The next day after the beer challenge tour, we caught another train (very early in the morning, like 7 am) to Salzburg, Austria. We had a full day planned for Salzburg, Austria (especially since we weren't spending the night there we had to fit it all into one day). We started out touring the palace and the garden behind it. There wasn't much to see in the palace so we just headed straight out to the garden where there were bundles of spring flowers and fountains everywhere! It was so pretty and in the distance you could see a castle and the alps. After touring the garden we headed to the center of the city to check out Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's home and museum. I unfortunately could not take photos, but I did buy a lot of Mozart Kugels. Mozart Kugels are a type of candy that has a layer of marzipan and cream covered in chocolate. Pretty sweet, but pretty good. There really is no significance to Mozart with the candy, but they were everywhere so I figured I should buy a couple to bring home. After the Mozart museum we walked around the city for a while and found a couple churches and a really neat graveyard where Mozart's sister is said to be buried, but we never found her. We found a cute little market and bought cheese covered soft pretzel's for lunch. We had to keep up the tradition started in Munich of buying ice cream and found a really cheap ice cream parlor with a ton of flavors. On our way out of the center city I past an English tour group of older couples, and over heard one woman say rather loudly to another woman, "Look that woman has her titties out!". I will follow this up by saying that there was a restaurant menu set outside in the streets with a small painting of a Victorian woman sitting at a dinner table indeed with her "titties" out. This old woman made my day! (and of course I'll include a photo for you all.) In the middle of the day we had signed up and bought tickets to go on the epic Sound of Music Tour.
The next morning we got up early to go see the Spanish horses practice. There was a long line of people to enter the arena, but we were lucky enough to get seats up front. I wasn't supposed to take photos and got yelled at a couple times, but I managed to sneak a few. After we watched the horses prance around for a while we decided to leave early and go get brunch. We had been recommended to try the Central Cafe just down the street from the Spanish Horse arena. It was by far my favorite cafe in the world so far, and keep in mind I am studying in France where the best cafes are located. There was a giant display of desserts and everything was so fancy from the table wear to the waiters outfits. Cathy and I both ordered turkey cordon bleu (a take off of chicken cordon bleu) and it came with soup and sparsely potatoes. I also ordered an espresso because I was TIRED that day. After wining and dining ourselves over brunch we made our way back to the Hofburgh palace where the Spanish horse arena is located. We bought a combo ticket to see both the city palace and the summer palace of the Austrian royal family. The city palace had a museum for all the royal china and serving plates. Basically room after room of cups and plates and forks and knives. I think it took me about 30 minutes just to get through it all. It was incredible to see the mass amounts of china and silverware two people need to feast off of each day. We had audio guides to listen to as we walked through each room to give us facts about what we were seeing. Apparently a lot of the silver ware had to be melted down to be used for wars over history. Incredible that what I saw was only a fraction of the original collection. There is also a special napkin folding art that is known by only a few Austrians and is an absolutely secret that is shared with no one, but I bet I could figure it out. I promise I won't bore you with all the photos. After the china museum we went through the Sisi museum. Empress Elizabeth of Austria was known as Sisi in her time and much of her belongings were on display in the next museum. Our audio guides detailed her life and why she was so unhappy given the fact that she was known around the world for her beauty. She kept up a strict exercise routine to stay thin and had long flowing brown hair that took about 3 hours to wash, dry and style each week. After the Sisi museum we went through the royal apartments where kings and queens and empresses lived through out history. It was interesting to compare this palace to that of Versailles in Paris.
After the Hofburg palace tour we got on a trolley that takes us on a tour around the main ring of the city. We saw most of the main tourist attractions and famous buildings on this trolley ride. We even had an audio component attached to the chair back in front of us. After the trolley ride we returned to the hostel to change and get ready for the orchestra performance that night.
We had bought tickets before leaving for the trip to an orchestra/ballet/opera performance. It was a bit cheesy with the singing and dancing, but the music was great! They played a mix of Strauss's famous waltzes and some Mozart pieces. The performance last two and a half hours. After the performance we were both starving and knew there were no restaurants around our hostel so we found a cheap food stand in the middle of the street on the median to buy pizza and kebabs. Real fancy I know. After the performance and fine dining dinner we headed straight home to sleep.
The nest day we woke up at 7:30 am to start yet another day of touring and photo taking of EVERYTHING! At this point in the trip I was getting very exhausted and still had Berlin and a trip to home to make it through. That's real strength and will power if I do say so myself. We started this day off with St. Stephen's Cathedral and made the climb to the very top of the church tower to get a really neat view of the roof of the church and the surrounding area. After viewing the interior of the church we went to Cafe Hawelka, which had been recommended to us and we were told it was some famous cafe, but when I asked the waiter why it's so famous he had no clue what I was talking about. When I paid for my hot chocolate (3.80 euro= $5.45) I figured out why they are so famous: over priced little tea cups of nestle's instant hot chocolate. After the "infamous" cafe we went to Beethoven's house, which he lived in while residing in Vienna and composed a couple of his most famous pieces at the piano featured in the museum that his house has been transformed into. It wasn't a very big museum and in about 20 minutes I had seen and read every plaque. Next we went to the state opera house to buy our tickets for the tour early and try to beat the crowd. So much for that, you could only buy tickets 15 minutes before the tours opened for the tour. So we decided to run down to the Stadt park and see the memorial statue for Strauss, the guy that wrote all the fabulous Viennese waltz pieces we heard at the orchestra the night before. The Viennese waltz is by far my least favorite ballroom dance, but I love the music and the quick paced tempo. When we got to the park and found the statue it was barricaded off for renovation, why not right? but I could still sneak a few pictures through the fence, and they even had a small version set up next to the renovation space of the same statue so you could still take a photo with him. We also found the main river that runs through the city, but it too was under construction and renovation and was mostly drained. We made it back to the state opera house just in time to buy our tour tickets.
