The MoHo and Other Traveling Tales

Tour Day in Prague Part 1 October 12

My oldest daughter Deborah has always loved James C Christensen and his fantasy paintings of magical worlds. The entire time I was in Prague, I tried to remember his name, because the city reminded me so much of what I saw in his art. I am not sure how a man from Culver City, California, a modern painter, could capture the feeling of a place so perfectly, and yet this painting somehow embodies all I felt during the entire time I was in Prague. There is something about the city that feels almost too Disneyesque, as if it were all created by Walt himself just for our modern day delight.

Instead, this place sometimes called “The Magical City”, “The Golden City”, the “City of a Hundred Towers” (actually there are closer to 435 spires in Prague) and the “Paris of the East”, came into being in Neolithic times, and the first recorded fortified settlements were built in the 9th century. Over the centuries it has survived wars, invasions, disasters, more invasions and wars, and yet it remains, magnificent in its complexity and loveliness.

Our tour day was to include a long walk through “The Castle”, one of the largest fortresses in the world. The fact that it was about 33 degrees F and the skies were socked in with a dank fog made it all that much more mysterious. We were to see the Royal Palace, St Vitus Cathedral, and walk the Charles Bridge; places that have endured for centuries. Somehow it is impossible to talk about visiting Prague without at least getting a taste of its history.

(I am paraphrasing from a book called “Art and History in Prague – English Edition”, with a few tidbits added in by our local guide):

In the 900’s as a focal point for craftsmen and merchants, Prague attracted mainly Jews and Germans, becoming a Bishop’s See ruled by Dukes until it became an actual city between 1232 and 1235. The first University in eastern Europe was founded in Prague in 1348, and in 1419 some rebels threw out the Catholic leaders. Religious conflict followed for centuries and Prague actually declined during the rule of the Habsburgs when the capital was moved to Vienna. The city became more Germanized until the Czech revolt of 1618 and the “Thirty Years War”, and then losing that war caused even more decline in the city.

Between the 19th and 20th centuries Prague continued to develop economically and industrially, and with the influx of people and money, it became a center for cultural and intellectual development. It endured the brutal domination of the Nazis from 1939 to 1945. Our local guide talked of a treaty agreement between Prague and Germany during that time which was supposed to protect Prague but instead only allowed the Germans free reign to the city. She did say that the agreement managed to keep Prague from being completely decimated by the Nazis, even though thousands of Jews were killed.

The Russians liberated Prague from the Nazis, but the Soviet leaders thought the city was getting too uppity and on August 20, 1968, tanks were sent into Prague to let the people know they could not stand up against the USSR. The Communist Regime fell at the end of 1989 and on January 1, 1993, Czechoslovakia was separated into the Czech and Slovak Republics, in one of the few peaceful separations of a country in Europe. Our guide, Yarmilla, discussed the unrest during that period with dry humor. She lived most of her life under Communist rule, and seemed to take most of it in stride. She said every time the Soviets were on top, the statues would go down. Then the Czechs would be on top and the statues would go up again. Up and Down, over and over. Now the statue of Stalin is no longer on Castle Hill.

One thing she did say that was interesting, is that the Czech people have had religion foisted on them since the 9th century, and usually it wasn’t a religion of their own choice. The Czech people aren’t all that excited about religion at all, with more than 80 percent of the population claiming either Atheist or Agnostic beliefs. Seems strange to me in a city that has a skyline dominated by the spires and steeples and domes of some of the most beautiful churches in the world. On our free day (tomorrow), Melody and I slipped into a cathedral near Old Town Square during mass. My grandmother was Catholic, I listened to Latin mass as a child with her, and felt her pain when the Mass was no longer said in Latin. In this church in Prague, Mass was in Czech. It was beautiful, and the voice of the priest still haunts me.

But I am getting ahead of myself. As we boarded our tour bus at 8am, most of the group were dressed in big coats, hats, and gloves. Melody and I were not. We had checked the weather over and over and decided not to bring heavy clothes for the cold. Instead I had a fleece shirt, a wool sweater, and another wool sweater. I also had some nice thick tights under my jeans, but the gloves and hat didn’t make it on the bus with me. Dumb! Melody at least had on her boiled wool jacket, her comfy staple back at home as well, and lucky for me, her jacket had pockets.

