5 Days in Vienna

Grüß Gott! From Vienna!
(Sounds like kroosgot, meaning Hello or literally, God's Greeting)

Wednesday
Arriving in Vienna at lunchtime on Wednesday, our first priority was to find transport information, tickets and our hotel. I had made the insanely brilliant mistake of leaving behind our lifesaving piece of paper with our Plzen to Vienna train details and our hotel details, and just to keep things interesting, my Vodafone GPRS connection didn't work so we couldn't even go online to find the name/location/phone number of our hotel. But never fear, Colin with his new PDA Travel-Mate, tom-tom navigator and GPS did some fantastical manoeuvres and we found our hotel. (The local travel agent/info centre also helped mind you with maps and tram info for getting to the hotel)


As we are waiting for Tram Nr 5 to take us to hotel it starts to rain. After just having "happy meals" and playing at the McDonalds play area, the girls are in high spirits waiting for our tram. (I still really struggle with the idea that we arrive in Vienna and have McDonalds, but hey, we are not alone in this journey and a 3 & 4 year old can be very persuasive!)

When we arrived at our hotel, we had the most magnificent view over the city, and were just in time to watch a storm blow in from the mountains with a veritable hail/rain storm which lasted for about an hour.
Fortunately, it was more like the JHB thunderstorms in summer and it cleared up to give us the most beautiful blue skies. We took immediate advantage and headed to the Danube Tower to get our first glimpse of Vienna at night with the most incredible view.
At the top, there was also a revolving restaurant where we stopped for supper. The girls were totally fascinated with the desert table that kept rotating (it took us a while to get them to understand that the desert table was standing still and that we were actually rotating). They kept the rest of the guests entertained with their antics as they travelled around the restaurant for a few laps.
When we got to our bus stop that would take us to the underground, we found that they were hourly buses and we had just missed the last one, leaving a 50 minute wait (and it was already approach 9pm). So, taking a quick glimpse at the map, we decide to put girls on backs and truck to the underground which looks only about a km walk through the park. Unfortunately, my map sense failed on me and we trucked for about 2kms in the wrong direction. So, after firing up the trusty travel-mate (I will never live that one down) and trucking back the 2kms plus 1km, we got to the underground ironically just at the bus pulled in that would have picked us up. We eventually made it back to the hotel close to 10pm (you can read about that little excursion in Colin's previous blog).

Thursday

Thursday morning, we went to see the Lipizzaner horses exercising and practicing for their next performance, which was only on Sunday. The girls were thoroughly entertained by the notion of dancing horses and left the arena prancing and dancing about. The horses are stabled and trained at the original palace so it was incredible to watch them in the authentic environment. When we arrived at the Lipizzaner horses, we had no idea that we were in the original Hofburg Palace, we only discovered it on wandering around after the show. The picture below is the entrance to the palace:

(The Bee all excited about seeing the horsies, below)
After leaving the Lipizzaners, we had no real plan as to where to go. We had decided to just walk around the old part of the city and see what takes our fancy. We were totally unprepared for what we had just walked into. On entering the Lipizzaner arena, we had no idea that we were walking into the palace, and then on exiting, we turned left away from the way that we had come in and wandered straight into the heart of the palace grounds (Hofburg). Our jaws just hit the dirt!
(photos really just don't do it justice - you will have to see it for yourself sometime :))
After gathering ourselves and our jaws I rushed into the local souvenir shop and bought my trusty souvenir guide books and maps. One of the possible items for the day was the National Library, and it was only with my new guide book that I discovered that the Library was in the Hofburg Palace grounds, so we headed off to find it. Although, still in the palace grounds, we had to walk out the main entrance and down a few blocks before we found it. The Vienna National Library houses an astonishing collection of books dating back to 1500. But apart from the books, the building is indescribably. If this was all we came to see, the trip would have been worth it a thousand times! Also, these books are all available to be read.
Amber and Sarah amused themselves in this most amazing setting by trying to read the souvenir guides and commented upon asked "yes, it's nice". They lasted a little while and then the calls for lunch time became very persistent. Again, with not much idea of where we were heading, we just wandered about the streets again and came upon the main shopping street of Vienna. Trying to find some authentic cuisine that didn't look too larney and expensive, we eventually settled for a pizzeria in an upstairs building that was warm and very inviting, with a view out onto the lane.
After finishing our late lunch (around 4pm), we continued to meander down the boulevard and watched some breakdancers and then found our way to the giant ferris wheel at the Vienna Prater (Theme Park) that we had seen from the Danube Tower. It is an antique ferris wheel built in the 1800's and although it isn't quite the London Eye, it gave us beautiful views of the city.
From the Ferris Wheel, we could see that we were in a giant carnival area and wandered around the park with boarded up rides and games booths (due to only open in Mid March for the Summer season), a few amusements were open, such as bumper cars and a spinning ride, but the real winner was that we found an arena giving horse rides. And since the theme of the day had been largely horsie, the girls were very excited to actually be able to ride a real live one - and on their own at that (with the aid of straps). There was tin-can carnival music playing with the ring master in the middle cheering the horses on with the sound of a cracking whip and lots of clicking sounds. They had a total blast and it was definitely their highlight of Vienna.

