Austria: Oct. 16 - 20

Vienna: Wednesday Oct. 19, 2005

Our train for Vienna wasn’t scheduled to leave until after 10:00 this morning so we were able to have a good sleep in (7:30) and get packed up before backpacking it back to the train station. The trip was pretty uneventful and the ground was much flatter as we headed out of the Alps towards Vienna. We arrived around 3 hours later in the capital city, center of the Hapsburg Empire for nearly 600 years and home to some of the world’s most famous music.

We had rescheduled our itinerary here a bit and shortened our stay in Vienna a couple of days to make some more room for Eastern Europe. We now had a day and a half to see the sights. As a result we didn’t dawdle. Our hotel was the Viennart hotel just off the Museum Square. It was a nice place, but certainly much more expensive than we had been paying up till now.

We spent the rest of the day (4 hrs) doing a fairly extensive walking tour of the city, and seeing everything from the Palace, to the Opera House, the Burg Theater and the Rathaus (City Hall). We ended up down by St. Stephen’s Cathedral in one of the large pedestrian shopping malls that Vienna is famous for.

The architecture was certainly grand and also very different from what we had seen before. Everywhere here, there is music and opera. The Hapsburgs certainly left their mark on the city.

In the shopping mall we visited several book shops looking for some English choices. On previous attempts we had been unable to find certain reading selections for the kids; Language Arts stuff. We managed to find one to Brennan’s dismay and ended up picking up two books (Dickens Great Expectations and Catch 22). He didn’t think he was going to get away with just reading Michael Crichton, did he? The irony of the whole thing is that because of our weight limitations he has to read the books if he wants any more.

We had a great dinner in a small diner that served 700 ml beer (for Brian), Mexiburgers (Brennan), and Schnitzels (Debbie and Sierra). Then it was back to the hotel for a fun filled evening of listening to Brennan grind through his homework.

Vienna : Thursday, October 20, 2005

Today we were planning to do our inside tours of Vienna. Breakfast was included with the room, and the kids quickly found out how to use the self serve hot chocolate/espresso machine. It was overcast but not yet rainy so the picture taking opportunities weren’t great. Also there had been some kind of Military demonstration / celebration the day before in front of the Palace so there were lots of cranes and army personnel taking down equipment etc that tended to clutter things up a bit.

Our first destination for the morning was the Spanish Riding School, home of the famous Royal Lipizzaner Stallions. The school is located adjacent to the palace (it kind of has its own wing). Show times are on Sunday, but everyday the public can pay to come in and watch them train the horses. The horses were certainly beautiful and the indoor riding grounds were amazing. The riding arena was about the size of a hockey rink and the stands (two floors) were covered in paintings and frescos. All very elaborate. Debbie managed to get busted again for taking pictures and while she tried to play dumb they were having none of it. Nor should they, you couldn’t get into the place without tripping over the signs. What a rule breaker!

Brennan on the other hand was miserable. The second we walked into the stables, his allergies kicked into high gear with lots of wheezing, running nose, constant sneezing. Sierra on the other hand was just thrilled and loved the horses. After an hour and a half of admiring the horses do their thing to Mozart and Chopin playing in the background, it was time to move along.

At this point we had planned to go our separate ways. The girls wanted to visit the imperial museums and apartments. The boys were getting “Castled out” and opted for the natural history museum which they had heard good things about. Both groups were very pleased with their choices. The Natural History museum had a lot of stuff, and in the tradition of European museums, most of it was stuffed. That said they had a great prehistoric section as well as a very good wing on Neanderthal Man.

Heading back for lunch and to meet with the girls, Brennan began to express a strong desire to spend the rest of the day in the hotel which was located some 40 minutes walk away. Figuring it was time to let him grow up a bit, Brian sent him off with an address, a map, and some 15 Euro in case he got into trouble and needed a cab or lunch. He also gave Brennan his driver’s license so he could get the hotel room key. Time for Brennan to grow up and start stretching his wings.

Somehow Debbie did not share the same view of “time to grow up” as Brian, and apparently there is a different perspective to things. “You sent our 14 year old son to cross town alone in a large European capital where people don’t speak much English with only 15 Euro and a map?” Well if you put it that way …

Turns out that we had given Brennan one of our two maps and he had inadvertently taken the other one. Now map-less we headed out to find the Danube River with Sierra well in hand. Debbie and Sierra managed to find a bakery (surprise surprise) and Brian found the river. We soon hooked up with one of the large ring roads that circle the city center and feeling pretty sure it would return us to a location we would recognize we headed off. Who would have thought that it was us that would get lost and not Brennan. An hour later we were still walking around the ring road. We experienced the “Opera Bathroom” where you could go to “Carmine” and found a statue of Mozart that wasn’t under reconstruction. We finally came out near city hall and the museums and made our way back to the hotel, hoping that we would find Brennan there.

Sure enough there he was. No problem at all. Whew! Tomorrow it is off to Budapest, Hungary. Auf Wiedersehen Austria!( NEXT PAGE )