When we got out of the bus, we were assaulted by really really cold damp air and I managed by walking with Melody and keeping a hand in one of her pockets, and switching when the free hand got too cold. It was COLD! The bus let us off outside the castle gates and we walked past an old Czech building from the 13th century, across the moats, and through the castle gates into layer upon layer of history. Many of the buildings that were first built in the 1200’s had been destroyed and rebuilt over and over, and the austere architecture of the Viennese period was evident in the Royal Palace and some of the courtyards. Still, the wild nature of the Czech people could be seen in the statuary guarding the main gate to the First Courtyard, and then as we walked through the Matthias Gate into the Second Courtyard, the magnificence of St Vitus Cathedral was overwhelming.

This Cathedral took my breath away. Only completed in 1929, St Wenceslas built the Rotunda of St Vitus in 926 on the same site. More than a century later, a Romanesque basilica rose, and then on these foundations a Gothic cathedral was later erected in the first half of the 14th century. The Renaissance steeple was added in the 16th century, and the bell tower holds the largest bell in Bohemia from the 16th century. Plans were drawn in 1872 to complete the grand building and the main portal wasn’t actually completed until 1929, 1000 years after the death of St Wenceslas.

This cathedral is a masterpiece of neo-Gothic architecture, with a gorgeous rose window, many beautiful stained glass windows, magnificent tombs and crypts, the tomb of St Wenceslaus, and my favorite of all, a gorgeous stained glass window by Alfons Mucha, famous art nouveau artist and resident of Prague. The tomb of St John Nepomuk , patron saint of Bohemia, is made of tons of solid silver. Legend has it that St John Nepomuk refused to tell the King what the King’s wife had confessed to him and was tortured and thrown in the Vltava River as a result. There are other versions of the story, but he was canonized as a worthy saint in the 1700’s and it is said that when he was killed, seven stars appeared in heaven. In the statues, there are only five, so where are the other two? Either way, if you touch his statue on the Charles Bridge, it is said either that a wish will come true, or you will return to Prague. There are many more photos of St Vitus Cathedral online here if you are interested.

Even inside the cathedral, it was chilly, and once back out on the courtyard the air was still foggy and cold. I was really looking forward to the promised coffee shop which didn’t open until ten thirty or so. I was also very glad for Melody’s warm hands and pockets! We next entered the Royal Palace, that was originally built in the 12th century on the site of the 9th century prince’s court.

The most important and impressive room was Vladislav Hall, built at the end of the 15th century. The floor was originally packed dirt for the horseback jousting matches held there, and the stairs were built especially to accommodate the horses entering the hall. The room had a quiet dignity, and our guide gave us another architecture lesson discussing the use of the beautiful gothic ribbed vaults. Melody and I got a kick out of the small hidden laughing faces tucked away into the arches, something that no one seemed to notice but us.

We wandered through more of the palace to the room containing the famous “Defenestration Window”. Defenestration actually means the act of throwing something out the window, in this case people. Prague is the defenestration capital of the world, with two major events, and many others in between. You can read about it here. The stories are a bit funny, with the third floor window not being high enough to cause the death of the people thrown out due to the huge pile of dung that was below the window. By this time I was really wishing that the huge green ceramic heaters were actually working, because it was still really cold.

Finally we walked across another courtyard to a quiet little coffee shop, all warmed up and cozy with the smell of pastries and coffee and actual HEAT! Whew! Our group squeezed into the small space and were treated to coffees by our guide Lorena. I also had an apple strudel which was nearly perfect.

After warming up in the coffee shop, we continued our tour through the castle by wandering to the famous Golden Lane, a picturesque little street also referred to as “Alchemists Lane” where alchemists pursued the myths of the production of gold. Yarmilla thought the truth of the name was more picturesque, with chamber pots being emptied out the windows daily and turning the streets “gold”. ewwww. Once home to the craftsmen and the poor folk of the castle, there are now little shops and lots of tourists.

We descended the stairs from Golden Lane to an open view of Prague below us, but not before Melody found the stairway to the castle dungeon. By this time I was getting a bit tired of stairs so I left it to her to explore the depths of the dungeon. Dungeons are really creepy, sort of like catacombs. Melody loves all that kind of stuff.

If you are up for it, there are more photos of Prague Castle, the Royal Palace, the dungeons, and Golden Lane online here.

Next: The afternoon of our tour day: a Czech lunch, the Charles Bridge, walking through Prague, Old Town Square, and the Jewish Quarter.

Travel Day to Prague October 11

Was it really almost a month ago that Melody and I were tromping around Eastern Europe? A bit of snow is falling from the sky here in Rocky Point today and finally I have a moment to remember, to look again at the notes I took and the photos I processed and to write again. Melody and I talk on the phone or write to each other almost every day, and there almost always seems to be some kind of reference to a funny memory, a beautiful sight that we shared, a tough moment that we muddled through together.

