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Published: September 13th 2007
OMG!
They even have a BAG inside the trashcan! What luxury and sophistication!We are at the Hilton awaiting for a room to be ready for us as we continue our trend of early arrivals. But we got access to the Executive Lounge as usual and are stuffing our mouths with the free food. More later on our trip in. I made contact with my Austrian friend Oliver from my MBA studies and we will be hanging out with he and his Australian (you read right) fiance on Saturday!!!
My oh my! Where have all the community dogs gone? The city is incredible and is of course topping our list as our favorite now, so to be fair we will have to devise some categories in how we would rank and you cannot put Vienna in the same grouping as cities such as Belgrade or even Budapest that were for too long secondary or provincial capitals. We all know Vienna is a great city from history and common knowledge, but at least in our experience it has not been given its due and it ranks very aggressively against Paris and Istanbul.
Our Train from Belgrade
The shock began on entering our train the night before. So for the sake of good
Two Rooms!
They must have known about all of our pain and hardship on the Eastern European train. story telling and a full effect of the shock we received coming back into Western Europe, last night will be include as part of this day's blog.
We were first excited when I looked at our wagon 464, first of course realized it was not one of those CFR or RILA dogs, and after studying the codes along its base, realized that it was an Austrian wagon, marked OBB. So we went inside to our cabin, 32/34/36 and appreciated the clean lines and colors and especially the fresh smell. We sat down in our little compartment even more excited because it is slightly larger than the previous, there are black out shades on the windows, a fancy lighting package (remember we have been in Eastern Europe), a cool sink, and even a permanent chair and table. So we settled in for a card game on our fancy table and were greeted by the Austrian conductor who had the NERVE, on seeing me hunched under the top bunk to ask if I would like for him to put that bed away in the mean time. Having been accustomed to the Eastern European way, we had already accepted that the train
It's like a side-by-side fridge!
We even got a little baggy with a soap in it, water, and moist wipe! trip would not be complete without a certain measure of discomfort and we politely refused. He smiled and asked if we needed anything and we nodded our heads with a subconcious message of "please don't bring any attention on us!"
He came back later and proceeded to put the bunk away despite our request to the contrary - "no! no! no! it's okay!" we proclaimed and he continued along motioning for us to wait and see. He then disappeared from the room, made some noise in the compartment next door, and in popped his head from the connecting compartment. "You have a suite now," he said as we sat there incredulously. The compartment next door had not been booked and now Jennifer and I could each have our own space, so that night we slept in separate beds and separate cabins and we didn't sleep better on a train than we did that night. So excited were we, and consummed by this occidental service, that it turned to a bit of greed as wer quarreled over the infringement of the other on the one's space and what proper decorum should be followed when one entered the other. All this
Hilton Vienna
Located on The Vienna River across from Stadtpark . . . drugs at will! to say there is absolutely no comparison between Eastern European and Western European trains, forget that we were given two cabins, even the single cabin was far superior. The Austrian wagon was super quiet compared to our noisy clanking Romanian cattle cars. The service, well, that's an easy one.
Last Stand at the Hilton
We took one good hard look at it because it's the last time we'll be seeing and experiencing a Hilton like this, nothing like back home. Our room was very comfortable, the staff was somewhat friendly, the offerings in the Executive Lounge were free and so they tasted good, and the location, though slightly peripheral was close enough to the center to keep us happy. After snooping around inside town, if I had to spend money, I would stay at the Hotel Sacher, Hotel Imperial, or Grand Hotel on the Ringstrasse since these are old dames and our type of deal.
A City fit for an Emperor (and us)
We were still a bit tired from our train ride as it has become engrained in our subconcious that trains are to be a painful experience, but we nonetheless trudged out with a
Our Room at Hilton Vienna
They renovated them recently. One thing every hotel has had that we've stayed at is that they are super clean, can't say so much for most places in the US. will attempting to match our first day in that other Hapsburg capital to the east. We walked around mostly and it is striking to see so many well-maintained facades and so many buildings on even the most minor streets that in Bucharest or Sofia would have produced "oohs!" and "aahs!" but in this case one becomes completely jaded. We had a romantic evening and stroll back from the Rathaus and Parliament area where the parks are amazingly beautiful and well groomed and there are no rabid dogs running around to boot.
Because of our hotel's location near Stadtpark we made a beeline for Stephansdom which is of course beautiful and reminiscent, at least for us, of Koln's (read Cologne's, for the non Germanified) Dom (read Cathedral, again for the same). Unfortunately, as is the case for most buildings in town presently (and the same for Paris at our last visit), it seems they are re-working a significant number of the facades and this was the case at least for the belltower of same. We also visited an innumberable amount of churches that it would take further detailed study on our part to list properly. All were beautiful of course,
Stephansdom
They were working on the spire, according to Oliver this has been taking place for a while. and unique in many ways since many religious orders set up shop here under the influence of the Hapsburgs control of the Holy Roman Empire.
Now that things are clearing up, we also visited the MAK first, which is the Museum of Austrian Applied Arts which was a most unusual museum to us since it was more than a collection of objects with poor explanations in old vitrines with burnt out flourescent tube lights. Here they showed different pieces of furniture, procelain, silverware, crystal and other Austrian crafts through the years - all gorgeous of course as Vienna continues to live up to its ability to produce such aristocratic items.
Pictures are worth a thousand words and clearly what the ones tell below is a song. If only we had spent more time here, I know there is some more detailed exploring we could have done. There is just so so much to see in the city, just like Paris. The Austrians are an interesting bunch too, a little bit of an Italian and Slavic influence on those Germanic attitudes. It means that their food is not entirely horrible, but is not entirely wonderful either. There is clearly
Stephansdom's Tiled Roof
It's most famous part, at least this wasn't undergoing repairs! an artsy flair bred by the Roman Catholic influence as opposed to the protestant Germany.
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