It's warmed up. A week ago we were all shivering as the clear cold weather sat on us day after day - I mean, Mike and I were taking the bus (of all things!) to get to and from The Hague instead of our bikes! The three marvelous days (Friday-Sunday) for ice-skating for the first time in 12 winters, all came to an end as Monday dawned...warmer (and ended with rain). Dr. Zhivago stopped to either take a deep breath or to blow in another direction, because we are so warm now that I went out yesterday, without a coat, and opened the windows in the apartment to trade stale air for fresh. Amazing how quickly it changes.
I suppose that means that our Christmas holiday really is over, because the cold weather we had in Austria followed us home and kept the feeling alive. Since Mike went back to school on Monday, I suppose that makes sense. So, even though we've been back for two weeks, let me see what I can recall about our trip eastwards and share it with you.
We drove to get there and happily had no snow on the roads; however TONS of rain and while that was not so enjoyable, we were pleased that it wasn't cold enough that all that precipitation froze and made the drive twice as long and much more dangerous. We stayed overnight in Nürnberg, in Germany before driving on to Vienna. Mike and I had been there before, last year, and loved it so much we wanted to see it again. I think most people will think of Nürnberg as a result of History lessons and the post-WWII trials held there. I know I did. No doubt there is a museum of some sort there to commemorate the trials, but that's not why we love it. The old (and rebuilt due to massive bombing in the war) and walled city centre is just fabulous. The wall and its ports surround a centre of charming cobbled streets, leading from the river (complete with island) up to the castle. At this time of year, it also houses the Christmas Market and while it was raining on us while we trolled through, we still loved it. Of course, we fortified ourselves with blueberry enhanced Glüwein to keep us warm!
One of the stops we had to make was at a comic book store that Mike found when we were there last year called Ultracomix. Aaron and Kim had been there as well, on our suggestion, when they went through a few months ago. It's three floors of comics and related accoutrements, a comic / graphic novel / role-playing games lover dream come true. There was even something for me, as I found Asterix and Tintin books bound into smaller versions and combining several editions in one cover. Fun stuff! But I digress...
We spent Sunday morning in the Christmas market and fighting our way through the crowds of people. Stands for all kinds of things, lots of food stalls, especially sausage, and a general air of impending Christmas. We could have easily stayed longer and enjoyed the city more too, but we had to get to Vienna and into our rental apartment. We drove through more torrential rain, more like driving in and through a cloud, a VERY wet cloud, but arrived safely around 9:00pm. We were quite cozy, it's a one-bedroom place with a pull out sofa bed, but we weren't really going to be spending that much time there anyway. The location was not too far of a walk from the subway line into the centre of town, we were just out from the Schönbrunn palace (the summer residence of the Hapsburgs), in the 13th District of Vienna.
I won't go through the day-by-day activities of the 11 days we were there, but try to give some highlights of the trip. At the beginning of the first week, we wanted to get through the different Christmas markets before they closed for the season on Christmas Eve. There are many around town, but if you are with people who know, and we were - Kim and Aaron had lived in Vienna for 4 years - then you can filter out a lot of them and just go to the best. So, we saw one with all the standard sort of merchandise, lots of ornaments, wooden things, and a general feeling of mass-produced holiday ornamentation. We then went to one with artisanal products, so more like an arts and crafts fair, with the prices adjusted upwards accordingly (the photos of Mike and I wearing ridiculous hats a few entries ago are from this market). Beautiful things though. The final one was somewhere between the other two and equally interesting.
In between, there was a lot of walking around the grand, old city of Vienna. It's one of those places that you can tell immediately that a lot of wealth lived here for a very long time while it was the seat of a large empire. Vienna is a city on an epic scale, wide streets, enormous buildings, gilding, statuary, elaborate gardens, and just things of beauty everywhere you look. Some of the things we did, other than eat, which took a lot of our time!, are included in the photos below (since a picture can be worth a thousand words!).
I will comment specifically on our day trip to Bratislava, in Slovakia. Vienna is an hour by train from Bratislava, following the Danube, and is a stark example of not that long ago when Western and Eastern Europe had the Iron Curtain between them. We started from Vienna on a sunny day, though cold, and literally, when the train crossed into Slovakia, the sun disappeared. It was like the reflection of the way I think of Soviet times - gray and brooding. You could just tell it was cold outside too, no snow, but the ground frozen so hard that there was frost on the dirt, even in the late morning. The countryside and farms we rolled past just felt different than those we passed in Austria, people are still pulling themselves out of a grim history. However, there were also people out skating on ponds, so there was some cheer to be had.
Arriving in Bratislava, the area around the train station and the first 10 minutes or so walking into the town centre also felt quite awful. We passed a lot of hideous architecture that made me question out loud why communism felt the need to impose such ugliness on the people. Mike or Kim, or a combination of the two, said that everything representing a bourgeois past and class distinctions was repressed. Why did that have to include beauty, I wonder, it is hard even now, when things are definitely improving, to imagine laughter in such a place. Ick.