Friday

Friday, we went to Schönbrunn Palace (the Emperor's Summer Palace). We took the tour through the various rooms feeling totally in awe of the history and unfathomable magnitude of lavishness. Our lunch of biscuits on the garden bench felt very out of place :).

In the back garden, along with a maze, a zoo, a cinema, a castle just for carriages, a theatre .... (just to name a few things), the castle also has it's own dining hall at the top of the hill - called the "Gloriette". It is now a cafe where we had a very welcome coffee and apfelstudel. The picture below is looking up to the Gloriette from in front of the castle.
And from halfway to to the Gloriette - the picture back to the castle.
We even managed to persuade the girls to walk with us up the hill to see the "Gloriette". Actually - the reverse psychology worked here.... me telling them that we can't go there ... them begging and pleading to go ... us making them promise not to say that they are tired and only then can we go.... As you can see from this pic, Sarah is putting on a very brave face - and we are only half way up the hill.
Friday evening supper was at a local traditional Viennese restaurant, run by an American (go-figure). He was really daft and very much larger than life. You should have heard him speak German - quite comical!

Saturday

Another Castle, the Belvedere, which is now a National Gallery of 17th - 19th Century art.

Again, stuff the art, the palace was breathtaking! The first room we walked into was too much for me to handle - I had to spring into a spontaneous Viennese Waltz - pity my partner had to be my hat tho.
And this is just the ceiling!

Upstairs greeted us with similar scenes of obtuse grandeur
Even Amber was impressed.

Lunch was the customary biscuits on a bench in the back garden as it started to rain.
At least we had a breathtaking view
In the afternoon, we took the girls to the children's museum, which turned out to have a clay workshop just starting, so they joined in to make castles and flowers in the huge mountain of clay.

We then rushed (actually, we ran through the rain) to catch the Butterfly house with just 30 minutes before they closed. It was beautiful. You walk into an atrium that is tropical and humid, surrounded by exotic butterflies fluttering past.

For supper, we ended up again at an Italian restaurant (strange how that keeps happening) and managed to have a somewhat reasonable early night.

Sunday

Sunday morning, with only an hour to spare before having to head off to our train, was spent en-route to the Carriage Museum. The girls spotted the park and we gave in our desire to see the carriages for their hour of fun. There was a brilliant obstacle courses and play areas for the kids.

Vienna is one of those places that we have marked off as a "must return here" kind of place and we will definitely be back in the Summer. This was an incredible journey!

(Link to our web album)

She aint heavy... she's my baby...

This is a note that goes out to the two little people in our lives. They may be small, but they carry very big hearts.

If I put it very plainly, these two little tykes have no say in where we go, when we go, how long we are there, what they can and can't do while we are doing everything that we want to do pretty much exclusively as it suits us.

This morning they woke up with us at 04:00 and made the walk to the bus stop, walk to the train station, and then the trip to Vienna. Sarah managed to sleep a bit, and Amber barely stopped moving. Then through a packed day they stayed with us with almost no complaints. Boy and when they complain we are tough on them...

This evening we set off to the Donau Tower to see a great panorama of Vienna and have dinner in the revoloving restaurant - they ate up their dinner and played in the restaurant amusing themselves with the center remaining still while the room spins around them.