Melody works full time and with teenagers at home that gets to be a big bunch of busy. I am now only working one week a month, thank goodness, but during that work week there wasn’t a moment to think about writing or photos or anything at all but taking care of business. Mo and I ran off to “the cottage” a couple of times and of course, with all the work over there, I didn’t even think about writing. I am so glad I at least took some rudimentary notes so that I can remember the last three days of our magical trip. Funny, we both wrote like crazy during the first two thirds of the trip, but on the last third, we didn’t seem to have the energy to even think about keeping notes, much less doing any real writing.

I guess it is a bit like the baby book. Remember that? The first child has a big one, with every tiny thing filled in, and by the time the fourth comes around the baby books get a bit smaller, just a bit, right? I guess it was like that for us. We certainly didn’t love our last destination any less, but we just couldn’t keep writing about every single detail!

When we woke to brilliant sunshine on the morning of our departure for Prague, we were thrilled. Vienna is a big city, and the dreary days had been a bit tiresome. We had a short distance to Prague from Vienna, only a couple hundred miles or so, and the day would be broken up by a nice lunch along the way and an early arrival in Prague by mid afternoon. Within minutes of driving north from the city, the beautiful Austrian countryside opened up in front of us with all the magical vistas of imagined fairy tale towns dotted among the hillsides.

Most of the fields had been harvested and the ground was freshly plowed. The skies were clear and blue with just a bit of haziness from early fall hanging in the air. As we passed through the villages and in view of lovely small farm houses, I was impressed with how orderly and clean everything looked. Most of the villages had a tall steeple dominating the skyline, with similar architecture that seemed characteristically Austrian.

I felt myself getting more and more excited as we got closer to the Czech Republic. The landscape began to change a bit, with verdant hills and distant castles, and once over the border, the characteristic steeples dominating the skylines changed dramatically. The more austere rectangles of Austria gave way to the gentle swirls and curves of a different way of looking at the world.

We stopped right near the border at a lovely little eating establishment along the highway for lunch. I can’t believe that I don’t have the name of the place because it was so charming and lovely. Again it was a cafeteria type lunch but the food was incredibly good, at least what we ate was good. There were some really interesting looking sausages and meats offered that were a bit beyond my need to be adventurous. Especially the white glutinous looking fat sausage floating in some kind of colorless broth. Maybe not.

Melody and I marveled at how similar this part of the world was to the valleys around Eugene, Oregon. Everything was green with beautiful lush conifers punctuated by oaks with red and golden leaves and brilliant green fields already showing a good crop of winter wheat, or at least that is what it looked like. The skies were so blue they almost were impossible to look at directly, and the sun had that slanting fall light that illuminates everything in a way that doesn’t happen any other time of year.

On the road again, it was only an hour before we approached Prague, what appeared to be a very big city with a lot of freeways and more traffic. At first we only saw the ugly leftovers of “Architorture”, gray cement and steel with no character at all. But as we rode deeper into the city, the valley of the Vltava River opened up below us and the spires of old Prague appeared on the western horizon.

Our hotel, the Jury’s Inn, was just a little over a mile from the main part of Old Prague, and across the street from a major metro station. The room was lovely, with a bathtub bigger than either one of us could fill, lots and lots of hot hot water, and a wonderful comfy bed with more down comforters and duvets. We were so happy that Lorena offered to do an unscheduled orientation tour of the city starting at 4pm for those who wanted to walk to Old Town and get a taste of what Prague had to offer. She was really surprised when every single one of the 30 people in our group showed up for the impromptu tour!

We walked along the streets, enjoying the people who all seemed to be smiling and talking and laughing. Within ten minutes or so we were in front of the Municipal House in Old Town Prague, one of the finest examples of Art Nouveau decor in all of Europe. Even from the outside it was impressive, and we knew that we would return for a closer look during our free time in the city. Passing through the dramatic Powder Gate into Old Town Prague was thrilling. Lorena explained the history of this gate, dating back to the 11th century, once the entrance to the city and the road all Czech kings traveled to their coronations on Castle Hill.

It is hard to explain how excited I was, and Melody as well. It was an inner feeling of excitement, an amazing thrill to be entering this beautiful city on this gorgeous afternoon. The group walked as far as Old Town Square, the location of the famous Astronomical Clock. Hundreds of people were gathered at the base of the clock waiting for it to do its thing, and as it struck , Melody took photos and cried with pure excitement. She had read about this amazing clock and it was one of the big things on her list to see. Again, we had much more to see in the days to come, but this first afternoon everything seemed gilded in golden light as we walked through Prague for the first time.