After such a grim beginning though, the centre was stunning, clean, colourful, and full of life (and laughter). Thank goodness. We walked along pedestrian streets past a number of interesting looking shops (a lot of crystal is made and sold here), but as we wanted to see several things outside before dark, we kept on going. One destination was the Blue Church or the Church of St. Elisabeth, which was a bit of a walk from the centre. This is a small church, built a 100 years ago, but really a lovely little place. It stood out in its cleanliness and upkeep with the gray, crumbling buildings surrounding it. On our way back to the centre, we detoured a little to see the Danube. It's interesting that the river really doesn't have anything built along the banks, as you would expect for such a massive waterway that must have been a lifeline along the old trade routes. There were a couple of buildings and roads, but it did take an effort to get to the river to see it and not just be preoccupied with the centre of town. Very unlike London, Paris, New York, where the river is a real part of the city.
We walked some more, by which time we were chilled to the bone and found a little restaurant to get a late lunch. Our server who was maybe also the proprietor, handed us menus that were in Slovak (a language none of us knew at all), German, and English. Aaron and Kim both speak German and obviously we all spoke English but it was still a challenge to order our food. It makes you appreciate having English as a language since it is pretty widespread, imagine if all you had was Slovak...travelling would be a challenge and eating would be a real adventure!
At the end of our day in Eastern Europe, we all felt a little relieved to be getting on the train and going back to Vienna. It wasn't that it was a bad day in any way, just that we were given a lot of impressions of a different way of living that made us appreciate our own history and freedoms. We'd love to go back, maybe in the summertime when the grip of an icy cold is not so discouraging and when a blue sky feels a little more welcoming!
A final note of something we did was a visit to the Melk Monastery. This is a 45 minute drive west of Vienna and truly a magnificet place. There are only a handful of monks there now and since the monastery has hundreds of rooms, there is a whole wing given to a day school for 900 students. The museum section that we toured through was very informative, our English-speaking guide lead us in front of the Italian group and behind a German-speaking group. The banquet hall and library are real showpieces (see photos below) and it would be fascinating to have more time to prowl around. The monastery, while old in history, has a building dating from the Baroque era when the existing structure was pulled down and rebuilt according to the more oppulent standards of the day. Makes it harmonious, but pretty over the top.
Mike and I left on New Year's morning and drove straight back to Wassenaar and the cats in 10.5 hours. We had great travelling weather, no rain, no snow, and not much traffic. We loved our trip, but were happy to get home to our furry kids and they were pretty happy to see us as well. Having a once-a-day catsitter stopping by is one thing, having us home to love on them is quite another!
Since the normal statue (at Schönbrunn Palace grounds) had left its plinth, Mike and I decided to make the most of its absence
I suppose that means that our Christmas holiday really is over, because the cold weather we had in Austria followed us home and kept the feeling alive. Since Mike went back to school on Monday, I suppose that makes sense. So, even though we've been back for two weeks, let me see what I can recall about our trip eastwards and share it with you.
We drove to get there and happily had no snow on the roads; however TONS of rain and while that was not so enjoyable, we were pleased that it wasn't cold enough that all that precipitation froze and made the drive twice as long and much more dangerous. We stayed overnight in Nürnberg, in Germany before driving on to Vienna. Mike and I had been there before, last year, and loved it so much we wanted to see it again. I think most people will think of Nürnberg as a result of History lessons and the post-WWII trials held there. I know I did. No doubt there is a museum of some sort there to commemorate the trials, but that's not why we love it. The old (and rebuilt due to massive bombing in the war) and walled city centre is just fabulous. The wall and its ports surround a centre of charming cobbled streets, leading from the river (complete with island) up to the castle. At this time of year, it also houses the Christmas Market and while it was raining on us while we trolled through, we still loved it. Of course, we fortified ourselves with blueberry enhanced Glüwein to keep us warm!
One of the stops we had to make was at a comic book store that Mike found when we were there last year called Ultracomix. Aaron and Kim had been there as well, on our suggestion, when they went through a few months ago. It's three floors of comics and related accoutrements, a comic / graphic novel / role-playing games lover dream come true. There was even something for me, as I found Asterix and Tintin books bound into smaller versions and combining several editions in one cover. Fun stuff! But I digress...
We spent Sunday morning in the Christmas market and fighting our way through the crowds of people. Stands for all kinds of things, lots of food stalls, especially sausage, and a general air of impending Christmas. We could have easily stayed longer and enjoyed the city more too, but we had to get to Vienna and into our rental apartment. We drove through more torrential rain, more like driving in and through a cloud, a VERY wet cloud, but arrived safely around 9:00pm. We were quite cozy, it's a one-bedroom place with a pull out sofa bed, but we weren't really going to be spending that much time there anyway. The location was not too far of a walk from the subway line into the centre of town, we were just out from the Schönbrunn palace (the summer residence of the Hapsburgs), in the 13th District of Vienna.
