Second Honeymoon in Vienna
To see the photo gallery from this trip, click here - > Austria Photos
On July 5, 2007 Anne and I headed to Europe for 8 days. It was our first trip without the kids for this length of time. We had a wonderful time. In the planning stages, I decided to go to Vienna, since I had never been there before. Anne has never been to Europe and I felt that it would be nice to go to a city that neither of us had been to before. We flew from Detroit to Amsterdam and then from Amsterdam to Vienna on KLM. KLM lost our suitcase due to the delay and gate change, but we bought clothes for one day when we got to Vienna. Fortunately, our luggage caught up with us on day two.
Figure 1 - Our hotel
I was initially apprehensive about the language since neither of us spoke German. The hotel front desk assured us that nearly every spoke English. Once we arrived in Vienna, we found that to be true for the most part.
We traded one of our two weeks in our time share for a week in Austria. We stayed at a hotel called the “Cordial Theaterhotel” in downtown Vienna, just a few blocks from the city hall, called the “Rathaus” in German.
We had dinner that first night at the film festival right at the Rathaus. Every night in July they celebrated the best films in Europe. They also had a very large plaza with food from the best restaurants in Vienna.
We slept on the plane for the most part, so jet lag (Vienna is six hours ahead) wasn’t too bad.
We
went to bed early Friday night and woke up Saturday morning well rested. Whenever I’m in a new city, I like to take a
bus tour to find the places that I’ll visit later. Anne and I took a very nice “city tour”
through an English speaking bus tour company.
The tour guide showed us some of the major palaces and museums in the
city. She also gave us a very good
historical perspective on Austria’s place in world history.
We saw many statues and memorials for victims of World War I and World War II. In addition, we saw the “Old” Vienna and the “New” Vienna. Much of Old Vienna is comprised of palaces and large homes for the Hapsburgs who ruled for nearly 700 years.
Our last stop was at the very large “summer” home of the Hapsburgs, “Schonbrunn” Palace. Schonbrunn means “Beautiful Fountain” in English. There are many very expensive paintings throughout Schonbrunn. Many of them were hidden underground during the war. The palace was fortunate in that only one bomb hit it and fortunately it did not detonate.
We spent quite a bit of time visiting the palace. The palace was home to one of Austria’s most popular Empress – Maria Teresa, who among other things introduced compulsory education for all citizens and women’s rights in the early 16th century.
Figure 4 Panoramic View of the Back of Schonbrunn
After our tour of the city, we decided to visit the Albertina Museum of Art. We saw two great exhibits – one was expressionism and the other was early 20th century photography
Figure 5 - Albertina Museum
Just outside of Albertina is a very powerful exhibit to honor the Jews who were killed in the holocaust. They are very powerful reminders of the dangers of fascism and racism.
After our visit to the museum we had lunch at one of the many Italian bistros near the shopping area in the “Museum Quarter”. There are many high end stores in this part of Vienna. It reminded me of 5th Avenue in New York.
Figure 6 - Shopping area in Vienna
Later that evening, we went to a Mozart Concert at the State Opera House. We enjoyed a great concert featuring the Vienna Mozart Orchestra along with two really wonderful opera singers. They performed several selections from Mozart’s greatest works.
Figure 7 - State Opera House
The opera house is very large and has incredible acoustics. We used to go to the Detroit Symphony Orchestra for many years and this small symphony was on par with a major symphony orchestra.
The music was great and the audience seemed to be full of Austrians who cheered loudly when they performed one of Mozart’s opera’s in German. Most of his operas were in Italian.
After the concert we had an excellent dinner outdoors at a very nice restaurant called Paul Stubens. By the end of our second night in Vienna, we realized that there were so many good restaurants it would be a challenge to not gain a lot of weight!
On Sunday morning we had overslept and missed breakfast at the hotel. We found a wonderful Austrian bistro on “Ringstrasse”, which is one of the ringed streets that lead to the museums. We had apple strudel and cappuccino. We spent most of Sunday walking and enjoying the sights. Since Austria is a very Catholic country, everything (including museums) is closed on Sundays. The restaurants were open, so later we had lunch at an outstanding Italian restaurant called IL Tempo and enjoyed the afternoon.
We also saw a movie that day. We saw an old classic about Austria called “The Third Man”. The film was shown in the original English. I had seen this film in college. It was about a smuggler named Harry Lime, played by Orson Welles. The movie was set in 1950, when Vienna was run by the US, Russia, Britain and France. It’s become a cult classic in Austria. It was funny seeing our hotel and the square we were shopping in the day before, completely in ruins following World War II. Today, tourism is very popular in Vienna, so the city was very well restored many years ago.
After the movie we saw St. Stephen’s Cathedral. It was built in 1137 and was quite amazing inside and out.
Figure 8 - St. Stephen's
It was fortunate to have survived the bombing in World War II.
The inside of the church was quite amazing. There are paintings dating back before the Renaissance.
