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Published: March 24th 2008
WE LOVE AUSTRIA!!
We were excited to see Vienna and Innsbruck because we love to travel and explore. We never expected to fall in love with the country and leave wishing we could stay forever!!
Now that we have spent a few days in both cities, we find ourselves wondering why more Americans don't travel there as well. We always hear of trips to Europe with such destinations as: Paris, Rome, Madrid, London, etc. It's not everyday you meet someone who has been to Austria just for a vacation. We found Austria, even a large city like Vienna, to be clean, safe, and beautiful. Here is some historical background into the area and our trip details!
Vienna is a great mix of old and new, but mostly it's just old! Their number one industry is tourism and it's no wonder why! The Hapsburgs ruled what began as the Austro-Hungarian Empire from 1278 to 1918, but eventually had their main residences (both summer and winter) in Vienna. For this reason, there is a tremendous amount of old archetecture (even if, in one case, a McDonald's currently occupies the building!) They invested a lot of their money in
monuments, palaces, and gardens in the city and today they are beautifully maintained and most are open to the public for tours, visits, and performances. During the 19th century as the capital of the Austrian Empire and later Austria-Hungary, it temporarily became one of Europe's biggest cities. Since World War I, Vienna has been the capital of the Republic of Austria.
We left at 5am Friday morning...in a blizzard! We haven't seen any snow here all winter and yet in the week preceeding our trip we had snow almost continuously. We went to bed on Thursday with no idea we would wake up to about 4 inches of snow! Not only that, but it was still coming down; hard in some places along the way! The drive should have taken about 5 hours, but it was more like 7 hours because we were in 4wheel drive and stuck behind snow plows throughout our drive in Germany. Once we crossed the border into Austria, the snow almost instantly dissapated and we were free to continue at a more normal pace.
The creation and expansion of the European Union has had an interesting effect on travel. Before the
Old Vienna
crowded streets over holiday weekend'open borders' policy between member countries, a Customs stop was obligitory when crossing into another country, whether by plane or car. In 2001, when we drove from France into Spain we crossed through what resembled a toll booth (like what we see on the Mexican/American border). We had a rental car and were waved through impatiently by French/Spanish customs agents without even slowing down. This weekend was the first time we've driven across the German border and I was expecting the same situtation as we had had in France. This time, however, there was no structure. We saw a sign on the side of the road with the European sticker with an A to show we had entered Austria and a picture showing their speed limits. It is now just as easy as driving from state to state in America.
We arrived in Vienna and had some trouble finding our hotel at first. We had an address but TomTom led us to a small square (Platz). There were no signs or identifying marks on any of the buildings, so we drove around for a while before we figured out that our hotel is actually in a residential building!
St. Stephans Cathedral
The roof is made with glazed, colorful roof tiles. It was on the 4th floor of an apartment building which also contained private residences and small businesses. It is such a small 'pension' that they only have morning and evening hours. So we parked our car on a nearby street and set off on foot to find some food and consult our city map.
Italian gelato can be found virtually everywhere in Europe and we found one just a few blocks away. We had "Eis" (pronounced 'ice') as the Germans refer to it, and began our walk back to the car. We got there to find a parking ticket on our windshield! And they were so kind as to put it in a plastic cover so it would not get ruined. So, the short trip to the Eis Cafe cost us an extra 21Euro. Sweet!! Now we have a ticket in Austria to match our ticket from Germany. (German plates have two separate stickers, one for inspection and one for registration, and each plate gets one of the stickers. According to German law, one must be displayed in the front while the other must be in the back. The car dealer put the plates on the 4Runner
St. Stephans Cathedral again
the streets are so narrow I can't back up far enough to fit it all in!! and apparantly he put the plates on backwards. Being the Germans we have come to love, they actually had a police detail in the IKEA parking lot to ticket for just such an offense!! Lucky us.)
After parking the car in a tiny, underground garage we started walking into the center of the city. We saw St. Stephan's Cathedral with it's glazed tile roof. What an impressive building! Although there was some scaffolding and a tarp covering parts of the church, the tarp showed what the church should look like. It was great to see it as it should look. When I was in Paris for the first time, Notre Dame was covered from the ground up to the ceiling with a blue tarp. It was hideous and incredibly disappointing to get there and not be able to see it!
We walked to the Hofburg quarter where we saw the building used for the Winter Riding School. It's an incredible building and to think that with all the pillars and beautiful archways and chandeliers, they actually have horses inside and not an art museum or something of the like is pretty neat. We didn't get to
see the horses train or perform - it's quite expensive and we were on a time constraint. Maybe next time....
Behind the Riding School is the Hofburg complex. Once again, we were struck by the architecture and layout of the buildings and grounds. From here we could see the Rathaus across the way. It was time to make our way back to our hotel to check in and then have dinner. We ate at an Italian restaurant near the center of town and then walked back for some zzzzz's.
The next day we were up bright and early. We packed up our stuff, loaded it back into the car, ran to a nearby bakery for coffee and a chocolate crossant (or two, or three....) and came back to the square in front of our hotel to wait for the bus. The day before we had bought tickets for a 3 hour bus tour and tour of Schloss Schönbrunn, and they were sending a van to our hotel to bring us to the main departure location.