I won't go through the day-by-day activities of the 11 days we were there, but try to give some highlights of the trip. At the beginning of the first week, we wanted to get through the different Christmas markets before they closed for the season on Christmas Eve. There are many around town, but if you are with people who know, and we were - Kim and Aaron had lived in Vienna for 4 years - then you can filter out a lot of them and just go to the best. So, we saw one with all the standard sort of merchandise, lots of ornaments, wooden things, and a general feeling of mass-produced holiday ornamentation. We then went to one with artisanal products, so more like an arts and crafts fair, with the prices adjusted upwards accordingly (the photos of Mike and I wearing ridiculous hats a few entries ago are from this market). Beautiful things though. The final one was somewhere between the other two and equally interesting.
In between, there was a lot of walking around the grand, old city of Vienna. It's one of those places that you can tell immediately that a lot of wealth lived here for a very long time while it was the seat of a large empire. Vienna is a city on an epic scale, wide streets, enormous buildings, gilding, statuary, elaborate gardens, and just things of beauty everywhere you look. Some of the things we did, other than eat, which took a lot of our time!, are included in the photos below (since a picture can be worth a thousand words!).
I will comment specifically on our day trip to Bratislava, in Slovakia. Vienna is an hour by train from Bratislava, following the Danube, and is a stark example of not that long ago when Western and Eastern Europe had the Iron Curtain between them. We started from Vienna on a sunny day, though cold, and literally, when the train crossed into Slovakia, the sun disappeared. It was like the reflection of the way I think of Soviet times - gray and brooding. You could just tell it was cold outside too, no snow, but the ground frozen so hard that there was frost on the dirt, even in the late morning. The countryside and farms we rolled past just felt different than those we passed in Austria, people are still pulling themselves out of a grim history. However, there were also people out skating on ponds, so there was some cheer to be had.
Arriving in Bratislava, the area around the train station and the first 10 minutes or so walking into the town centre also felt quite awful. We passed a lot of hideous architecture that made me question out loud why communism felt the need to impose such ugliness on the people. Mike or Kim, or a combination of the two, said that everything representing a bourgeois past and class distinctions was repressed. Why did that have to include beauty, I wonder, it is hard even now, when things are definitely improving, to imagine laughter in such a place. Ick.
After such a grim beginning though, the centre was stunning, clean, colourful, and full of life (and laughter). Thank goodness. We walked along pedestrian streets past a number of interesting looking shops (a lot of crystal is made and sold here), but as we wanted to see several things outside before dark, we kept on going. One destination was the Blue Church or the Church of St. Elisabeth, which was a bit of a walk from the centre. This is a small church, built a 100 years ago, but really a lovely little place. It stood out in its cleanliness and upkeep with the gray, crumbling buildings surrounding it. On our way back to the centre, we detoured a little to see the Danube. It's interesting that the river really doesn't have anything built along the banks, as you would expect for such a massive waterway that must have been a lifeline along the old trade routes. There were a couple of buildings and roads, but it did take an effort to get to the river to see it and not just be preoccupied with the centre of town. Very unlike London, Paris, New York, where the river is a real part of the city.
We walked some more, by which time we were chilled to the bone and found a little restaurant to get a late lunch. Our server who was maybe also the proprietor, handed us menus that were in Slovak (a language none of us knew at all), German, and English. Aaron and Kim both speak German and obviously we all spoke English but it was still a challenge to order our food. It makes you appreciate having English as a language since it is pretty widespread, imagine if all you had was Slovak...travelling would be a challenge and eating would be a real adventure!
At the end of our day in Eastern Europe, we all felt a little relieved to be getting on the train and going back to Vienna. It wasn't that it was a bad day in any way, just that we were given a lot of impressions of a different way of living that made us appreciate our own history and freedoms. We'd love to go back, maybe in the summertime when the grip of an icy cold is not so discouraging and when a blue sky feels a little more welcoming!
A final note of something we did was a visit to the Melk Monastery. This is a 45 minute drive west of Vienna and truly a magnificet place. There are only a handful of monks there now and since the monastery has hundreds of rooms, there is a whole wing given to a day school for 900 students. The museum section that we toured through was very informative, our English-speaking guide lead us in front of the Italian group and behind a German-speaking group. The banquet hall and library are real showpieces (see photos below) and it would be fascinating to have more time to prowl around. The monastery, while old in history, has a building dating from the Baroque era when the existing structure was pulled down and rebuilt according to the more oppulent standards of the day. Makes it harmonious, but pretty over the top.
Mike and I left on New Year's morning and drove straight back to Wassenaar and the cats in 10.5 hours. We had great travelling weather, no rain, no snow, and not much traffic. We loved our trip, but were happy to get home to our furry kids and they were pretty happy to see us as well. Having a once-a-day catsitter stopping by is one thing, having us home to love on them is quite another!
Since the normal statue (at Schönbrunn Palace grounds) had left its plinth, Mike and I decided to make the most of its absence
Words cannot express my delight at finding spätzle at one of the Vienna Christmas markets. Kim was pretty excited too and Mike just enjoyed our enjoyment.
Great staircase in the Melk Monastery
Corner detail in the Melk Monastery Library
Melk Monastery Library - wow.
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