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Published: September 29th 2014
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15. Travel Blog - Tuesday 16th September to Monday 21st September 2014.
Austria – Vienna
Tuesday 16th September 2014. A long trip from Vipiteno to Vienna – but it was all on the autobahn. It was an easy journey, but still a wonderful trip travelling through the Alps. We had left at 7.30am and arrived at 3.30pm in Vienna at Camping Klosterneuburg. It was a nice campsite about 20mins by train out of Vienna centre. 5 mins to the station and bus stop. On Wednesday the water system has stopped working. Tom has a look at the fuse and it is OK and the pump is running, just no water coming through. So Tom totally pissed off with the repair job from Hymer. Tried to ring Hymer but the service Dept was closed. Send an email asking them to get someone to come out and fix it. Next to us camping is an English couple. We started talking to them - a small world, as the lady was from the company in Braintree where we had been storing the motorhome and she remembered our surname as it was unusual (she said). Sally and Garry - a very nice couple and they had a beautiful white long haired German shepherd named Casper.
We rode the bicycles into Vienna (16kms) along the canal. We went to The Weiner Prater. It was an area declared free for public enjoyment in 1766, as a retreat area. Soon taverns, coffee houses, swings and carousels were established. In 1895 they started construction on the Giant Ferris Wheel. Finished in 1897 and The Prater increasingly became an amusement park. www.praterwien.com We went on the Giant Ferris Wheel. Some of the cabins and some of the technical installations were destroyed by fire in 1944, but it still survived the war and was reconstructed soon after 1945. Some of the cabins that were not destroyed, were not mounted again and today house hundreds of hand-made figures and mechanic installations. This was well set up and showed the history of Vienna. www.wienerriesenrad.com You can hire one of the 7 cabins and have dinner/parties in there as you go round. We cycled around the whole area – very large. Then cycled off to the markets. They were not much chop – although there is more than one market. Had some lunch and then cycled back to motorhome. Gaye a bit saddle sore !!
That night we went to the bar with Sally and Gary for drinks and chatting. Tom up early next morning and does a cycle ride along the Danube. A very strong tail wind. One hour out and 1.15hr back. We then went into the village for a few groceries and a look around town. Gaye has been looking for years to find some Lapis Lazuli earrings in a gold setting and spots a jewellery shop that has these - looks like she has found her birthday present. At 3pm we went to do a wine cellar tour of the Klosterneuburg Monastery just 10 minutes walk from the campsite. The Monastery has been one of Austria’s most important religious and cultural centres for 900 years. The winery tour was not in English but we had an audioguide. It was OK, but the money would have been better spent on buying the wine instead. The building itself was majestic and interesting. http://www.stift-klosterneuburg.at/en Friday 19th September 2014. – Gaye’s birthday. We do a 12km bicycle ride along the Danube and have a coffee at a roadhouse at Hoflein a.d. Donau. We have a lazy afternoon until 5pm when Emilie picks us up for a night out.
First we drive to Modling to the Panoramic Restaurant in the hills. We wined and dined outside on the balcony with the view overlooking Vienna. Great meal and Emilie had shouted for Gaye’s birthday. Then we were off to a Cello concert at Modling to hear ‘Extracello’. They were 4 professional female Cellists. They played some classic and some contemporary music – some written by two of the Cellists. They were fantastic. The Cellists were Edda Breit, Melissa Coleman (Aussie) Margrethe Deppe, and Gudula Urgan (also singer). There was also a female poetess/actress, Linda Prelog (in many German films) about 50 to 60 years of age – who wrote her own poems. She was a scream. Not that we could understand her, but her poems were all about female problems, being menopause/men/love. She had the audience in stitches. Her facial expressions, her voice inflictions were brilliant. We were laughing along with the rest of the audience, as she was so good.
of buying a CD of the music – but Emilie had beaten us to it – and gave it to Gaye for her birthday.
try ‘Strum’. This is freshly squeezed grapes and slightly fermented. Both white (cloudy) and red – cold and very nice.
century AD.