Lorena and the group dispersed, but Melody and I knew that we had to go to the bridge, the famous Charles Bridge on the Vltava River. I could go on and on about the history of this place, of the city and the bridge, but I somehow wish that I could convey how it felt to be there, to stand there, to see this magical, historical, world destination place with my youngest daughter. We laughed and walked, and ooohd and aaahhhd at the river, at the golden light on all the spires, at the amazing architecture and at the people! oh My. The People! It was a perfect moment for us, one made even better by the fact that the next days were dreary and gray again, and our second trip to the bridge was in cold fog. I am sooo glad that we took this time to go find the bridge and see it on our own that first afternoon in the city.

We made it back to the hotel in time for the nice dinner offered to us, with some very tasty chicken and vegetables accompanied by lovely glasses of good wine. Lorena warned us that the next day would be all about walking, with several hours of a walking tour through Prague Castle and back across the Charles Bridge. The weather prediction was for record breaking cold weather with fog and rain. We didn’t care, we had seen it at its very best on this first magical afternoon in the city of Prague.

Free Day in Vienna October 10

We woke to another lovely sunrise out the south facing window of our room. The NH Danube City Hotel in this part of Vienna is quite nice in an Austrian sort of way. It is very slick, with the lobby all black and white and the amenities are very nice. The wait staff is impeccable, but as we have discovered in Vienna, bringing the bill is something that just doesn’t happen until they are dang good and ready. We decided to skip the downstairs buffet this morning, after experiencing the crowded lines yesterday. We both knew that our day in town would likely bring pastries and coffee.

After yesterday, we were old hands at using the Metro, and Lorena’s description of how to get to the Royal Stables seemed straightforward. We thought there would be transfers, and decided to buy a 24 hour pass so that we didn’t have to worry about buying more tickets for transfers.

The Metro station at the Vienna International Center is just a five minute walk from the hotel and is easy to use. At 9am it was quite busy. From the way things looked, the Viennese must all go to work at 9am. We arrived at St Stephens Square easily and then looked high and low for the transfer to Josef. We couldn’t find anything on the map that showed a line in that direction, and the city map had such tiny print that we were having some difficulty figuring it all out. I finally called Lorena, who was already off on the Danube Cruise with the rest of the group, and in her darling but sometimes difficult accent, she said, “No no, not a transfer, you just walk!” Oh. Then, as usual, I couldn’t begin to figure out where I actually was in relation to where I had to walk, even with the map. For a map maker, in these cities I am pretty sad at navigating. Out came the phone again and I turned on google maps one more time. Ahhh. The blue dot began blinking and I put in Stephansplatz and there we were. Quickly turn off the cellular data roaming and head for the square.

Stuff I learned; It is worth every single penny to pay for at least some mb of data for you smartphone mapping application. I only used it a few times, but those times really helped us a lot when we were turned around. These cities have very narrow streets and very tall buildings, and it is quite easy to get turned around, or to not know exactly where you are. Even as a map maker and reader, I still had some difficult moments. I was sooooo happy that I could turn on the phone and get that little blue dot to tell me exactly where I was.

I paid for 100 mb of data but since I have Verizon on the iPad and ATT on the phone, I can’t really remember if I actually paid for data on the phone as well. The internet is so bad at the hotel I can’t seem to get to my account pages to actually check. Guess I’ll find out when I get home. I have kept the phone either turned off entirely or in airplane mode for most of the duration of the trip unless I am hooked up to WiFi.

Once in the proper square, we found the line for the practice showing of the Spanish Riding School. Somehow we thought Lorena said that viewing practice was free, but of course that wasn’t right. It cost 10 E urofor me and 14 for Melody to enter the royal stables to watch the Lippanzaners do their drills. They are beautiful horses, and watching them work was wonderful. I was glad we did it, and actually seeing the luxury of the royal stable interior was impressive. The stable tours were sold out for the next week, and of course the actual performances were sold out long ago. They are also expensive.

In front of the riding school is a preserved Roman ruin, visible below the street and protected from vandalism by clear covers. Melody was enthralled again by this part of history. I would so love to take her to Turkey where she could see many many ruins both from the Roman era and the prior Hellenistic era as well.

There is a lot to do in Vienna that is wonderful. The city is filled with art and history and culture. The tour of the Opera House would have been amazing, and I wish we had managed to do that tour. No matter where you turn, there is opulent architecture and interesting tours and classical performances. There are so many museums to choose from that we chose none and instead just spent our day walking and watching people. Vienna is nothing if not opulent, beautiful, expensive, and somewhat overwhelming. In my dreams of this trip, I imagined listening to Mozart in Vienna, but somehow with our short stay, the concert was more than we could manage. I also love Gustav Klimt, not particularly “The Kiss”, but some of his more esoteric art really intrigues me. Klimt was from Vienna, and in addition to Klimt collectibles on every corner, there was the art museum featuring his art that we also didn’t manage to get to. More days in Vienna were needed, a bit more time, and a commitment to spending the money for these extra tours.