After dinner, which we thoroughly enjoyed I must tell you we began the trip home and got lost. Ok by now we are carrying them because it is coming up for 21:00 and our little people should have been asleep a long time ago! SO after about a 1.5 or 2km walking detour we complete the other 2Km walk back to where we should have gone. Thank God for GPS!!!!

The underground trip home is long and Sarah falls asleep on my lap with ony about 15 minutes to go until we are back in the hotel. When we stopped, I didn't even try to wake her, and when i lifted her into my arms, she didn't even stir. We still had the 700m to walk to the hotel.

By the time we got to the front door, my arms are telling me in plain terms that they'd like a rest, I thank them for their great duty to me this evening and comment

"She aint heavy, she's my baby"

Sleep tight my girls! We love you.

On the way

After a predictably late nite, (which we seem unable to avoid on any day) packing, setting the house in order and so on, we had to get out of bed at the horrid hour of 4am.
I really didn't want to know anything about it and I fear that if the alarm clock had been on my side of the bed I would have assaulted it the moment it beeped, and probably have fallen asleep before it hit the ground.

This has happened before... I wake up feeling great, well rested, but at the wrong time of day - I wonder how this could have happened, check the alarm clock settings... and then vaguely recall a violent moment of rage at the innocent beeping device that was only doing what was asked of it.

Anyhow, today, thankfully it was on Hayley's side, and I've never assaulted her yet for waking me up! So up we got, missed the targeted bus as usual, we always seem to do this - arrive at the stop a few minutes after the one we wanted to get has already passed, fortunately there was another a few minutes behind and we boarded safely and made it to the station.

Because of the snap decision to go to Austria, we hadn't made any plans, a thing that Hayley is brilliant at, by the time we leave, everything is arranged, tickets, accom, travel plans when we get there and anything else that might be important. Last nite, last minute calls were made to hotels to make sure we had some place to sleep, and that's about it! We had to buy train tickets at the station and were only able to get our tickets for the train leaving at 06:04 at 05:50... only a little disconcerting.

Nevertheless! We managed to get the tickets and made the train. The Czech Railways (České dráhy) are not running the greatest trains, they have a decent service, pretty much everything is covered but darn the trains are siff... old, and in real need of some love and attention if not replacement.

This is the view from outside the window - this is the second train we're riding... thanks to Hayley waking up the sleeping family we actually got off at the right stop to make the change! If not for her, we'd probably have woken up in Siberia someplace.

Right now as I post, we are doing about 80Km/hr towards one amazing city while the babies debate new legislation - long live 3G!

We are going to Wien (Vienna)!!

Emergency cross-border vac. Catching the 6am train tomorrow. Last minute decision, gotta go pack. Tell you all about it later...

Click here to see where we'll be staying...

Tourism at Home - The Evidence

So, below are some photos of our neighbourhood park that we stopped by yesterday, as well as some pics from our trip to the Brewery Museum and the Plzensky Prazdroj Brewery today.

Being a tourist in your own home town

It is always amazing how many people move overseas with the grand intention of travelling to all the exotic destination in the nearby or not so nearby vicinities.
Speak to them a year later, and more often than not, they may have been out from their town once or twice, but it will invariably not be anywhere near the intended amount. Ask them what they have done in the town that they are now living in? ... very little - after all, they live there now :)

I have this plan that I want to be a tourist in my own home town (which is for the moment, Plzen). The week-end starts to approach and the internet sites are smoking up a storm, retrieving every last shred of tourist information. The only problem right now, is that we are in a state of some climatically enforced limbo. It is not cold enough for the winter tourism (skiing - hoohaaa) and not Spring enough for the summer tourism. Most of the castles and chateauxs only open in April, including in-town tours and sightseeing. Ask the locals what they would recommend doing ... the response is always, "nothing really until the spring".

Well, failing formal tours and sightseeing excursions, I have now planned to open the map book of Plzen in the mornings, look for someplace we haven't been yet (which is most of Plzen); or look for a park or a dam; find the bus routes that will get us there and just have an outing. This morning I was all geared up that we would explore along our little river towards the north and find the nearby sports club that has the tennis courts. Not even 50 metres along the river and Sarah is already complaining that she is tired and she wants to go to the park. Well, we managed to go another few metres, long enough to find out that the entrance to the sports club is on the other side of the railway line and that we would anyway have to go back the way we came to find it. The end result is that we ended up at the kids play park next to our house and sat on the park bench watching the girls clamber about the jungle gym. At least we now know what 100m north up the river looks like and that tomorrow when we go looking for the entrance to the sports club, we will explore another new road. Tomorrow, we are also planning to do the Plzensky Prazdroj brewery and museum tour at my work (at least that is open all year round).

