Saturday, May 31, 2014

Day 2 - Vienna (part 2)

The original plan was to leisurely head to St. Peter's (near our hotel) for a choir concert by 3 p.m. However, our little side trip to Salm Brau took us farther from St. Peter's, but very much closer to Belvedere Palace.

Of course, upon realizing this, I convinced (told) Brendan that we could squeeze in JustOneMoreThing. (Hey, we can be leisurely when we're back home!)

The palace's museum houses a couple of the most well known artworks of Vienna, including "The Kiss" by Gustav Klimt and "Laughing Man" by Richard Gerstl. The latter is literally a self-portrait of the artist laughing - which sounds adorable until you learn that it was completed shortly before he committed suicide. Brendan was unimpressed by "The Kiss" (and anything else Art Nouveau) and both of us deemed "Laughing Man" as one of the creepiest paintings ever.

The Belvedere complex includes both upper and lower palaces, and is surrounded by gardens. It was built in the early 1700s as a prince's summer residence. The rain let up (thankfully) for our walk from the lower palace to the upper palace/museum through the gardens.
Since we were now officially far from St. Peter's, we had a bit of a walk back to the underground and caught a train to our home base, St. Stephen's Square. We passed a few interesting things on the way: a pharmacy, where we scored another free toothbrush - our third free toothbrush of the trip after the two complimentary ones at the hotel ("I thought you had packed that!"); a man peeing against the Belvedere Palace wall after parking his brand new BMW (wtf); and a late-1600s statue or "mercy column" (below) created at the end of the last plague epidemic.

Even though it was still early afternoon, we were both a little tired from jet lag and sightseeing and needed a dry place to rest before taking on the rest of the evening. Luckily, I had noticed the Northwestern University International Choir was performing at an organ concert at St. Peter's. We entered the beautiful early-1700s Baroque cathedral and chose a pew near the alter as our concert seats.

The concert was free with a donation, and the church was packed as the music began. My favorite thing about music is that it's definitely a universal language -- you could sense the peacefulness and beauty of the music being experienced by everyone in the church, no matter where we had traveled from.

Fun facts: In 1970, Peterskirche (St. Peter's Church, interior photos below) was transferred to the priests of Opus Dei (of da Vinci code fame). And the earliest church building (none of which exists today, other than by name) dates to the 12th century.




Exterior of St. Peter's Church
 

Loved the city streets - quintessential European pedestrian throughways (only permitted vehicles allowed), lined with shops and pretty post-war rebuilt architecture.
After the concert, we walked (less than 5 minutes, thankfully) back to the hotel to rest a bit before grabbing pre-dinner drinks at the hotel bar, which included a great view of St. Stephen's and the pedestrian & shop-lined streets surrounding it. While at the bar, Brendan tasted his first schnapps of the trip (too strong for me!).
 
Drinks with a view, only an elevator ride away from our room!

Couldn't enough of the view from our hotel bar.
Then, we enjoyed another traditional Austrian meal for dinner, and while I loved the taste of the local food, I was starting to become concerned that I would soon no longer fit into my clothes.
 
Eh. We can worry more about that while we're being leisurely at home...
 
Auf Wiedersehen!
 
 




Thursday, May 29, 2014

Day 2 - Vienna (part 1)

Still slightly on U.S. time, we woke up quite early on Friday and were at the hotel's breakfast by 7 a.m. As we enjoyed breakfast in a café overlooking the cathedral, Vienna was making a very good first impression.

It might have been cold and rainy but we're from Seattle, dammit. And us Seattleites don't let weather woes ruin our plans, amiright?

Trusty umbrellas in hand and plugged into our best buddy Rick Steves' podcasts, we left the warm and dry hotel to begin exploring.


One perk of shoulder season: the natives aren't yet on holiday. A small group of school children were finishing Mass at St. Stephens' as we began our visit. It definitely brought back memories of my time at JFK Catholic Grade School, although our school masses weren't nearly this impressive! We started to explore discreetly as they finished mass by singing "This Little Light of Mine" in German. A more lovely start to the morning was not possible.  

Mozart's baptismal font.

We climbed 344 stairs to the top of the south tower. And might have walked off half of the previous night's schnitzel dinner.
The south tower view was totally worth the 344 stairs. The clerk was helpful and encouraged us to pick up a free map from the nearby TI because his maps were "4 Euros and crappy."

The "viewpoint" actually ended in a gift shop. Tacky, yes, but also warm and dry! And we had the entire area to ourselves, dodging a bullet of 20 loud school children who bursted in as we were leaving.



It was too rainy to walk to the next sight, so we took the underground -- the cleanest underground I've ever experienced -- to Karlskirche (St. Charles' Church). This 18th century church is considered one of the most outstanding Baroque churches in Vienna.

The church was undergoing major renovations at the time of our visit, but the scaffolding is only an eyesore in disguise of a unique opportunity: visitors can take an elevator and climb the remaining scaffolding to view the top of the cupola from the inside. Images that look beautiful from the floor look much different up close as they were painted to look dimensional from the ground, not from a bird's eye view.

Enroute to the church: A Starbucks across from a McDonalds. Welcome to America. Or the Vienna underground.

Karlskirche (St. Charles's Church)


Renovations are a necessary and expected part of European travel -- remember our visit to the Bridge of Sighs in Venice? But not all renovations come with a ride!