I think it would be a great destination to visit with a lot of time and plenty of money. There is no place better for seeing a different opera every night or hearing classical music at its finest. Culture for a price. As I experienced the city, I was even more appreciative of our guide’s comments from the previous day regarding the combination of capitalism and a social state that insists that there be 60 completely different opera performances a year, all paid for by the state of course.

He said, “The Viennese really love children, just not their own. They have one of the lowest birth rates in the world. The don’t like paying taxes, and they don’t like tourists. That doesn’t work very well in a closed system like we have. Where is the money to come from?” I wish I actually had his commentary on tape because he was one of the funniest, most informative guides ever.

When we asked Lorena what was the most important thing to do in Vienna in one day she said one word, “Coffee”. Coffee in Vienna is basically the long slow accompaniment to people watching in the square. You walk for a bit and then sit at a cafe where the elegant waiters will come and serve you before disappearing forever. The idea is that they don’t want to disturb you, and you can sit with one small cup of espresso or Melange (the Viennese version of cappuccino) for as many hours as you wish. The only problem comes when you decide that you might actually like to leave. It is nearly impossible to get the waiter’s attention until he is good and ready, and even then he will wave to you and say, “in a minute, in a minute”. Do NOT have coffee in Vienna if you have anywhere to go. If you need to make a visit to the WC (water closet, bathroom, toilet) then be sure to have a supply of coin euros and a coffee partner who can be left at the table waiting for the waiter while you go.

Melody loves fashion, is an avid reader of Vogue, and she was so excited to actually be in a place where she could go to all the big name shops, especially Louis Vuitton. I had no desire to go in the store just to look at expensive stuff. Window shopping is fine for me, so I stayed outside while Melody went in all her famous designer name shops. Sadly in some of the shops, she was treated very shabbily by the snotty staff, and I don’t think she expected that. I am sure this isn’t something just endemic to Vienna, as there are snotty staff in snotty stores all over the planet. Once we migrated from the very highest end shops to the mid level shops, though, I loved it. Some of the goodies were delightful, including a cashmere coat for only 4000 E urothat I almost bought. Well, in my dreams anyway. I laughed that I could go on a couple of trips for what that coat cost.

Then as we slipped down to the true mid level shops, we were both delighted to find a two story hat store. Now I have to say that was fun and the shopkeepers were all charming and helpful and the walls and walls of hats were fabulous. There were lots of women exclaiming and trying on hats of all kinds and having fun. I did buy a couple of hats for us, including a cute little boiled wool “Made in Austria” winter hat that looks like something out of the 20’s. Finally, something other than breakable crystal or porcelain as a keepsake of this country!

Vienna is actually quite walkable, and the tall spire of St Stephens is in the center of town with the Ringstrasse circling the city center. If you just keep walking, whatever direction, you will either reach the cathedral square or the Ringstrasse. On the previous day, we saw the Market and the guide encouraged us to go there repeatedly. After all that opulence and being hounded by salesmen in period dress to buy expensive tickets to a Mozart concert, we decided that a free market would be a good alternative.

We found it easily, and were delighted to see that it was much like the familiar Pike Street Market in Seattle, with row after row of food stalls filled with gorgeous food. No one was throwing fish, but the quality and variety was amazing. Of course there were eateries and tables everywhere and of course we sat and had another coffee while watching people stroll past. In this place, though, our waiter was a lovely young girl from Istanbul who had thighs about the size of my forearm. (Actually most of the women here are incredibly slim and chic!)

She served us and left us alone, but then came right to us when we needed to pay, and then was talkative and friendly. She has been in Vienna for several years but misses her own country where the people are friendly and like to TALK. She said that learning German was hard for her, and her mixture of English with a German Turkish accent was so charming.

As we strolled to the far end of the market, the food stalls gave way to the trinket shops with a bazillion pashiminas and cheap junk and the shopkeepers became more aggressive. Men came entirely too close to me for comfort, and I was glad that my camera was firmly attached to my Cotton Carrier, and my bag was well hidden and strapped under my clothes. It was the first time on this trip that I have felt uncomfortable and unsafe. Within a very few minutes we were once again on the Ringstrasse walking back toward the U (the underground metro station) and everything felt just fine.