We waited in a very long line to get tickets for the state opera house tour, but finally made it in time. Our tour guide was very into herself and into how much money this opera house brings in a night. A little too much info for me... We started in the main auditorium in sitting in seats facing the stage. On the backs of all the seats are little screens that will display subtitles of the lyrics in about 6 different languages. Pretty cool idea! Each night the opera house puts on a different production to give a good mix of shows to season ticket holders. You can actually buy a ticket for 4 euro but you have to stand in the back the whole time. We considered doing this, but never made it back to the opera house that night. There is also a giant tv screen outside the opera house that projects a live feed of the performance on stage so everyone can have the opportunity to see a theatrical production live, and at no cost. We got to see the audience seats from the stage and the crew working on setting up the scenery for that night's performance. They have to completely take down and rebuild scenes everyday since they mix up the performances and non of them use the same props. Madness I tell you! We got to see all the intermission rooms, each with a different theme. One of them had a bust of Haydn so I thought that was pretty cool. Family legend has it that some where down the line I am related to the famous composer Haydn. Granted he never had children so he must be a distantly related uncle, which would very well be true since he is one of I think 12 kids, but still pretty cool. The tour ended on the main steps leading into the auditorium. The tour lasted in total about an hour and we saw a lot of stuff! Definitely got our student discounted moneys worth out of that tour.
After touring the state opera house we used the other half of our combo ticket to tour the royal summer palace on the outskirts of Vienna. Once again this palace was comparable by its amount of gaudy paintings and furniture to that of Versailles, but also a little different from other palaces I've seen. We couldn't take photos (for real this time), so sorry I don't have any photos for you. After the hour long tour through the palace we walked around the gardens for a while, and made the hike up the mountain to see the hill at the other end of the garden. The gardens were not nearly as large as the garden at Versailles and not quite as extravagant. We were pretty beat at that point in the day and still had more to see, so we took our time walking back down the garden (our feet were really aching). We bought lunch from a Chinese noodle stand at the metro station and took the metro to the Haydn museum. The one stop I had been looking forward to in all of Vienna.
After visiting the palace we took the metro over to a neighborhood of Vienna called Esterhazy. This is where Josef Haydn lived for most of his life in Vienna. I was able to locate his home, which has now been transformed into a museum, just in time with 15 minutes to spare till closing time. The lady at the front desk did not want to let me in, I think she wanted to close early. I paid the fee and as Cathy waited outside I literally ran through the museum snapping photos of everything, telling myself I'll just look at them later to experience the museum. There were a couple pianos and a really neat wall display of Haydn's sheet music. It was a great experience to walk through the home of what could be a distant relative of mine, that is pretty famous in the music world. Once my fifteen minutes were up the lady let me know about this and I was on my way out of the museum. I did happen to catch a photo of 17 Haydnstrasse. 17 is my dad's lucky and favorite number so I thought that was pretty cool.
Next we took the metro to a different neighborhood of Vienna that has really modern apartments. Apparently the architecture is pretty famous, especially since Vienna is constructed on so much history, this north eastern neighborhood seemed out of place in some ways to the rest of the city. Next we went to a famous ice cream parlor in Vienna called Zanoni's. I of course ordered mint chocolate chip ice cream. We ended our long and very exhausting day with dinner at a Viennese pub. I was still pretty full from the ice cream, so I ordered an appetizer that consisted of pieces of rye bread covered in ham slices, cheese, spinach, and tomatoes. It was really very good. In Europe it is very rare to find a restaurant that serves ice cubes, and even more rare to find free water, so of course we had to order water, it was the cheapest thing on the menu to drink and costs about 2 euro for a small bottle. I miss you USA... When we got back to the hostel we backed up our things to leave early the next morning and went down to the bar in the hostel to redeem the free drink coupons we had received upon arrival. We both ordered a traditional Viennese beer, but I liked the German beers better. I was never so happy to lay in a hard bed and get even just a couple hours of sleep after a long day of adventures.
Well folks, just one more blog to go. If you made it this far then I congratulate you for reading all of that. Vienna and Salzburg gave me a good view of Austria. To me Austria is one of those countries where I can say "been there done that" don't really need to do it again. Munich is still by far the best city from the trip!!
Stay tuned, one more to come.
