means of mass transit -- U-Bahn (subway), Strassebahn (street car), S-Bahn (regional train) – of which we primarily stuck to the U-bahn.
We stayed, in our traditional manner, out of the touristy part of the city at a convention center hotel lacking a convention. This strategy has allowed us to stay in some pretty nice places at cheap rates, although you have to go a couple stops on the U-bahn to get downtown. By the time we got to the hotel it was already dark (still on central Europe time but considerably farther east than Heidelberg). We spoke with the concierge about a couple potential evening plans, cleaned up, and headed out. Vienna in Advent is full of Christmas markets, and on Thanksgiving evening we got a jump on all our stateside “black Friday” participants. Lots of fun local crafts filled the simple displays; every fourth or so booth sold Gluhvein and other warm drinks or food.
We had dinner in a traditional Austrian restaurant, although this one was plagued like many in Austria with a thick cloud of cigarette smoke; unlike Germany and France, Austria has no public smoking ban. I had what appeared to be a local specialty, a wooden platter of short-ribs served on a bed of potato wedges garnished by red onions – it’s funny because I saw this on the table of many men in the restaurant and it seemed more like Outback Steakhouse than what I’d read of Vienna. Anyways, I enjoyed it. Courtney ordered Schweinefillets, which turned out to be yet another way of saying Wiener schnitzel. It was good, but Courtney barely dented the large portion.
Friday was our day for Vienna. It was foggy when we first left the hotel, but that lifted into a thick blanket of low-lying clouds until nearly sunset – late in the afternoon, we managed to get a few pictures with direct sunlight. This didn’t stop us, but it certainly helped our prioritizing. Vienna has magnificent architecture throughout but the weather steered us indoors. First stop was Josefplatz at the Imperial Palace where the Spanish Riding School is located. Here we watched the morning exercises of famous white Lipizzaner stallions. The large dirt practice ground was in the middle of what would otherwise be a ballroom – the audience watched from balconies and three large crystal chandeliers hung from the ceiling. Unique to see, but overhyped – the horses didn’t jump through fire or anything.
Afterward we walked a couple buildings down to the Albertina, an art museum contained within the Imperial Palace. Here we walked through a large special exhibit of painters involved in varying degrees in the Impressionist movement – Monet, Manet, Cézanne, Renoir, Degas, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Toulouse-Lautrec, and others. I enjoyed this even more than the usual museum exhibitions because it included quite a bit of history about the Impressionist movement. For instance, it was the relatively recent creation of more portable pigments and paints that allowed Impressionist painters to paint on location and capture landscapes and other natural objects in the moment.
After this we walked across the street and enjoyed a drink at the Mozart Café – it definitely had nicer chandeliers than Starbucks and the baristas wore tuxedos instead of green aprons. The weather continued to improve, now only mostly cloudy in the strictest meteorological sense, so we started exploring more of the city. We saw a great deal of the downtown area, walking from the Natural History Museum to the Imperial Palace, over to St. Stephan’s Cathedral, up to the Danube Canal, concluding at the Rathaus for the largest of Vienna’s Christmas Markets. When it started to get dark, we retreated to the hotel to prep for dinner.
Friday night we went to a restaurant called “Wrenkh,” named for the family of chefs who run the place. It used to be a vegetarian restaurant but recently included a few meat dishes on the menu, plus it was non-smoking. We thought this meant it would be more creative and certainly lighter than traditional Austrian food. We weren’t disappointed. Courtney and I agreed this was the best dinner we have had in Europe to date. In addition to a tasty Gin and cucumber fizz to “elevate my appetite” we split both a fantastic house salad with polenta and smoked tofu and a bowl of pumpkin soup. For the main course we both had a seared tuna steak served on purple glass noodles; it’s been a while since I had a tuna steak, but I still love it.