The bus tour was great (and in English...always a plus!) We drove around for an hour with the tourguide pointing
Vienna streets and buildings
notice the statues on top of the buildings out monuments, historic buildings, and points of interest. In all, I prefer a walking tour but the bus tour was a way to see everything in a short amount of time. After the hour drive, we made our way to Schloss Schönbrunn where we had a 1hour guided tour and 30 minutes free time to explore in the gardens. We saw the monument to Beethoven, who composed many of his most famous works while living in Vienna. The Opera House was impressive with its arches and statues in the front windows. We passed Parliament where a statue of Athene stood in front. She is symbolic of political wisdom and holds Nike, the goddess of victory in her right hand. The tourguide said that Austrians say that all of the wisdom is located
outside of the Parliament building. Cute 😊
We arrived at Schloss Schönbrunn and began our tour. Unfortunately, photography is prohibited inside the building. It was quite a show of money inside - it's incredible to think that one family could have so much money to create a palace of this size and grandeur for their summer residence. The palace is modeled after Versailles, but is a
Great atmosphere
Even the bathroom signs fit into the archetectural scheme little smaller. It has the grand lawn leading up to the entrance, the 'hall of mirrors' (although it is not referred to by this name in Vienna), and symmetrical gardens in back. When Empress Maria Theresia lived there (1717-1780) she had a staff of 2000 people! 200 of whom were responsible solely for lighting and caring for the thousands of candles around the palace! (Her youngest daughter, by the way, was Marie Antoinette...)
We went to a Viennese coffee shop after the tour and tried some of the local specialties and their extremely strong coffee!! Romas asked for a coffee and got what turned out to be espresso with whipped cream. The menus were very different and didn't have Coffee, Cappuccino, Espresso, etc. Each of the coffees had names, such as: Einspänner, Schlagobers, or Kaisermelange which makes it difficult to order!!
We said goodbye to Vienna with resolve that we would be back to see more (and soon!) We were off to Innsbruck to ski.
We drove west from Vienna and, if you look at a map of Austria, you can see that the Autobahns run through Germany and then back into Austria. We
Winter Riding School
This is where they train and show the Lippanzaner horses...not too shabby!! didn't realize this until I was driving in the right lane in Austria going absurdly slow thanks to the hundreds of highway speed cameras and incredibly slow speed limit and I thought I saw a sign that said "Bundesrepublik Deutschland" (Republic of Germany). Just as I started to say, "Are we in Germany again?" I had my answer. Two cars, an Audi and a BMW with Germany plates came flying past me in the lefthand lane. Yes, we were once again in the land of no speed limits!! YAHOO!!!
We arrived in Innsbruck around 7pm, checked into our hotel and then went the the hotel restaurant to have some dinner. I had Turkey cordon bleu and Romas had Weiner Schnitzel. We also tried some more of the typical Austrian desserts!! How could we resist!?!? We really enjoyed the atmosphere of our hotel and would definitely stay there again. We got some information on local skiing and went to bed.
We decided not to ski at the mountain closest to the hotel. Snow has not been as plentiful as usual in the area and the ski trails end in grass!! We were told we'd be able to
Different Civilizations
Looking down about 20 feet at walls from distant civilizations; each was built upon the grounds of its predecessor. ski about 1/2 way and then we'd have to take the godola back up to start again. We opted to ski at Stubaier Gletscher (a glacier) because it would be snowy and we wanted to be able to say we had skiied a glacier! 😊
It was a 45minute drive from Innsbruck and when we got to the base, we saw the parking lot filling up quickly!! We had to take a gondola up past the midpoint in order to rent skis. Not a good place to go it you're afraid of heights. The only way up is in the gondola and you gain some serious altitude on your way up!!! It was definitely unnerving!! We rented our skis and headed out to the bunny slope for a refresher. After two "runs" (if you could call it that!) down the bunny slope, we took a chair lift up to a beginner trail. Romas is a much better skiier than he let on, as I was about to find out!! As I was flailing around, snow plowing, and falling less than elegantly, Romas was skiing backwards, talking to me!!
After lunch we took the lift up to
Hofburg - Statue of Emperor Franz
He proclaimed the Austrian Empire in 1804 and dissolved the Holy Roman Empire two years later. the summit. It was a chair lift, but because of the low temperature and snow, it had a windshield on it! When we got to the top we couldn't see anything more than 20 meters or so in front of us. It was a little disappointing because on a clear day the view must have been remarkable. Romas' altimiter on his watch told us we were at 10,500 feet. Yikes!!! No wonder why we were huffing and puffing after only a few feet!! We took an intermediate trail down (much to my dismay!) and ended our day on a really good note. We rode the gondola down to the base and headed back to our hotel to shower and take a nap.
We ate dinner that night in a Greek restaurant in Innsbruck. The town is not the sleepy ski town I had imagined. It has a relatively large airport, university, stores, restaurants, and businesses. They hosted the Winter Olympics twice in 12 years: 1964 and 1976. We had really great food and went back to the hotel to sleep - we were heading home early the next day.
Our trip home was much easier than
Hofburg
Statue in an archway our trip out had been!! We were thankful for German autobahns after spending 4 days in Austria. We learned that the Austrians love rules and regulations. I don't think we rode more than a few kilometers at the speed limit (130km/hr) before entering a 100km/hr or 80km/hr zone. At each zone change they had speed cameras too which was a royal pain!!! The best part was that we seemed to be the only ones observing the speed rules!! The Austrians just flew right by us unphased by the signs. We already had one ticket in Austria, we didn't need another!! 😊
We absolutely LOVED Austria. We would return any time. Vienna and Innsbruck both have airports which could make the trip faster, although each leg was only about 4 1/2 hours under normal driving conditions. Innsbruck also is a haven for summer sports, such as climbing, camping, and hiking so a trip back during warmer weather is warranted. We were enamored by the entire country, down to the many castles we passed along the side of the road! We cannot wait to go back and explore more!!!
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Dad
non-member comment
Wow, it looks great! Thanks for sharing the pictures!