Vienna, Austria

June 2, 3, 2008

VIENNA, Austria

Monday morning we drove a few hours through Bavaria and along the eastern side of the Alps to Vienna, Austria. Another very nice drive on very good roads. The scenery here is something to behold with the mountains, lakes, and big valleys. As you get closer to Vienna the terrain flattens out to farmland and rolling hills. For any one who has travelled to northern Alberta ( Grand Prairie, Peace River country ) in Canada you would see a lot of similar counry side with the same crops. ( wheat, canola, barley and hay crops.)

Vienna is the cultural center of Austria, and for this part of the world for that matter, with the art, music, and architecture a big part of thier lives. It is a beautiful city in the rolling countyside surrounded by farms and smaller cities and towns. They could do a little better job of keeping the city clean. Not a big deal but could be better for such an important tourist place. Maybe we were spoiled with Munich !!

Vienna is also a very important world political center and a lot of countries from around the world have a presence here because of that. Not a bad place to live for a few years if your a foriegn civil servant.

We spent our first afternoon snooping around the center of the city where most of the points of interest are. This is the 5th most visited city in the world and by the number of people visiting here, from every corner of the world, I can believe that claim. Apparently it is also the center for Punk Rockers and Goth as there are a lot of young people with strange ideas about what looks good.

Tuesday morning we walked to the city center and took our favorite, the “Hop on Hop off” bus for a city tour. This is always a very good way to see a place for the first time and we spent almost all day touring the city. We took a trip up the Danau Tower, which is over 200 meters high, for lunch and got some great views of the city and the Danube from the revolving restaurant. This really is a beautiful place and well worth the time to visit for anyone coming to this part of the world.

Tomorrow we are off to Prague, Czech Republic for another part of our adventure.

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