23.07-26.07.2013 Werfenweng (the Alps!)

Salzburger land: Werfenweng. ; 23.07.2013.

The way from Vienna to Werfenweng was a bit long. We'd remembered our departure time wrong and were at the train station about 1.5 hours too early. 

Ok, so, we took an earlier train to Salzburg and took a break there to eat lunch.

We finally had some schnitzel (an Austrian dish, really), although not in Vienna. it came with preiselbeeren (I don't know the English for this; these are not cranberries) and potatoes. Tasty. 

The way was: Vienna -> Salzburg, lunch and call the silly Taxibus for the later leg of our journey, Salzburg -> Bischofshofen, then meet the Taxibus to Werfenweng. 

Photos from the train. Here is a lake near Linz:

Pretty mountains whizzing by: 

Why Werfenweng? Originally, Schladming was suggested, being rather in the middle of the Alps and around a lot of these mountain huts that you can hike to for lunch. But, Schladming is kind of hard to get to, especially with all of the construction in the Austrian train system, so  I had suggested Bischofshofen or the vicinity (being pretty close to Salzburg) and the only lodgings we could find that were reasonable were in Werfenweng.

It's also rather pretty:

Our "Taxi"/Van driver spoke very "rustic" Austrian-German[harder than this to understand, although she (and everyone in Werfenweng) said "gel?" as the default "neh?" replacement]. That is, I could barely unterstand her, and without context, I would've understood nothing. She took us directly to where we were staying. The neighbor across the street asked if we needed help, and helped us figure out that the key was probably in the door with a note on it, and that we should just sort of poke around until we found it. That worked pretty well.

nearby where we stayed

around the corner

Sadly, there was no toilet paper, so we needed to go to the (one) supermarket, and rather quickly, as it was already mid-late afternoon. We asked the nice neighbor, and the directions were basically "Walk to the church,you can't miss it". 

You see the church? good.

We also looked for the "info center" of Werfenweng (which had shorter opening hours than the supermarket should) and couldn't find it from the map. At the end, we gave up and wen to the supermarket. Haha. The info center was directly across the street!

We visited it, took brochures, and heard about this thing called a  SAMO-Karte --8 euro, and a surprisingly large number of things therein included -- e.g. one of several weekly tours through the mountains. In particular, one was leaving the next morning at 09:30, planning to visit 2 of these alpine huts/restaurants, and take about 5 hours in total. Perfect.

Other things included in this card -- free rentals of bicycles/e-bikes/other e-things (including cars!). There was also an excursion up to Salzburg one could do (they ran a bus there and back) to see the town for a few hours. Also, taxis (which would then show up an hour later). Sounds really good if you drag grandma along and want to have her transported to the top of the mountain (some of them were accessible by car) to meet at one of the huts which you yourself could then hike up to. 

But, we needed to get something from our host/person who owned where we were staying, which took some calling and negotiating. 

Ok, ciao, to the supermarket.

On the sign, there were opening hours and also 

DIENSTAG NACHMITTAG     RÜHETAG.  

(Tuesday afternoon,  closed/vacation day)

?!?!?!?!?! 

Grumble grumble. 

Luckily, we had noticed that the "Farmer store" (Bauernladen) (clearly established to cater to tourists, selling local farmers' products) was open, and we went there to first eat ice-cream, then buy some things for dinner/breakfast; sausage, cheese, farmer-bread. 

Bauernbrot

Mixed ice-cream, 3 scoops: Apple, Marillen (they are kind of like apricots) and lemon. Yum. 

We also took a minute to call and talk to our host/landlord (who was in Holland at the time) about not having any toilet paper. He  called a neighbor and asked them to give us a roll our two. Huzzah. 

There was that night a shindig in the town square, with music and also samples of products from the farmer store, but there were no street lights between us and the town and all the traveling and the heat lead to a nap rather that going into town again.

zzzzz...

================================================

================================================

Salzburger land: Werfenweng.  Day 2.  24.07.2013.

Breakfast was like dinner: Farmer's bread, sausage (from wild pig) and cheese. 

We walked into the town to the tourist info center to meet the other people who were also taking the tour. We were first all schlepped to the "Werfenwengwanderzentrum'' with E-taxi/vans.