Figure 9 - Inside St. Stephen's
After we toured the inside of the cathedral, we climbed the stairs in one of the spires and had an amazing view of Vienna. We could also see the famous ferris wheel from “The Third Man”
Figure 10 - View from the top of St. Stephen's
Figure 11 - Another view from atop St. Stephen's
Later that day, as the sun was setting, we toured “Volksgarten” (people’s garden) where we saw some more statues and some very nice flowers. The garden was established by Maria Teresa in 1730 for the people of Vienna to enjoy.
Figure 12 - Volksgarten fountain
Anne was amazed by the number of different types of roses throughout the garden.
Figure 13 - More shrubbery at the Volksgarten
One thing we noticed about Vienna (and Austria in general), it’s a very dog friendly place. Most restaurants allowed dogs, there were dog drinking fountains and the cities were set up for dog parks throughout every district.
Figure 14 - Dog Drinking Fountain
We ended up having dinner Sunday night at a small café where the chef came out to our table and strongly suggested what we should order.
On Monday, we decided to visit an old monastery in a town called “Melk”, about 75 kilometers east of Vienna. During the trip to Melk we took the Autobahn. Everything that you may have heard about that highway is true. There is no speed limit. We had a rented Opel and could not go faster than 85. We were being passed as if we weren’t moving by many high performance cars. Most of which were going well over 120mph. The next time I go, I’ll rent something faster.
When we arrived in Melk, we visited this amazing monastery. It was built in 700AD by St. Benedict.
Figure 15 - Entering the Monastery
The monastery was filled with art and other relics dating back to the early days of the Holy Roman Empire.
After visiting the monastery, we walked through the town of Melk. We noticed a rather severe storm coming our way. Anne and I decided to run up a hill to get picture of the storm clouds over the monastery.
Figure 16 - Storm over Melk
What we found at the top of the hill was a cemetery. This made an amazing picture. The sky was actually darker; I had to lighten the picture a bit in Photoshop to see the details.
We ran into town just as the rain was hitting and had a nice lunch at the Melk Hotel.
Figure 17 Downtown Melk
We drove back to Vienna that night.
On Tuesday, it rained all day in Vienna. We decided to spend it indoors at the National Museum of Art. There we saw some great classic works of Renaissance art (mostly religious), Greek mythology, Roman art (mostly sculptures). By this day, our German was getting better. Many of the exhibits were in English and German, but as we wandered away from the main hall, we found the exhibits were captioned in German only.
We also saw many paintings from the Renaissance period from Correggio, Tintoretto, and Titian.
One of the most fascinating parts of the museum was the “cartoon” as they called it. It was a huge mural depicting life in Austria from 1150 until 1600.
We also saw Egyptian and Roman artifacts, including pottery, jewelry and many sarcophagi.
After our visit to the museum, we went shopping as the rain was letting up a bit. We had lunch at another outstanding Italian restaurant. I was starting to feel bad about the weather forecast. I had hoped the weather would be good enough for us to drive to the Alps to take pictures. When we got back to the room, Anne said she’d be right back. She met with the hotel front desk staff and got us a room in Salzburg for Tuesday night so that we could take pictures at the Alps (rain or shine) on Wednesday.
We left with just a small suitcase and the camera and drove the 300km (180 miles) to Salzburg. The weather started to clear up on the way to Salzburg. I was starting to get optimistic that we’d get good weather for hiking in the Alps and taking pictures.
By the second hour of the drive, we realized that the Alps were far bigger than we thought. We had been driving in the foothills of the Alps after leaving Vienna. As we got closer to Salzburg, we started seeing snow capped mountains.
Figure 18 - The Alps along the Autobahn
We also really discovered how “green” Austria is. While in Vienna, we noticed that all the public trash cans also have recycling bins near them for glass, metal and plastic. In the country, Austria makes heavy use of wind power
Figure 19 - Wind Power
We noticed wind power generators throughout Austria and from the air we could the wind towers in much of Europe.
As we got closer to Salzburg, I decided to pull over and take pictures thinking that it might rain the next day.
We stopped in a small town called “Mondsee”. It was one of the most beautiful places we had ever seen.
Figure 20 - Mondsee at Sunset
I took several “panorama” pictures of the mountains at Mondsee. We climbed the fence of a dock that was closed. I set up the tripod on a floating dock. Once the water settled, I was able to get a clear picture.
Figure 21 - Panorama Picture at Mondsee
After taking pictures, Anne and I sat at the dock. I told her that this was the most beautiful place I’d seen on earth.
Mondsee is about 25km from Salzburg. By the time we arrived, it was 9:15pm. We checked in quickly and found that only one restaurant was still open. It was a traditional Austrian/German restaurant that seemed more like a pub. Both of us were so hungry we didn’t care about the ambiance, but as it turned out, it was a wonderful little restaurant. The people were very friendly, though we noticed almost no one spoke English, since we were well off the ‘tourist path’. The pub was very old and seems to have a lot of locals laughing and having a good time. It was very ‘atmospheric’. The server spoke very little English, but better than our German. We also noticed that several of the locals had their dogs under their chairs. The food was incredibly good. I had no idea what I was ordering, but ended with the best steak sandwich of my life. Anne had turkey and potatoes.
