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!

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!

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!

The Waiting Game

The final two weeks before a trip are always an odd mix of emotions. On one hand, I want time to speed up since patience is a virtue I was NOT blessed with.

On the other, despite my uncanny planning skills, it always seems like a mad dash to tie up all loose ends at work, at home, and final trip details.

What final trip details, you ask? Oh, you know, things like:

What can I say? I'm a List Girl.

A couple things I want to point out:

• Yes, I did add "hotel confirmations" in handwriting even after I had completed that, just so I could cross off something else.
• "Alert Neighbors" sounds more scary than it is -- we just need to ask someone to keep an eye on things and pick up our newspaper on the off chance it's actually delivered.
• And the "hair straightener" item has actually been one of the more difficult tasks. Hair appliances use a whallop of voltage, and Brendan has refused to let me take my current one because it requires a super-heavy voltage converter that literally broke the sink in Florence on our last European trip.

And in an effort to be more "spontaneous" (I feel like air quotes are needed there), I've decided we'll buy the train tickets on site. (Gasp!) I know. I'm pretty proud of me, too.

As I was making the list and checking it twice, it made sense to rent another Austria-themed movie.

Good thing Brendan was out of town during this one, because I'm pretty sure he wouldn't have made it through the hyper-romantic Before Sunrise. It's an equally good thing that I love cheesy 90s romance movies - because I thoroughly enjoyed it! Before Sunrise is the tale of Jesse the American and Celene the French woman, two strangers who meet on a train and end up spending justonenight in Vienna. They fall in love, but since they live an ocean apart, decide to leave their romance as just one perfect night --- with the promise to meet up again in six months. And it stars a young(er) Ethan Hawke. Sigh.

Anyway, back to planning and tying up all those loose ends....
....oh! A new issue of Conde Nast Traveler came in the mail today. <breaks from planning and reads magazine>

Hey, whadya know? The #1 tip from Traveler's "Wendy Says" feature strikes me as a good omen, donchathink?

Until next time… Auf Wiedersehen!

Planning is My Favorite

It's hard to believe that we're less than 6 weeks away from Austria!

Flights and hotels have been booked and passports have been accounted for. (Those little buggers always manage to vanish in between trips...) While planning always brings its fair share of stresses - which hotel? how to prioritize sights? - I absolutely love the "looking forward to" part of traveling.

In addition to planning the basics like transportation, lodging, and top sights, I also try to do a little "extracurricular" research prior to traveling. From reading up on an area's history to watching movies based in the region, I think a little pre-work leads to a much richer experience. Or maybe it's just my way of managing my excitement. :-)

The first movie we watched in preparation for Austria was The Third Man, a 1940s classic set in post-war Vienna:

As much as I try to enjoy classic films - and this one is considered as one of the greatest films of all time - my attention span just isn't compatible with film noir. But it was interesting seeing the rubble of post-war Vienna, as the movie was filmed on location in the mid-1940s. Apparently, there's even a museum in Vienna based on the movie. (Yeah, that one's probably not making our top sights list...)

So for my next Austrian movie, I moved on to:

Whooot! Now that's more my style. Eastwood. Action. Unrequited love. The biggest scenes were set near Hohenwerfen Castle, which is near(ish) to Salzburg. And it featured a young Clint Eastwood and a young Richard Burton. The things I do for research.

I also just finished reading On Hitler's Mountain, a memoir by a woman who grew up outside Hitler's Eagle's Nest retreat in Berchtesgaden, Germany during WWII. We're planning to visit the Eagle's Nest on a day trip from Salzburg, so I enjoyed learning more about life in that area during the war. My Papa Joe was stationed throughout Bavaria - including Austria - during WWII (more about that in an upcoming post), so I definitely feel a connection to the area's history.

Speaking of books and movies set in Austria during WWII ...man, I really wish there was just one more movie that we could watch in preparation for our trip... maybe one that also has singing and dancing? OH WAIT:

Brendan, I think I found our next movie! :-)

Until next time… Auf Wiedersehen!

It’s official – we’re going back to Europe in the spring!

Here’s the plan:

• Day 1: Leave Seattle
• Day 2: Arrive in Vienna
• Day 2 – 5: Vienna
• Day 5 – 7: Hallstatt
• Day 7 – 11: Salzburg & Bavaria
• Day 11: Return to Seattle

Why Austria, you ask? 

While Italy was an easy choice – it was at the tippy-top of both our travel lists and we began saving for the trip pretty much as soon as we returned from our honeymoon – our next location was more of a question mark. Apparently, “the rest of Europe” wasn’t a realistic goal for one visit. :)

Back in summer 2012, we were beginning to consider options for our 2013 trip and briefly considered returning to Europe. While I’d be perfectly happy visiting Italy again, Brendan has this thing about trying new places. (Even though I was willing to compromise and visit different regions of Italy.) The new deal is that we can return to Italy when I’m fluent in Italian. Little does he know I’m getting Rosetta Stone and should be fluent in no time. Ha!

Anyway, since deep down I agree the point of travel is to expand your worldview and experience new things, I was willing to concede that a return trip to Italy may not happen in the near future. Brendan loves mountain vistas and was interested in checking out New Zealand (“it’s where they filmed Lord of the Rings!”) or the Alps in Switzerland. After nixing New Zealand/LOTR because of the epic plane ride (any flight over 12 hours nearly kills me), I was in the process of nixing Switzerland/Alps because of the steep cost of everything when I stumbled on this picture of Hallstatt, Austria:

Nestled in the Salzkammergut Region (also known as the Lake District), Hallstatt looked like a picture-perfect alpine village. It checked all the boxes: historic village center (me), a range of hiking options (him), and relatively easy access to mountain vistas (us), like this one:

Hallstatt was also a reasonable train ride from both Vienna and Salzburg, the latter of which would be a good home base if we wanted to take day trips into Germany's Bavaria region. I knew of Salzburg from its Sound of Music fame (it’s the home of the real Von Trapps and filming location of the movie) and Vienna is well-renowned for its music and art. A Vienna/Hallstatt/Salzburg+Bavaria itinerary seemed like the perfect mix of city/country and nature/historic sites.

So while we ultimately tabled this trip idea in favor of Hawaii, Austria was very much on the top of our minds when we recently began thinking about our next adventure. After getting OK’d for the vacation time (thanks, bosses!), we made the plunge and secured plane tickets & hotels!

Until next time… Auf Wiedersehen!

Plans are Brewing...

I'm back! (again)

Plans are brewing for our next big adventure - and this time, unlike last year's trip, I promise to blog more about it! 

I don't want to jinx anything until the plane tickets are booked next week, but in the meantime, you can see a few hints in the sidebar widgets. And if those don't make our potential destination obvious enough, here's one more tip....

"You're time-traveling to a musical made in 1963?!" No, not quite... :)

Hopefully, I will be back soon with confirmed plans!