Then we started walking up the mountain, with the path becoming very quickly quite steep. Always when I go on a hike, I remember that while there is a part of me that really likes to hike, it's a much bigger part that believes that I like to hike, and then the rest of me is not convinced. 

first view back down from where we came

Our path/schedule was so that we first took a break at the Dr. Heinrich Hackel Hütte to get something to drink, and then later we would pause at another hut , Moosalm Hütte, for lunch.  First, the  Dr. Heinrich Hackel Hütte

how it first looked

as we walked away 

The path to Moos Hütte: 

There were a lot of nice flowers: Thistles (Disteln), Daisies (Magariten),  tiny daisies (?) (Gänseblümchen, Katzepfötchen, Arnica (Arnika), Marjoram, Thyme (Thymian), Peppermint (Pfefferminze), etc. 

our guide, Waltraud Hermann, + Arnica flower

The "Almhütte" can exist in part because the farmers take their families and cows up into the mountains during the summer. Not every farmer that does this also has a "hut". 

farmers and their cows

Mountain cows (their hooves are different from flatland cows)

a cow up higher than us

The following pond is used in the winter to make artificial snow for skiing:

The chair lift. It was not running, as there's no snow around:

We walked past the Anton-Proksch Hütte:

And ate at the Moos Hüttte (1640 m):

Here was our menu. "Jause" ~ plate. Käsejause ~ Cheese (and bread) plate. Brettljause ~ ,,cutting-board plate" (with cheese and wurst and cold cuts etc etc):

"Ja, es passcht" said our nice mini-waiter, instead of the English-ism "Okay":

Crocs and Lederhosen, the next fashion ;)

After Moosalm, we started descending and our path crossed that of the Gondola/Tram Ikarus:

We also saw some canadian houses. They were made in canada (out of 300 year old cedar), at some point disassembled and shipped to Werfenweng, then reassembled. Not sure why. You can stay in these overnight (probably for a pretty penny):

canadian houses

At the end I felt particularly grumpy. I found the pace once we started to descend a bit too fast. I always pay special attention to my right ankle, which I have injured many times, and so am very very slow going downwards.  With all this "braking" and taking care, my leg muscles started to shake about halfway down. It was hot and there was no shade. 

in the big bald patch on the mountain, you can see our path down the mountain

"close-up"

After getting back, we decided to try out the "Badesee" (outdoor swimming "pool"). It was an hour before they "closed" (at closing time, the didn't kick people out, they just lock up the changing rooms, showers, etc). And they said that with this SAMO-card, entrance was free. 

near the Badesee

Der Badesee was clearly somewhat artificial, or at least had later been made so, with a plastic sheet bottom and stones on top. It was at its deepest 4m. There were also ducks swimming around and signed that feeding them is forbidden. I found the water to be too cold (esp with the sun behind the clouds) and also pretty dirty. I remembered that I had so many ear infections as a kid, esp when swimming in a reservoir, so I didn't want to put my head under water there.

The horse-flies (or, the German equivalent) decided that I was very tasty, and between that and the water, we left rather soon and went back to our lodgings to eat dinner rather than be eaten. 

Abendbrot,with self-made lemon-soda

================================================

================================================

Salzburger land: Werfenweng.  Day 3. 25.07.2013.

We got up late. We'd originally thought that we'd take the Ikarus Tram/Gondola up the mountain, but in total that'd only run an hour, mayyyyybe two, and by the time we got going, they were taking their lunch break and we didn't feel like it was worth it to go up the mountain and then right back down for 11 euro p.P.

So, a gentle walk.  First to Zistelberghof  for lunch. 

I'm no fan of this building

I had goulash soup and Marillen-juice-schorle (in Austria, it's ,,gespritzt" instead of "schorle", which is closer to "spritzer", probably a good English translation).

While we were eating our lunch, the clouds rolled in: 

It rained a bit, really only sprinkled. Afterwards, we went...back. But slowly.

,,durchgang bis auf Widerruf gestattet"= you're allowed to walk on this path (through our land) until we decide otherwise

Stausee = pond made by a dam

We then took a bit of a detour, to the ,,Hochkönigausblickpunkt" ("Hochkönig" (High king) is the name of one of the mountains, so this is supposed to be a good place to take a look at it). 

there were a lot of places to stay and/or eat in the area

Hochkönig

Ok, then really back. 

Werfenweng,  as we approached from the south.

We found a few maps of the Werfenweng hiking paths: (Werfenwengerwandernwege)

you have to be crazy or in tip top shape to be running along these paths

I took this next picture, because houses here are rather different than in the US. I'm told the German houses are built like this one as well, entirely from brick. You can also see in this photo the wreath/mini-tree on top the roof, which you put up there when the house is half-done (and you have a party to celebrate):

Looking backwards along the last piece of our path back to our lodgings:

Later, after dinner, it reaaaaaally rained. Serious, pouring buckets of rain. Here's a picture where you can see a bit of this:

And the Werfenweng version of the Vienese "...sackerl,...gackerl" sign: 

Next/last: Salzburg! 