After dinner, we walked back to the hotel as the rain started again. Salzburg is a very beautiful small city worth visiting. We both agreed that we were glad that we decided to drive to Salzburg. Between the scenic drive and “discovering” Mondsee we were very happy and looking forward to hiking in the Alps.
On Wednesday morning, we had a nice breakfast at the Cordial Hotel in Salzburg. After breakfast, I realized I was filling up my CF cards on my camera faster than I thought. I took my Canon 5D, which is nearly 13 megapixels and when I shoot in “raw” mode, each photo takes up 10 megabytes. Fortunately, I found a camera store in Salzburg and was able to find CF cards.
We took my Garmin Nuvi GPS with us with the Europe maps loaded. That device was a real life safer. Not only could we go way off road to do some sightseeing, but it would find our way back for us. Even when we were walking, it was portable. The only problem is that “Karen”, the voice of the GPS, really had a hard time with the German street names. We were able to take the “scenic” route and have confidence we wouldn’t get lost.
We decided against exploring the city of Salzburg, and head into the Alps. We debated about going to a “National Park” in Germany (we were right on the border in Salzburg), or go further south to Golling. We were able to find Golling with the GPS. We decided to see the “Wasserfalle oder Salzachofen” which is a beautiful waterfall in the Alps near Salzburg. We parked the car and hiked several miles uphill to the falls.
I was able to get some excellent photos of the falls by using the tripod and “dragging” the shutter. I set the camera for a very slow exposure time and a very high “f stop” to make the falls appear as milk
Figure 22 - The Waterfalls in Golling
Golling was marked on the map as being surrounded by mountains and had the added advantage of the waterfalls. The town near the path to the waterfalls was quite beautiful. Anne was very impressed with the flowers. She noted that the Nikko hydrangeas were so vivid blue that they seemed fake. She liked all the window boxes poring over with petunias and other flowers.
It was quite a hike to the waterfalls. I stopped many times for pictures. The falls were breathtaking as were the views across the valley overlooking the surrounding mountains.
Figure 23 - The Bridge through the Falls
There was a beautiful wooden bridge that crossed directly over the falls. It was quite slippery from the mist, but we saw a West Highland White Terrier crossing with his family. Austrians sure love their dogs
Anne and I remembered taking Spike to the Great Falls park in Virginia nearly 20 years ago. We thought about how much he loved hiking in the Shenandoah with us.
Figure 24 - Trekking Across the Bridge
It was a very special morning. Anne and I couldn’t get over the fact that we were hiking in the Alps. We spent about 2 ½ hours at the waterfalls and got some great photos and really enjoyed the amazing views and each other’s company.
After hiking down the mountain, we decided against going to the German National Park. We decided to go back to Mondsee to get more photos and to have lunch in the town on our way back to Vienna.
The GPS took us on a scenic route away from the Autobahn. We drove on a small two lane road from Golling to Mondsee. The weather really cooperated with us. The weather service predicted rain but the sun was out most of the day. On the way to Mondsee, we passed through some beautiful countryside areas, mostly farms and meadows and took some pictures of the Alps.
Later, we stopped on a bridge and got a couple of lovely shots over a river with locals fishing.
Everyone was very friendly. Even those who didn’t speak English smiled and wished us a “gut morgen”, or by that time “guten tag”.
We entered Mondsee and the sky was intermittently overcast. It was cool but no rain. I was able to find a road that climbed up a hill beyond Mondsee lake and get some more panoramic shots closer to the mountain.
Figure 25 - Panoramic Day Shot in Mondsee
The trip to Salzburg and the detour to Mondsee and Golling were the highlight of our trip.
By the time I finished shooting the panorama, we were getting very hungry. We headed into the village of Mondsee to eat. We found another wonderful Italian restaurant and ate under the awning looking out at the main street and shopping square.
Figure 26 - Downtown Mondsee
There were quite a few more tourists in the village, but a lot of locals too. Many of the tables at the restaurant had dogs seated underneath. Lots of small breeds primarily – bichons, wire haired dachshunds, but a few larger ones too, shepherds, labs and border collies. They were remarkably well behaved in public because they seemed to be used to it. We did some shopping and agreed to come back here again.
Shortly after that we headed back to Vienna on the Autobahn. It was after 9pm when we made it back, so we had a late night dinner at the Italian place next to the hotel.
On Thursday, we visited the “Schmeterling Haus” or Butterfly House. Anne had heard a lot of good things about it.
I was able to get some good pictures, which I’ll frame for Christine.
We spent the rest of the day shopping for souvenirs for the kids and enjoying our last full day in Vienna.
Friday, we got up early and headed to the Vienna airport for our flight home. We hope to go back one day. It was a very friendly and culturally diverse place. We’ll never forget the wonderful time we had together.