Saturday was our day for Bratislava. We initially planned to take a riverboat ride up the Danube but apparently you need reservations for that sort of thing. Instead, we saved 60 Euros and took the train – crisis averted. The train ride took an hour and we got to Bratislava at 130pm. Luckily the weather had cleared up and plenty of sun and blue sky lit the old town until the sun went down around 4. We scurried to the old town, stopping to snap a photo of Slovakia’s White House. In Bratislava, like most European cities, there is a castle on a hill overlooking a river and an old town. The old town in Bratislava is beautiful – main arteries with small windy streets branching off under archways and converging with another main artery. The palace is beautiful, or will be once the renovation is complete – the government of Slovakia appreciates your patience as they restore the building to the height of its rich cultural heritage. From the castle, you have an elevated view of St. Martin’s cathedral, a coronation site for a Hungarian or two while the Ottomans ruled Budapest.
In addition to its well-maintained (and restored) old town, Bratislava also met the stereotypes for Eastern European cities. Peering over the landscape from the castle you could see the decadent old town, polluted industrial area, massive rundown tenements, and a modern wind farm in the hazy distance. On a walk outside the old town over to the “Blue Church,” we passed by many run down and graffiti-ed concrete buildings, vestiges of central planning and echoes of the communist-satellite past. Now an EU member and included in the euro zone, I expect by the next time I visit even more progress will have been made to catch up with the West.
After sunset we warmed up with some coffee at a café, relaxed with a Slovakian beer at a bar called “Verdict.” Apparently, everyone in Europe learns English by watching the western soap opera “Dallas.” Our waiter at “Verdict,” asked us in fitful English where we were from. I responded “Colorado.” He asked, “Texas?” I told him Courtney was from Texas. “Dallas?” Courtney smiled. He asked, “Who shot J.R.?” (I didn't understand this at the time, but apparently Courtney got this in Paris quite a bit when she studied there during undergrad.)
We then wandered to a restaurant in the old town for dinner – Courtney had blue cheese gnocchi and I had roast rabbit. After a quiet dinner, we rushed to meet the train back to Vienna – faced with the choice of waiting an hour for the next train or taking up a light jog to meet one that leaves in 20 minutes, two American soldiers choose the latter.
I’m writing this on the train-ride back, although I’ll post it when I arrive home in Heidelberg. And shortly thereafter I’ll hop in the car to Geisenheim-Marienthal for a week-long conference on tax law. I’m sure it will be more fun than I’m sure it sounds.
Arriving at the Vienna WestBahnhof, we found our route to the hotel with help from the info-haus in their now-familiar brusque manner. The U-bahn in Vienna is well laid out and easy to navigate. It’s also quite clean and free from vagrants, despite the “honor code” which governs paying for travel. We purchased a 72-hour Vienna card, which permitted use of any of the local means of mass transit -- U-Bahn (subway), Strassebahn (street car), S-Bahn (regional train) – of which we primarily stuck to the U-bahn.
We stayed, in our traditional manner, out of the touristy part of the city at a convention center hotel lacking a convention. This strategy has allowed us to stay in some pretty nice places at cheap rates, although you have to go a couple stops on the U-bahn to get downtown. By the time we got to the hotel it was already dark (still on central Europe time but considerably farther east than Heidelberg). We spoke with the concierge about a couple potential evening plans, cleaned up, and headed out. Vienna in Advent is full of Christmas markets, and on Thanksgiving evening we got a jump on all our stateside “black Friday” participants. Lots of fun local crafts filled the simple displays; every fourth or so booth sold Gluhvein and other warm drinks or food.
We had dinner in a traditional Austrian restaurant, although this one was plagued like many in Austria with a thick cloud of cigarette smoke; unlike Germany and France, Austria has no public smoking ban. I had what appeared to be a local specialty, a wooden platter of short-ribs served on a bed of potato wedges garnished by red onions – it’s funny because I saw this on the table of many men in the restaurant and it seemed more like Outback Steakhouse than what I’d read of Vienna. Anyways, I enjoyed it. Courtney ordered Schweinefillets, which turned out to be yet another way of saying Wiener schnitzel. It was good, but Courtney barely dented the large portion.
Friday was our day for Vienna. It was foggy when we first left the hotel, but that lifted into a thick blanket of low-lying clouds until nearly sunset – late in the afternoon, we managed to get a few pictures with direct sunlight. This didn’t stop us, but it certainly helped our prioritizing. Vienna has magnificent architecture throughout but the weather steered us indoors. First stop was Josefplatz at the Imperial Palace where the Spanish Riding School is located. Here we watched the morning exercises of famous white Lipizzaner stallions. The large dirt practice ground was in the middle of what would otherwise be a ballroom – the audience watched from balconies and three large crystal chandeliers hung from the ceiling. Unique to see, but overhyped – the horses didn’t jump through fire or anything.