19.07.2013--23.07.2013 Vienna! (Days 3 & 4)

Sunday 21.07 

Sunday, 21.07. Breakfast in the hotel again, very practical.

Itinerary:

Vienna Museum at Karlsplatz (supposedly a museum of Vienna's history)

Lunch (again at Wild Gasthaus)

Hundertwasser House & adjacent "village"

[Added during the day: walk through the Prater,  Donauinsel (Danube Island), Supper]

Vienna Museum Karlsplatz:

Vienna Museum at Karlsplatz: a disappointingly old-fashioned museum. Picture/painting, short description. E.g. "Emperor so-and-so, (year)".  Thing, short description "spears from the second siege of Vienna by the Turks". No story, no real "history". I don't know anything about what lead to the sieges, how the people survived, or why the king of Poland came to the rescue for the second one. 

At some point,  they replaced the original glass windows (pre WWI/WWII) from Stephansdom and given them to the city. They're now displayed in the museum: 

There were some old signs from various stores, for instance, "zum schmeckenden Wurm" (to the stinking lindworm) [N.B. "schmecken" in old/middle German meant "to stink", whereas today "schmecken" means "to taste"]

above is a "Lindwurm"

Some Austro-hungarian thing:  

A strange piano: 

If I remember correctly, this is a painting of something that actually stood, and which people would make pilgrimages to: 

The special exhibits were much better.

There was one "Wien Aussen" (Vienna outside), photos by a photographer who's on retainer from the museum, Didi something. There were a few main clusters of photos (including a screen looping a large collection of photos) which caught my eye: 

• a brothel and the ladies within, going about their prep for the day. 
• two traditional turkish weddings (there were 1500 people there for each one!) 
• a center for disabled people. The photographer talked about always being drawn to the fringes and the disabled, perhaps in part due to his own handicap (very severe hearing loss when young). 
• Yppenplatz and Türkenschanzpark, both very turkish parts of town. 

There was a lot of text in this exhibit, the photographer writing about the places and people he chose to photograph, his methods, what he was looking for and trying to do, connecting with people. 

The other was "Wiener Typen" (Viennese "Types"/stereotypes) -- the washer maiden, the carriage driver, etc, their histories and how they changed. 

Lunch @ Wild Gasthaus. The menu had changed a little (they made a new-ish menu daily, which is nice). This time I had the "Lammstelze", not knowing what kind of part of Lamb that meant. Turns out, "Stelze" is Austrian/Viennese-German for "Haxe" which is ~the ankle. I think we'd say "Lamb shanks".  With this delicious lamb (cooked in beer) were rosemary "nockerl" (sp?) -- again, wasn't sure what they'd be until they came out. They were tasty little potato pieces, cooked with rosemary.  For dessert, had "Apple-calvados Tiramisu". The waitress said that "calvados" was a kind of pear. I later saw it somewhere as a liquor. Who knows. Either way, the (very not traditional) tiramisu was light, fluffy and amazingly delicious.

In German, one'd say that "Es war ein Gedicht" (it was a poem). :) 

After lunch, off to see the  Hundertwasser Haus + Village: Hundertwasser was a painter who decided to take up architecture. Well, he paired with an architect and did architecture. Kind of in the vein of Gaudi. I think this house was his first or one of his first. It was interesting, but not amazing.  There was a poster in front saying how it was not just Hundertwasser who designed this (and the other buildings) but that he also worked with an (actual, trained) architect (I'm assuming the architect feels a bit cheated of recognition for the houses).

We also walked through the adjacent "village", which is supposed to be built in the Hundertwasser-style. Eh.

What now? It's still sunny and beautiful out. We could go to The Prater, the giant part (with an amusement park on one end).  It's much bigger than Hamburg's equivalent (which is also not permanent, it runs for about a month 4 times a year). The Prater has two Ferris wheels!

There was a carousel with real (and real unhappy) horses:

If you are not already afraid of clowns, they had a few reasons for you to change your mind:

A strange, angry devil by the "Geisterbahn" (haunted "house"/ride):

And the older of the two ferris wheels:

with whole cars that you would ride in

After the Prater and Prater amusement part, we still had time and some hunger. I suggested going to the Donauinsel (Danube Island), look at the sunset, find something to eat.

The U-Bahn stop was in the middle of (a bridge over) the river:

There was a nice pedestrian bridge with a good view.

 This lay between two of the pieces of the Danube Island, so it was pretty quiet (i.e. not on the "main" part of the Danube).

