A year ago or so, I was in Switzerland and had visited the German piece of it. I found that very nice and also quite interesting to be in a place where people predominantly spoke German, but not in Germany. So, this time -- Austria! I flew through Vienna, visiting Vienna, the Alps (Werfenweng etc.) and Salzburg.
[This post is part 1 of 2 of Vienna. I expect then 1 for the Alps (maybe two, due to sheer volume of pictures?), then one for Salzburg]
While waiting on a train the Hamburg main station, I bought two travel guides, one for Vienna and one for Salzburg and the area. The one for Vienna was called "100% Wien". I found it very well laid out. It had sections for the major neighborhoods of Vienna, and each section had subsections for
- food (including example dishes and prices),
- shopping (everything from cool little stores run by artists who repurposed "trash" into art or the store Lobmeyer, who produced glassware for the Hapsburg dynasty (and probably still replaces glasses for state functions)
- sights to see
- misc/local-recommended (labeled "100% there); stuff like the "Bathingship" which is a ship on the Donau canal with a long swimming pool tacked on the back end and several decks for sunning and with bars.
At the end of each subsection was a map, with a suggested walk through the area which would touch on all the things pointed out for that section.
Friday, 19 of July. We arrived.
At the airport in Vienna, there is a lot of advertising for this "CAT" (City Airport Train), which takes "only 16 Minutes" to get you to "the center of Vienna!". Not-advertised is that you can take a normal S-bahn for 1/2 or 1/4 the cost with a similar length of time to the same goal. The other advantage of the local train, outside of the low price, is that the CAT has only two stops or so, and then you'd have to switch to a local train anyway and pay another few euros. So, might as well start with the local train, which includes the price to wherever you need to go.
Transport in Vienna: An interesting system of Trains (U-Bahn ("urban"/city rail) and S-Bahn (~ commuter rail)) and street cars. They don't have a main train station per se, but seem to be building one by our hotel, which should be done sometime in 2014.
[This (Nasch/naschen ==> Nosch) is one of those lovely words that's made it into English, at least if you, like me, grew up in New York and/or around a large Jewish population. It has the same meaning in German, to eat something small, delicious and snack-y]
Then, to the Naschmarkt.
The Naschmarkt had two main pieces, left/west and right/east. We went first to the left. It wasn't particularly nice, and much like Christmas markets in Germany, you only needed to walk a short distance before you saw another copy of the same 3 or so kinds of shops/stalls.
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The right/easterly part was nicer. There was a coffee roster, a store with self-made fancy vinegars (apple, apple-balsamic, and much wilder), a place where you could buy fish (whole) and you could either take it home or have them cook it there.
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| self-made vinegar |
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| Tomato, Asparagus (etc) -- all, vinegar! |
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| This is a pun/wordplay in German. "anziehen" is both to put something on /to get dressed and also to be alluring/to attract. |
There were also a lot of restaurants (in ''permanent'' stalls/buildings) that seemed really nice, Thai and Japanese, fancy fish places, etc etc. We probably should've waited to eat :).
Walk walk walk.
Danube canal (not the Danube)
We walked to and along a stretch ("eine Strecke", in German) of the Danube (Donau) Canal, really an arm of the Danube, and somehow part of the Donau-regulation project done by one of the Franzes-who-were-Emperor. It wasn't particularly pretty. It did have some nice architecture:
And a "bathing ship" (Badeschiff) (a ship with a swimming pool that we saw people doing laps in, many places to lay out in the sun or shade, and some mini-bar setups):
Saw some buildings including the "Wiener Secession" (Vienna Secession):
"The Vienna Secession (also known as the Union of Austrian Artists, or Vereinigung Bildender Künstler Österreichs) was formed in 1897 by a group of Austrian artists who had resigned from the Association of Austrian Artists, housed in the Vienna Künstlerhaus. This movement included painters, sculptors, and architects. The first president of the Secession was Gustav Klimt, and Rudolf von Alt was made honorary president. Its official magazine was called "Ver Sacrum"."
Some more buildings, which stood along the Danube canal:
And in Vienna-Mitte/Landstraßenhauptstraße Shopping center was a nice lamp that changed colors:
Back to the Hotel. Originally thought we'd use the public transit again to see more of Vienna, but instead opted for the mexican restaurant ( ,,Jalisco''.) ~ next door, with the "Mexican Garden" inside. Pretty tasty.
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Saturday 20.07.