The metro was easy to find and easy to use, and even though it was late afternoon, we still found seats. It was nice to be able to sit down. Again, within minutes, we were home to our hotel and settled into the room for a bit of rest before we decided what in the world to do for dinner. There were fewer options in the district where we were located, and we decided that maybe a dinner in the hotel would be a good idea. It was an especially good idea for Melody because with her lovely red boiled wool coat she went to dinner in her pajamas. No one had a clue!

The dinner was nice, with excellent service, and the thing I loved most was this very small green salad that was served European style after our main dish was brought to us. That salad was the sweetest, most tender, tastiest, lovely thing I have eaten in a long time. We also got a complimentary “taste” for an appetizer which was a tuna mousse on a small cracker. Looks quite tiny on the plate, but oh my! it was tasty. The tuna mousse was fresh and mild and the cracker needed something to keep it from levitating it was so light and fresh.

After a considerable wait for our bill, Melody finally said, “Mom, you just go on up to the room and I’ll hang around here to pay.” We were both much too tired to even care what the meal cost, much less figure it out from Euros to USDollars, but I finally did discover when I got my credit card bill it came to a bit more than $80. A deal at any price since it didn’t require going out when we were just plain worn out.

We both loved a lot about Vienna, but both of us were ready for the next stage of our trip. Tomorrow we travel to Prague!

I am still processing photos for this day and will put in links this evening if you are interested. Come back and check later.

Tour Day in Vienna ends with a Police Escort October 9

The sunrise this morning was gorgeous. More so because of all the clouds, I am sure, and it was clear that our day ahead might be a bit dreary. After a long night of being pretty darn sick, even with the medicine, and the frustration of trying repeatedly to get the WiFi to work, I wasn’t feeling very happy. Our breakfast buffet downstairs in the dining room was huge and very crowded, but the breakfast was good. I still found some good yogurt and muesli and there were lots of fruits and pastries available. I tried one, but it wasn’t that exciting, not like the croissants in the much less fancy hotel in Budapest.

Stuff I learned on this trip: If you have two people traveling with 2 SLR’s, 2 iPhones, and one iPad to process it all, the photos will become very close to unmanageable. If I ever go to Europe again, the SLR will stay home and I will use a nifty point and shoot. Even with the SLR, my photos this time are still more about content than the kind of quality I can get with the SLR over a point and shoot. The weight isn’t worth it to me unless I am going to someplace that is incredibly scenic and I actually have the time to take some serious photos. But back to the day at hand.

It is dreary, overcast, and the temperature feels a bit chilly today. I decided to wear a jacket and my warm sweater, and carry just one stick instead of two, but then thought better of that idea. I also am wearing my Cotton Carrier for the camera, but by the end of the long days, I feel like I am in a straight jacket! Still, I couldn’t manage it any other way, since it gets incredibly heavy around the neck and over the shoulder doesn’t work at all. I love my Cotton Carrier.

After breakfast we met downstairs for our morning bus tour with another new local guide, a snarky and completely entertaining man named Gearhart. He has a bit of an “attitude” I would say about the socialist government of Austria, and told some really funny stories. He had an interesting perspective on the local culture and I loved his humor. Some of the women on the trip later made the comment that he was more focused on being “cute” than on imparting information, but I didn’t agree at all. I learned so much from him about the history of Vienna in relation to the rest of Eastern Europe. He stated specifically that Vienna is what it is today because the United States made the decision to save Vienna from the Soviets. Vienna was on the very edge of the Iron Curtain, and according to Gearhart, the rest of Europe didn’t care much about the little city out there in the east. Even though Vienna had to be rebuilt after the war, there was a huge difference in what happened to Vienna compared to what happened in Budapest and Prague, and he attributed that directly to the United States and its intervention.

As we rode across the Danube toward the city, we could see the spire of St Stephen’s dominating the skyline. The central part of Vienna is a large circle with the church at the center and surrounded by the Ringstrasse, a large beautiful boulevard that circles the city. He encouraged us to use the Metro, and to walk the city because it was almost impossible to get lost. Look for the church, walk the opposite direction to the Ringstrasse, and you know where you are. Our bus did quite a tour of the city, impaired now and then by one of the hundreds of horse drawn carriages filled with tourists, and gave us the opportunity to see where we might want to go later in the afternoon in our free time.