I heart audio guides.
After following the Trail of Broken Umbrellas (you couldn't pass a garbage can without a poor dead umbrella sticking out from it), we next visited the Wien Museum Karlsplatz. I'm a sucker for city museums -- what can I say? I like context! -- and Brendan enjoyed the city models and armor displays. We both got a kick watching another group of school children explore the museum. Apparently goofing off, running, and subsequently getting scolded by teachers is the universal field trip experience.

All this sightseeing and learning was making us hungry, so after consulting the only resource available (my Top 10 pocket guidebook) we skeptically made our way to one of its featured restaurants and were pleasantly surprised with good food and a fun atmosphere. Salm Brau is housed in a 17th century wine cellar, and we especially enjoyed the flute-heavy acoustic version of Santana's "Smooth" playing on the house sound. (It sounds weird, but trust me -- it was cool.)

Also, single ladies, you should stop by Salm Brau because I found ALL the men of Vienna. A group of 20+ guys were also enjoying lunch there. 



 Until next time… Auf Wiedersehen!

Tuesday, May 27, 2014

Day 1: Seattle/Vienna

While I was blessed with a love for travel, I was definitely not blessed with a long attention span. This does not bode well for cross-oceanic plane rides.

Luckily, over the years, I've learned how to properly prepare for spending 9+ hours strapped to a chair. Here's my detailed plan:
  • Step 1: Enjoy the in-flight dinner and maybe one movie because all the lights are on and there's too much commotion to sleep.
  • Step 2: Memory foam plane pillow.
  • Step 3: Ambien. Lots of Ambien.
After a nine hour flight, we had a three hour layover in London before another two and a half hour flight to Vienna. I enjoyed flying into Heathrow at first because it brought back memories of my month in London as a college student. (Of course, traveling back then included more hostels, more UV vodka, and less of anything else requiring funding.)

One of my favorite photos from my study abroad in London, 2005. I'm on the right (yes, and blonde!)
Playing bocce ball in Hyde Park.
But the sunny trip down memory lane started to fade after the ridiculous process between Plane A and Plane B. We needed to deplane, tram to Terminal 5 aka An Absolute Zoo, go through security and passport control, wait for the gate to be announced, passport check at the gate, and finally bus to the new plane and carry our bags up the stairway à la Air Force One style.

But oh, was it worth it.

As we taxied into central Vienna from the airport, the foreign language billboards, European license plates, and Baroque architecture immediately made me feel a million miles from home and full of excitement for the upcoming days. After spotting the Ferris Wheel featured in The Third Man (which we watched in this post), I officially couldn't wait to explore.

St. Stephen's Cathedral. You can see the red letters of our hotel on the building on the right.
After checking into the Hotel Am Stephansplatz - located just steps from St. Stephen's cathedral, an amazing sight even at night - we braved the cold, rainy, and darkening evening to find somewhere nearby for a quick dinner. After walking in circles for a few minutes, we finally decided on a restaurant that served schnitzel and featured a pianist playing an upright sandwiched between tables and the bar.

After a long day of travel, a hearty meal and music were the perfect welcome to this city known for both.

Note on hotel for travelers: We were very pleased with the hotel, and scored a cathedral-view room even though we only paid for a city-view. (It probably helped that we traveled during shoulder season and I typically behave like a cranky 80-year-old woman when booking rooms. "We're so sensitive to noise and would appreciate a higher floor!") The hotel couldn't have been more centrally located as it was in the same square as St. Stephen's and directly across from the underground. The hotel breakfast was delicious and served in their restaurant overlooking the cathedral, the room was spacious with great layout (especially for European standards), and the beds (European-style with two twins combined) were almost as comfortable as the one at home!

Sorry not many photos from Vienna on our first evening! More coming in future posts, I promise!

Sunday, May 25, 2014

Grüss Gott from Austria!

Austria was assuredly an awesome adventure. Can you tell "A" is my new favorite letter?

We're both still somewhat recovering from jet lag, PVD (post-vacation depression), and PVTDs (post-vacation to-do's). You really don't want to see the pile of dirty laundry I have to do. And I thought the Alps were large mountains...

To help with the PVD, though, I'm taking a break from yard work (as Brendan mows... haha), laundry and sorting mail to start my favorite of the PVTDs... blogging!

Like with my Italy entries, I'll try to include details that might be helpful for others planning to travel where we visited. But if you ever want to know more, please ask, comment, or email me at heather.nicole.hansen@gmail.com. I love talking in general, but talking about traveling... well, to quote Austria's own Sound of Music... that's one of my favorite things.

This was our first time traveling to Europe in shoulder season. July through August is peak for Austria, so May is very much NOT in this window. But our lucky travel stars still mostly aligned for us, and we were blessed with small(er) crowds, ridiculously lucky hotel accommodations (more on that later), mostly open attractions (some by the skin of our teeth), and excellent weather for two-thirds of our trip.

The non-excellent weather one-third of the trip was luckily in Vienna, which hardly hampered our travel plans.

From the mountains...
 

To the city...


Our trip spanned staying in three cities (Vienna, Hallstatt and Salzburg), visiting two countries (Germany in addition to Austria), and making countless memories. I'm looking forward to sharing a small portion of those in this blog --- more entries coming soon!

Until then... Auf Wiedersehen!