Last night we arrived at the apartment after 10:30pm, greeted by the receptionist at the time who, thankfully, spoke English. The apartment is huge - the largest by far we've stayed in so far. The only downside so far is that the reception is rarely manned, and when we did contact someone this morning to ask about washing, they couldn't speak a word of English.
I've been trying to find an English-German phrase book since we arrived in Munich a few days ago, but it has proven near-impossible. I'm sure that I could pick up enough for simple questions if I only had a reference, given that I did German for 3 years at school. Karina found in Paris that her French started to come back to her, but she had the benefit of a phrase book. I'm picking up the odd word here and there that I see printed on signs and tickets etc, but little else atm. There seems to be a lot less English speakers in Vienna than Salzburg.
This morning it was soon apparent that I wasn't going to be walking around today. My foot is better than yesterday, but it's still pretty much impossible
BeethovenHis final resting place, which Karina visited this morning.
to walk when I first get out of bed. So another day of rest.
Karina headed off to the cemetery which is only a few km SE of here via a single tram to see the graves of a few famous classical musicians, including Beethoven, Strauss & Brahms. There is also a monument to Mozart there as well.
She returned to bring me lunch (bread rolls) and a few bars of chocolate to cheer me up. Then she headed into the city via tram to scout out the most interesting sites and to visit the Lipizzaner (horse) Museum. We have tickets to tour the Spanish Riding School tomorrow which she's very excited about. Unfortunately, we found out that the performance shows are booked out months in advance. :(
I've spent the afternoon researching Vatican tours for Rome, and sightseeing tours and getting around in Venice. I've also worked out that Pisa is pretty much on our route up the west coast of Italy from Naples to Genova, so we'll stop there for a day or so.
Right now, heading into early evening, I'm *really* bored, not having stepped out of the apartment building since we got
here. There's about TV 20 channels, all but 2 (CNN & BBC) in German. Weird to see McCloud's Daughters (ugh!), Without A Trace, Scrubs, Malcolm In The Middle & 80/90s American movies dubbed in German.
Karina finally returned after 7pm. She had been to the city centre and reported that it wasn't really all that exciting. She has shown me her pictures and, again, half of them are horses. We opt for Italian around the corner so it's my first step outside the apartment in daylight hours. I must admit, it's pretty drab around this area (the 11th district if that means anything), almost exclusively non-descript apartments interspersed with what I assume are the odd factory and/or wharehouse. We watch a little KOQ and get an early night.
If I can't walk tomorrow I'm not sure what I'm going to do. It's definitely improving, but I just don't want to risk making it worse again. Karina is hating travelling alone as much as I am hating sitting in the apartment all day. Very, very frustrating...
ViennaKarina was pretty annoyed that these horses got in the way of her photo.
ConcertPeople dressed in period costume were trying to sell tickets to Mozart concerts.
Austria's Flag
Map of Austria