First on the tour was the Hundred Waters House. We emerged from the bus to a long wall of tourist shops filled with inexpensive goods that Gearhart dissed with one of his snarky remarks. We all laughed, but I did notice that on the way back to the bus, many of us were buying some of those inexpensive goods, including a truly lovely scarf that Melody found. Cheap is not always a bad thing! Hundertwasser House is down a pedestrian mall and is hard to even describe. If you are interested in environmental buildings and a true greenie and creative artist, read about Hundertwasser. Quoting from Wiki:

“Hundertwasser’s original and unruly artistic vision expressed itself in pictorial art, environmentalism, philosophy, and design of facades, postage stamps, flags, and clothing (among other areas). The common themes in his work utilised bright colours, organic forms, a reconciliation of humans with nature, and a strong individualism, rejecting straight lines”.

Our next stop on the tour was the summer residence of Maria Theresa (Theresia in some texts), the Schonbrunn Palace. Schonbrunn is a UNESCO World Heritage site, and is supposedly the most visited site in Austria. Owned by the Habsburgs for centuries, following the downfall of the monarchy in 1918 it became the property of the Austrian government. A bit of trivia ~ John F Kennedy and Nikita Krushchev met here in 1961.

Even though we were arriving early in the day, the tour groups were already gathering in the courtyard in front of the palace for their entry times. Our guides were all paranoid about being at the gate at exactly the right minute for our entrance. I guess it is another time when it was OK to have guides to deal with all this.

Styled to imitate Versailles, the house is imposing and somewhat sterile from the front entrance. Once inside, however, it was breathtaking. Of course, we were not allowed to take ANY photos at all, not a single one of the interior, since of course they want to sell their expensive picture books in the gift shop. We didn’t buy any. The tour was accompanied by reams of information about the Habsburgs and about the Empress Maria Theresa, who was an incredible ruler who had great armies and knew how to use them to control a very large part of the world. She did all this while having 16, yes 16 babies! It was important to these royal families to reproduce, since they had unhealthy children that often died and passing on the monarchy was of utmost importance.

Another little tidbit. If someone was called “The Good”, instead of “The Great” or “The Strong”, it probably meant that they were sickly and would die fairly young. These families repeatedly married first cousins to keep the royal blood pure. Epilepsy was a severe problem in the family and grew worse over the centuries.

Once we finished the tour of the interior of the house, we were given just half an hour to find our way back outside to the gardens. There was a lot to see here, and once again, our timing was much too short. Melody walked as fast as she could all the way to the sculpture at the far end of the garden while I tried to have enough time to appreciate the perfectly symmetrical hedges and trees and take some photos. Even in the overcast light, the gardens were beautiful.

Our guide again mentioned that all these sites are actually owned by the Austrian government, including the famous Opera House, and there are more than 60 different operas performed there in a year. You can come for a week and see a different opera every single night. Of course, this is all paid for by the state, meaning the people’s taxes, and Gearhart made another snarky comment about thinking that maybe the government could make do with 40 different operas per year instead of 60. He told us that children aren’t very popular in Vienna, and people also hate to pay taxes, and the cost of living is very high. Somehow the equation doesn’t add up and he wonders just how long Austria can continue the way it is going with no children coming up to pay the taxes to support all this government supported “stuff”. It was interesting to hear.

Our tour part of the day ended in the center of town at the great cathedral of St Stephens. As we toured these cathedrals, it became more and more clear that a Cathedral here is most often a very large cemetery, with chapels filled with crypts and graves beneath the stones in the floors.The group returned to the hotel for the afternoon, but we chose to stay downtown, and Ellen and Roger decided to stay with us. Melody wanted to see the catacombs beneath the great St Stephen’s Cathedral, and we found the group tour was beginning within the hour. It gave us just enough time to walk around the square a bit and marvel at the architecture.

A soft spoken young man gathered the tour group and began speaking in German. UhOh. Is this tour going to be all in German? German has always seemed to me to be a somewhat harsh language, but his voice was musical, lyrical and soothing. I didn’t care if it was German, or if I understood a word. Then, he started speaking in lovely English, explaining to us softly that the beautiful copper pots surrounding us were filled with the entrails of the Habsburgs and some had the very special donation of a Habsburg heart which I guess all the cathedrals coveted. The room was quite tight and small.

As we moved deeper into the depths below the church, we heard stories of all the royalty entombed there, and then the stories of the plague and we found the bone rooms, where hundreds of dead plague victims were thrown because there was no time for burial. Later the bones were stacked like firewood and as we looked into the room, it took a minute to realize that the walls were made of human bones. To me it was interesting, to Melody it was devastating. She burst into tears and as we emerged from the church she said that all she could think of was that those people had lives and families and they were nothing more than bones in a wall. Even with the photos and the exhibits at the House of Terror, I don’t think Melody has any idea of what she would see in the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC. She might have to get a bit older and a bit more jaded before she visits that place.