Größere Kartenansicht


There were a lot of restaurants and bars around there at the "beach" . 
Once we crossed the bridge, it seemed like every restaurant was a hookah ("Shisha" in "German") bar, along the edge of the water. We walked until we ran out of hookah bars and other restaurants blaring loud music, and ate at the (quiet and nice-looking) restaurant we found there, All'isola . The waiter/manager was very nice and cheery.

 ========================

 22.07, Monday, last (full) day in Vienna.

 The 72-hour ticket for the local transit lasted until  17:50.

Plan: Be back within walking distance of the hotel before this time. 

First stop: Empress Sissi Museum in the Hofburg.

Pictures of the Hofburg:

Fiaker (carriage drivers) and their horses (being watered)

Nearby, an old church, the Michaeliskirche: 

And in ~ the same building, the Spanischehofreitschule (Spanish royal/court riding school), through this door/arch:

Trink Wasser!  Trinkwasser! -- it's wordplay in German. If "drinking water" or "potable water" were instead "drinkwater" in English,  it would be possibly to do the same in English.

Either way, good to be reminded, as it was so hot out; I enjoyed the cloud-thing, which would spray out a mist of water when you pushed the button:





Well, the next tour was in a few hours, so first to the butterfly house around the corner ( Schmetterlingshaus).

I saw something similar (and better done, really) in New Orleans, but this one was ok.

Once that was done, there was still enough time before the tour of the Sissi Museum to get something to eat. We stopped in  Café Griensteidl.I had the goulash soup (every restaurant seemed to carry it on the menu) and the "house lemonade". It was alright. What I found annoying was that the waitress had offered a roll without saying that it cost extra (this was the only goulash soup I saw/had which did not have bread included in the price). Also, the rolls were not fresh. :P

Afterwards, a bit of hurry to the 14:00 Sissi tour. 

Sissi, Kaiserin Elisabeth, was the last empress of Austro-hungary and during her life was not loved by the people. It was only after her death that they took a shine to her and found the sad story of her life interesting. She was wild and liked hunting and hiking and her sister was raised to be all courtly and to marry the future emperor. He picked Sissi instead. Then she felt like an animal in a cage :/. 

She was 172cm (5'8'') with a 40cm (15.75 inches!) waist and never weighed more than 50kg (110 lbs). She had the first modern toilet (in Austria? In Europe? In the palace?). 

When she bathed, she usually didn't wash her hair, as it took 4-5 hours of sitting relatively still with silly hair-drying-frames all around her before it was dry. She had her hair washed twice a month, using a mixture of Cognac and raw eggs. 

Every day she worked out and had a special room for this. 

Even without the washing, she still had to have her hair combed out and braided and done up, which took 2-3 hours a day. During this time, she had someone come read to her or teach her something. She liked learning languages. Outside of German, she knew Hungarian, Greek (old and new), Czsech, French, English (which was really uncommon)  and others. She travelled a lot, in particular to Korfu and Hungary. 

Afterwards, there was an (included) tour of the silver(ware) chamber/storage place. After(during?) the wars with France, the silver plates and things were melted down to finance it (minted into coins). This started the push of using porcelain and such instead. 

Also, we learned that there are 12 pieces of cutlery associated with a plate, to represent the 12 apostles. 

Afterwards, back towards the hotel. The Naschmarkt (where we could pick up apples and snacks for our trip to the alps) seemed like a good goal. Also, there were a lot of restaurants there were we could eat. 

We ate at Neni . It was an israeli restaurant, as far as we could tell, having a "Jerusalem Plate" and several other dishes mentioning israel. Also, no pork (which isn't that weird in Austria, but would be weird in Germany). We had the house lemonade, which was lemon juice, a lot of mint leaves, and sparkling water. 

We also accidentally walked by this, at the edge of the Naschmarkt (Majolkahaus)

Majolkahaus, by the Naschmarkt

Famous, as it was designed by Otto Wagner.

That wraps up Vienna. 

Here's a list of things I would've liked to have done: 

• Rented a bicycle "car" in the Prater (I saw a lot of groups of people biking around in these. They were covered (yay shade) and looked like fun). 
• Swimming in one of the  open air swimming pools, in particular, Krampfwaldbad, which was supposed to be huge and also have a great view of Vienna. 
• Schönbrunn, Schloß inside instead of just the gardens. Also, the associated Zoo  Europe's oldest and also one which won a prize for "Europe's best zoo" in 2012. 
• Visit Yppenplatz, Türkschanzenpark and  Karmelitermarkt (which sounds like a mediterranean version of the Naschmarkt)
• Visit Wündertüte and Finnshop, which sounded like neat shops.