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Was June 1, and I celebrated by buying a pair of mittens for €5. I subsequently lost them on a tram, oh well, as we have found out on this trip - easy come, easy go.
On this particular June 1, we made our way by train to Sound of Music town - Salzburg. the train ride in was incredibly picturesque, snow capped mountians and everything. However when we got off the train the rain that would continue for the next 3 days began. Salzburg, at least old Salzburg, reminded me of being in New Zealand's Queenstown - crisp mountain air, gondala type structures to an amazing view from the top, obviously tourist focused - I think it has to be one of my favourite european towns so far. Unfortunatley as the rain was becoming oppressive, and our 2 euro umbrellas were unequipped to deal with the conditions, the visit, which was meant to be the afternoon and evening was cut short by a couple of hours. Things of note included a creepy wax museum featuring none other than Wolfgang Amadeus, a statue of a cow with a Julie Andrews mural on it, and many pretty little cobbled streets dotted with botiques and acordian players. We opted not to go on the sound of Music tour as Tan, god knows why, is opposed to the movie even though he has only seen 15 minutes of it and it cost 40 euros. Perhaps something I will save for my mother to take me on. We did however have a great hot chocolate in the warmth and shelter of an Italian cafe. this is definatley a city I would like to come back to during better conditions. But as our reservations were in Vienna, this would be our next port of call.
It was dark when we got to Vienna and whilst trying to find our hostel we stumbled across the new version of the hostel which had opened just 15 days beforehand, we were most dissapointed to find that our reservations were in fact with the older building! the name of the hostel was Wombats and is Australian themed. Australia seems to be a running theme amongst many things in Austria and the only reason I can think why is the similarity between the names. As far as I know there is not a New Zealand themed hostel in Zeeland. There were however Australians at the hostel, having a drunken dispute which typically went along the lines of "look here mate...". The receptionist at the hostel, who was in fact Austrian was incredibly enthusiastic, so much so that I think his enthusiasim was chemically aided somewhat, considering he was still working at reception through to the next morning and managed to retain his enthusiasim.
Our room mate was a Japanese guy called Toshi who was studying ancient roman art or something and he had previously been visiting Eastern Europe and had something to say about the woman there. Hmm. To tired to participate in rowdy hostel drinking we found a rather inexpensive Chinese restaurant that served me meat with my tofu (to those of you that dont know me, I am a vegetarian, I am aware however that this had to happen sometime.)
The next day we went to a real life palace! The Schloss Schonbrunn. As I was in Belguim earlier than the other lot I havent even walked past Buckingham. We didnt go inside however - but we did frolic in the garden maze and labryinth. History that can keep the kids entertained. This particular palace was the summer home of the Hasburgs. A short climb to a monument just above the palace offers a fantastic view of the city, and a restaurant which I am sure is quite pricey. Also on this day American Express finally, after many hours (and euros) worth of phone calls on hold to Australia of all places, gave Tan back his travellers cheques he had stolen. That night we decided to be a little cultured and lined up for cheap standing tickets (only £2) to the opera, this standing thing is an excellent way to make high end culture available to everybody, I think that theatre should take note - that means you SiLo! rasing your prices to $22 + tsk. The opera was Manon Lescaut by Giacomo Puccini. It was a case of people putting the opera of yesterday into contemporary costume and setting as is widley done with Shakespeare, this mostly translated well accept for a few lines which obviously didnt quite fit. As the opera itself is in Italian we had small screens that would translate the lyrics into english - this can be very funny as nothing ever translates directly and can make what the character is saying very naff indeed, but the singing and the orchestra were superb so you can make a few concessions. This was the highlight of my trip to Vienna.
The Belvedere houses a vast collection of paintings by artist Gustav Klimt. These were amazing to see, and seemed quite outrageous in style for the period they were made. In the room were the collection was held an information stand detailed the story behind 5 Klimt paintings that are no longer available to the public as the grand or great grand children of the woman who had the paintings commissioned had taken the state to court over possession of the paintings and the court ruled in favour of the family, even though when the woman died she had willed the paintings to Austria. So somewhere out there is someone with incredibly expensive old art on their walls, what I find disgusting about this is that who knows whether it is being taken proper care of? In all these art galleries are pedantic machines measuring temperature and humidity and they are being endlessly restored.
Toshi had decided to come with us on this day and after the visit to the Belvedere we went to have a look at the Hunderwasser house. Austrians can claim Hunderwasser as one of their own but I can say that where he really wanted to live was in my country, more specifically, in the region of my hometown - although the town itself is a place called Kawakawa and its debatable whether you would actually want to live there. Anyhow in Kawakawa there is a set of public toilets that were designed by Hunderwasser just before he died, in typical Kawakawa fashion someone chucked some seeds up onto the grass roof and a marijuana plant grew there. The Hunderwasser house in Vienna is a set of apartments that look like a bigger version of the public toilets only with more tourists and disgruntled people who actually live there and I imagine are sick to death of tourists! We searched amongst the postcards in the gift shop for the Kawakawa toilets but to no avail.
As Tan was dying to follow in the coffee drinking footsteps of Trotsky and Lenin, we made our way to Cafe Centrale, which is not only famed for its notorious inhabitants of the past but also for its snooty waiters and appalling service. One couple who had more gall than I threw a tantrum and threatened to walk out when they hadnt recieved their order for which must have seemed like forever. It took long enough for our menus to come and when the coffee finally came it was lukewarm. Needless to say we short changed the tip. The surroundings however where beautiful and there was an excellent pianist. But as a former worker of the hospitality industry I expect a little better, there is no excuse for terrible service, I dont care how famous their cafe is.
For those of you who like me dont eat the national dish of Sausage or similar, Vienna has a great Indian restaurant that is resonably priced called Bombay I think, we had a fantastic dinner there, even the rice was pretty special.
On our last day we visited the museum quarter which had several art galleries, we went to the Modern art gallery and saw some circa 60's work which was from the Actionist movement. Its main intention was to shock - a reaction to the oppressive conservative nature of Austria at the time - its methods were to depict peoples genitalia covered in animal organs, or something, and photograph it. We, the children of the eighties, were not however shocked, just a little grossed out, a lesson in how art works in context. There was also a non threatning nouveax exhibit and a fantastic gift shop.
After a late lunch we got ready to leave for Lucca on a night train, as we are on a shoe string as they say, we had seats and not beds and would not be arriving in Firenze until 6.30 in the morning. A very interesting exercise in travel indeed.
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gordon
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photos dammit!
i thought you still had your digital camera.