Breakfast at the hotel. 10 euros/person/day, but it was worth it. We'd looked at the menus of some of the restaurants and found that 10 euros was quite affordable, especially because it was a buffet and included things to drink. To drink, there was a rather nice coffee machine (I had Wiener Melange most of the time), tea, and three kinds of juice-type-things (unlabeled). One was something like lemon juice + water, one was orange juice and one was passion fruit (I think). The glasses for these were roughly shot glass sized. The buffet was very normal/German -- slices of various cold-cuts, cheeses, some Yoghurt, etc.
Therefore, rather than start with the castle-type things inside the old-city area (some of which were walkable), we went to Schloß Schönbrunn, the summer palace of the Hapsburgs, outside of the city. There were many gardens and impressive buildings.
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| front |
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| back |
There were many gardens and beautiful buildings. We walked in the direction of the Gloriette, which was easy to spot, being up on the (one) hill.
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| a garden which Empress Sissi liked to play in |
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| Garden with the Gloriette in the background |
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| Neptun Brunnen |
There were nearby some "Roman ruins" (artificial, however):
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We had lunch on the terrace of the restaurant in the Glorietta.
"Built in 1775 as the last building constructed in the garden according to the plans of Austrian imperial architect Johann Ferdinand Hetzendorf von Hohenberg as a "temple of renown" to serve as both a focal point and a lookout point for the garden, it was used as a dining hall and festival hall as well as a breakfast room for emperor Franz Joseph I. ...The Gloriette was destroyed in the Second World War, but had already been restored by 1947, and was restored again in 1995.
The Gloriette is dedicated as a Monument to Just War, that which leads to peace. With the succession to the throne of Maria Theresa came first the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748) and later the Seven Years' War (1756-1763)."
The front has the following inscription:
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IOSEPHO II. AVGVSTO ET MARIA THERESIA AVGVSTA IMPERANTIB. ERECT. CIƆIƆCCLXXV.
("Erected under the reign of Emperor Joseph II and Empress Maria Theresa, 1775.")
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I had a sandwich with delicious black-forest-style ham and cottage cheese (Hüttenkäse in German, which is a literal translation) on ciabatta. To drink, I had "Lemon soda", which was fresh squeezed lemon juice + sparkling ayer (i.e. no sugar). Tasty and refreshing, but not something I felt like drinking twice in one day. From the number of options for and general availability of refreshing summer beverages, I would guess that the summers in Vienna are long and hot.
Walk walk walk.
I had "Siebing", which is a fresh water ("Süßwasser" in German, means "Sweet water") fish from Austria. It was cooked whole, which I had never really had to deal with when eating fish before. It was tasty and also interesting. It came with delicious little potato pieces and a salad with Marillen (they taste like a cross between an apricot and a sour cherry), radishes and pomegranate seeds. Yum yum.
Before sunset, there was still enough time after dinner to take the tram/streetcar to Belvedere and stroll from the upper to the lower palaces (the upper is at the top of the hill, and also more grandiose).
"The Belvedere is a historic building complex in Vienna, Austria, consisting of two Baroque palaces (the Upper and Lower Belvedere), the Orangery, and the Palace Stables. The buildings are set in a Baroque park landscape in the 3rd district of the city, south-east of its centre. It houses the Belvedere museum. The grounds are set on a gentle gradient and include decorative tiered fountains and cascades, Baroque sculptures, and majestic wrought iron gates. The Baroque palace complex was built as a summer residence for Prince Eugene of Savoy."
There was a sign detailing how the prince-dude had to ask permission of the emperor/emperor's council for the water works necessary for the water for these palaces and fountains.
I thought the Sphinxes were a nice touch, even if it's obvious everyone grabs their chests (and left dark marks as a result):
The following fountain is somehow famous. We saw a picture in the museum at Karlsplatz, I think, of the sculpture in his studio, with the model for this in the background.
It was very nice, and I would've gladly hung out there longer, but an announcement over the loudspeakers placed around the garden told us that it would be closing in a few minutes (which apparently really meant in half an hour, once we found a sign that displayed the hours the garden was open).
We hopped on another streetcar and hopped off at the next stop, when I overheard a guy behind us explaining to the person next to him that that big thing to the left was the "Russian memorial".
I had read about it in the travel guide, which said that it was also known (to the locals) as the "Memorial to the unknown Plunderers" (fact: the word in German is almost identical -- "Plünderers" instead of "Plunderers"), due to the un-careful way in which the Russians "freed" the city (with plenty of looting).
Back on a tram, to Karlsplatz. Very nice.
There was a stage and some dj'd music, which seemed a bit weird, until I found a poster advertising that it was part of a movies-outside series. The movie to be show was some art/indie/documentary film. We didn't wait around to see it.
