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Published: August 20th 2008
This one's actually a no-brainer, and here's why: Vienna is flat-out boring. Seriously, no offense to the Viennese, but for the most part it's just dull and lifeless. Don't get me wrong; there's a lot of fancy stuff everywhere and the people are very friendly, but it lacks a certain je ne sais quoi. That all being said, there were two big highlights that made it a worthwhile trip (just not worth 3 nights):
1) The Belvedere Palace Museum. It had a big exhibit on Gustav Klimt, who is from Vienna, and is also the permanent home of his ''The Kiss,'' which probably a lot of you would recognise but not know the name of. Unfortunately it was one of those 'no photo' situations, so I'll just post a internet pic if that's alright with all of you. I'd seen pictures before however and they frankly don't do the painting justice, as much of it is actually done in Gold and Silver and pictures just flatten it out. What can you do. The museum also had a reasonably large impressionist collection, so I was a happy camper.
2) Visiting a Heuriger in Grinzing. For those curious, a Heuriger (pronounced
HOY-riggah) is a wine tavern where you can get very cheap and tasty homemade wine. Laura and I took the tram out one night to Grinzing; a small town near the forest outside Vienna, and sampled some of their finest (read: cheapest) wine. It was a pretty good evening.
Munich Ok, Munich was about a zillion times better then Vienna. We went on a free walking tour of the city on our first day and learned a lot of history. I had forgotten since high school that so many of the events leading up to WWII and the rise of the Nazi party took place in Munich. For example, I didn't know that the Hofbraühaus was actually a huge Nazi hangout, and the Bavarian flags painted on the ceilings are actually covering up swastikas. You can tell this when you know it already, but I wouldn't have been able to guess that on my own. Nonetheless, the Hofbraühaus today is Nazi-free and serves up a mean 1L stein of beer.
Our second day in Munich was interesting. For whatever reason, the major central park in Munich is called the English Gardens, and they have, let's say,
Vienna City Hall
The best part? The dozens of foodstalls outside!liberal laws there when it comes to clothing. It is actually a beautiful park with big open green fields, plenty of trees, and a refreshing cold river running through it, but finding a nice spot without naked old people in our line of sight was a bit of a challenge.
Anyway, we hopped on a train this morning and now we're in Brussels, which is good so far. We're digging the fries. We're just here for the one night, then we're off to Bruges. A bientot!
Cheers,
Carly xoxo
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