By the time we came out of the church, it was late afternoon, and we decided that Lorena’s suggestion of “a cawfee” in Vienna was a great idea. The four of us found an outdoor cafe on the pedestrian mall, with nice big patio heaters going strong in the canopy above us. I ordered an Irish Coffee and I must say I have never had one quite so strong! And I am not talking about the coffee part! Roger had a Pilsner, and Melody a Viennese Cappucinno and Ellen had some kind of tall fruity thing that looked wonderful but cold! We all tasted each other’s goodies, and Melody and I switched!

We are all tired, and this evening is a special extra tour (an extra fee of course) to the Prater Ferris Wheel and the hills west of Vienna for a special local dinner in the area where there are a lot of vineyards. It was time to find the Metro, which was just a few feet away beneath us, figure out the tickets and the stamps, and be sure that we got off at the right stop on the other side of the Danube. It was simple and fast, and within fifteen minutes we at the Metro exit just a couple of blocks from the hotel.

I knew that the Prater Ferris Wheel would be a delight and it was. The Prater has a wonderful history, beginning in 1766, when Emperor Joseph II donated the area to the Viennese as a public center for leisure. We arrived at the magical evening hour when the light is just beginning to wane and you can see the lights of the wheel and the carousel even though it isn’t dark yet. The Prater Ferris Wheel was destroyed at the end of the war in 1945 but the city knew how important it was to the people and it was rebuilt in 1947. The ride only lasted 15 minutes, with the special dining car just below us and the view of the city in the distance. I loved it.

One of my favorite moments of all of Vienna was here when we were back on the ground at the base of the wheel. There were people eating cotton candy, there was a “hammer” and people screaming, and the ferris wheel was turning above me. Behind me were the bumper cars with kids yelling and all this was accompanied by music across the loudspeakers from the Vienna Waltzes. Somehow bumper cars and symphony music just seemed so incredibly wonderful there in the park.

Back on the bus for our tour to another part of Vienna, up a bit in the hills, to our restaurant for the evening. It was still cool and rainy, and the tourists that usually fill this small street were much fewer than during the summer months. The restaurant was warm and friendly and there were local musicians singing and playing folk music. Another large group of tourists were in the back room singing and dancing along with the band and having a great time. I wondered how many local people actually frequented this restaurant, famous for its winery.

The dinner was family style with a couple of glasses of their wine and included salads of cucumbers and tomatoes and pickles, and then huge platters of roasted pork, ham, and roasted potatoes along with some amazing tasting sauerkraut with finely minced vegetables. The glasses of wine were big pints, like beer, and by the end of the evening we were all feeling pretty warm and fuzzy. The life stories started coming out again, and the jokes and laughter were raucous and fun.

On our way home, our great bus driver Paul, somehow hit the wrong exit and ended up trapped with the big bus right at the entrance of a big parking garage. UhOh! Within a minute there was a car of mean looking policemen trying to figure out what he thought he was doing. Lorena came to the rescue, leaned over Paul, and batted her big brown eyes at the policemen while she explained our predicament. Those guys just melted, and gave us a police escort while Paul backed the big bus out to the freeway again. Lorena laughed later, and in her imitable Argentinean accent said, “I know how to play blond when I need to!”

I’ll close my story of this day with a little note I got from Jeanne after she read my last blog post about the Weiner Schnitzel.

hey sue—i am with melody about the schnitzel! i grew up on the stuff– mom made it a lot, since she grew up with an austrian father. of course we loved saying WEENER! i have never really liked it. what is so special about flattened meat coated with bread and fried??? personally i think austrian food is terrible. ha ha ha. have eaten plenty of it and i have spent some time there too, visiting relatives and skiing. i do still love spaeztle though. and my grandpa used to make some really good things my mom called “peasant food”. i think it was stuff dirt poor people would eat. one was called “ribble” and was basically old hot cereal fried in butter with sugar on top. the other was “kaiser shmaren” which means kings mess. we would save old bread ends in the freezer, then you tear it into bits, soak it in egg and fry it in butter and put sugar on top. kinda like french toast nuggets. and finally, “gruba” (no idea how to spell these things) which was a big chunk of fat, cut into bits, salted and broiled to make mini fat crispies. yum!

Photos from our first day in Vienna are posted online here

testing the blog feed

Seems as though a bunch of recent posts are not coming through on my blog feed so not showing up in the blog rolls. This is a test. I see that this post has shown up on the blog rolls of some of my favorite blogs, so in case you think I haven’t been posting, there are a couple recent posts you might want to read. I have been missing your input a lot!