Afterward we walked a couple buildings down to the Albertina, an art museum contained within the Imperial Palace. Here we walked through a large special exhibit of painters involved in varying degrees in the Impressionist movement – Monet, Manet, Cézanne, Renoir, Degas, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Toulouse-Lautrec, and others. I enjoyed this even more than the usual museum exhibitions because it included quite a bit of history about the Impressionist movement. For instance, it was the relatively recent creation of more portable pigments and paints that allowed Impressionist painters to paint on location and capture landscapes and other natural objects in the moment.
After this we walked across the street and enjoyed a drink at the Mozart Café – it definitely had nicer chandeliers than Starbucks and the baristas wore tuxedos instead of green aprons. The weather continued to improve, now only mostly cloudy in the strictest meteorological sense, so we started exploring more of the city. We saw a great deal of the downtown area, walking from the Natural History Museum to the Imperial Palace, over to St. Stephan’s Cathedral, up to the Danube Canal, concluding at the Rathaus for the largest of Vienna’s Christmas Markets. When it started to get dark, we retreated to the hotel to prep for dinner.
Friday night we went to a restaurant called “Wrenkh,” named for the family of chefs who run the place. It used to be a vegetarian restaurant but recently included a few meat dishes on the menu, plus it was non-smoking. We thought this meant it would be more creative and certainly lighter than traditional Austrian food. We weren’t disappointed. Courtney and I agreed this was the best dinner we have had in Europe to date. In addition to a tasty Gin and cucumber fizz to “elevate my appetite” we split both a fantastic house salad with polenta and smoked tofu and a bowl of pumpkin soup. For the main course we both had a seared tuna steak served on purple glass noodles; it’s been a while since I had a tuna steak, but I still love it.
Saturday was our day for Bratislava. We initially planned to take a riverboat ride up the Danube but apparently you need reservations for that sort of thing. Instead, we saved 60 Euros and took the train – crisis averted. The train ride took an hour and we got to Bratislava at 130pm. Luckily the weather had cleared up and plenty of sun and blue sky lit the old town until the sun went down around 4. We scurried to the old town, stopping to snap a photo of Slovakia’s White House. In Bratislava, like most European cities, there is a castle on a hill overlooking a river and an old town. The old town in Bratislava is beautiful – main arteries with small windy streets branching off under archways and converging with another main artery. The palace is beautiful, or will be once the renovation is complete – the government of Slovakia appreciates your patience as they restore the building to the height of its rich cultural heritage. From the castle, you have an elevated view of St. Martin’s cathedral, a coronation site for a Hungarian or two while the Ottomans ruled Budapest.
In addition to its well-maintained (and restored) old town, Bratislava also met the stereotypes for Eastern European cities. Peering over the landscape from the castle you could see the decadent old town, polluted industrial area, massive rundown tenements, and a modern wind farm in the hazy distance. On a walk outside the old town over to the “Blue Church,” we passed by many run down and graffiti-ed concrete buildings, vestiges of central planning and echoes of the communist-satellite past. Now an EU member and included in the euro zone, I expect by the next time I visit even more progress will have been made to catch up with the West.
After sunset we warmed up with some coffee at a café, relaxed with a Slovakian beer at a bar called “Verdict.” Apparently, everyone in Europe learns English by watching the western soap opera “Dallas.” Our waiter at “Verdict,” asked us in fitful English where we were from. I responded “Colorado.” He asked, “Texas?” I told him Courtney was from Texas. “Dallas?” Courtney smiled. He asked, “Who shot J.R.?” (I didn't understand this at the time, but apparently Courtney got this in Paris quite a bit when she studied there during undergrad.)
We then wandered to a restaurant in the old town for dinner – Courtney had blue cheese gnocchi and I had roast rabbit. After a quiet dinner, we rushed to meet the train back to Vienna – faced with the choice of waiting an hour for the next train or taking up a light jog to meet one that leaves in 20 minutes, two American soldiers choose the latter.
I’m writing this on the train-ride back, although I’ll post it when I arrive home in Heidelberg. And shortly thereafter I’ll hop in the car to Geisenheim-Marienthal for a week-long conference on tax law. I’m sure it will be more fun than I’m sure it sounds.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
The City of Salt
Salzburg was a great weekend trip. We left on Saturday morning; a five hour train-ride through Bavaria, pretty and relaxing in itself. After walking from the Hauptbahnhof (main train station) to our hotel, we decided to ditch our bags and start exploring the Altstadt (old town). Salzburg is surprisingly similar to Heidelberg (castle overlooking a well-preserved Altstadt, scenic river and surrounding highlands). We had lunch at a small Italian cafe (Salzburg has tons of Italian influence) before walking up to an old monastary on the hill facing the old medieval castle. After watching the sunset at around 5pm we headed back to the hotel for a bit. That evening we attended a chamber concert (violin, viola, piano) at the Mirabell Palace. The palace was originally built in the 17th century by the Prince Archbishop. During the 18th century the palace burned, leaving only a marble staircase and marble chamber -- the performance was in the latter. After the concert we walked downtown and ate a traditional-inspired tapas restaurant -- quite a lot of variety on the menu and very delicious.
On Sunday we took a commerical tour up through the surrounding area to the nearby salt mines. On the way, we drove past scenic overlooks of the valley and stopped to take pictures of Eagle's Nest. We stopped in Berchtesgaden to stretch our legs on our way up to the mines. The tour of the mines was entertaining -- especially considering I've seen pictures from when we did the same tour while Dad was stationed here, but I remember nothing independent of the photographic record. The train ride into the mines and the slides to its depths were fun and the history lesson accompanying the tour provided lots of insight into Salzburg's history and importance.
Sunday afternoon we explored more of the Altstadt (baroque architecture leading to lots of very funny jokes about how everything looked "broke" -- read: Courtney rolling her eyes frequently) and toured the medieval castle. Lots of military history exhibits in the castle museum -- mostly WWI. Saturday evening we found another traditional dinner at a restaurant in the Altstadt -- Austrian food is a lot like German, but there's also a more eastern European influence (Hungarian).
On Monday morning we toured Mozart's birth house -- lots of family history and a broad-strokes portrait of his life in Salzburg. The rest of the morning was spent eating: a small cafe near the hotel for breakfast prior to Mozart, another cafe in the Altstadt for lunch before returning to Heidelberg on the train.
Off to Vienna on Thursday -- I think we'll spend most of the time exploring there, but there's potential for a riverboat trip up the Danube to Bratislava (so long as the weather and the off-season tourism industry cooperates).
On Sunday we took a commerical tour up through the surrounding area to the nearby salt mines. On the way, we drove past scenic overlooks of the valley and stopped to take pictures of Eagle's Nest. We stopped in Berchtesgaden to stretch our legs on our way up to the mines. The tour of the mines was entertaining -- especially considering I've seen pictures from when we did the same tour while Dad was stationed here, but I remember nothing independent of the photographic record. The train ride into the mines and the slides to its depths were fun and the history lesson accompanying the tour provided lots of insight into Salzburg's history and importance.
Sunday afternoon we explored more of the Altstadt (baroque architecture leading to lots of very funny jokes about how everything looked "broke" -- read: Courtney rolling her eyes frequently) and toured the medieval castle. Lots of military history exhibits in the castle museum -- mostly WWI. Saturday evening we found another traditional dinner at a restaurant in the Altstadt -- Austrian food is a lot like German, but there's also a more eastern European influence (Hungarian).
On Monday morning we toured Mozart's birth house -- lots of family history and a broad-strokes portrait of his life in Salzburg. The rest of the morning was spent eating: a small cafe near the hotel for breakfast prior to Mozart, another cafe in the Altstadt for lunch before returning to Heidelberg on the train.
Off to Vienna on Thursday -- I think we'll spend most of the time exploring there, but there's potential for a riverboat trip up the Danube to Bratislava (so long as the weather and the off-season tourism industry cooperates).
Monday, November 16, 2009
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