Digressing entirely: This morning when we woke up, I mused to Colin: "how about a cross the border trip next weekend?". The answer, as predicted, was "sure, why not!" (this has become quite common now for any new or radical suggestion). Now, from Plzen, cross the border has so many new meanings. The first question, is "which country?" There are so many to choose from.... So, the whole morning and the entire evening, I have spent online looking for an answer to that question. The first thought was Germany, we are only 70kms from the border. So, we researched places of interest near the Czech republic, then how we would get there (planes, trains or automobiles?). Then, while looking at the bus trips, the price for Prague to Vienna scrolled by for CZK300 and then there was suddenly a whole new thought - what about going to Vienna? So another frantic search frenzy - and we now have 2 very possible options for the week-end and 2 very detailed budgets for each scenario (sorry, can't take the project manager out of me on any given Sunday ;). It looks at this stage that our favour is towards Vienna - I mean - just how divine can you get!

But seriously, have you ever considered the fact that we travel thousands of kms to a new destination, to look up tourist information about sightseeing tours and interesting sights. But how many of us have ever done that for our own home town and actually pretended to be a tourist for a week-end. Next time I am in SA, how about we go for a shebeen tour to Soweto?

Fierce Independence

It is amazing how very quickly little personalities fight for independence and the elusiveness of "big'dom".

Catching the bus these days, we have Amber & Sarah insisting that we sit back in the bus shelter while they look out for the bus that has the appropriate number. We then have to board the bus either far behind them, or at a different door to them. Once on the bus, the two of them justle and jostle for position on a chair at the furthest end of the bus from us and engage themselves deep in conversation. They have created and perfected a language which sounds like fluent Czech that attracts strange looks and supressed smiles from all around them. One of their latest tricks is to sit at the back of the bus and to interact with the motorists behind them (especially if it is another bus). On the way home from our ski trip, the number 13 bus was following right behind us and the bus driver was so close on our tail at each stop that if there wasn't glass between them he could most certainly have touched their noses. He had a captive audience in Amber & Sarah as he pulled faces and put on and off imaginary glasses and hats and generally had A & S in stitches the whole way home - not to mention the rest of the bus that had noticed the antics of the 3 of them. When we got off at our stop we even got a special goodbye "toot" from bus Nr 13.

While travelling away, we have to give them both turns to pull the suitcase (even though it is nearly as big as they are). They grunt and groan over the bumps but will never admit that it is too heavy. Walking to the shops with the backpack, they make sure they also get a turn to carry it on their back (we have learned that it helps the load on the way home if they both carry their school bags to the shops and we fill them up with groceries on the return trip).

The very latest one now is that they want to go down the elevator by themselves and wait for us at the bottom of our building while we finish pfaffing to leave the house (find keys, wallets, bus tickets .....). There is a very well co-ordinated sequence of turns between who calls for the lift, pushes the open door button, pushes the appropriate floor button and hold the door open for us to all vacate (and lo and behold anyone who steps a foot out of line!!!)

In the not too distant future they will be catching aeroplanes without us (oh my gosh!!!).

Skiing at Špičák (pronounced Shpiechak)

It was really touch and go for a while as to whether we would actually get to Špičák or not! Have you ever tried to make an accommodation booking where neither parties can understand each other? We tried the e-mail thing first, but never received a reply. Eventually, I scanned through my limited knowledge of Czech and the dictionary and worked out all the correct words to say. The only problem with this is that he could now understand me, but I had no clue what he was saying back! Fortunately, a Czech colleague saved the day and phoned through for a reservation for us on Friday morning.

The next challenge was finding our accommodation when we got off the train (after forgetting our map at home and the resort's contact details!). Every one we asked "Kde je Penzion Barta?" (Where is Penzion Barta?) just returned the conversation with a blank look and a long string of Czech words, which we kind of figured meant that they had no clue.

After trudging up the street and only finding ski slopes and ski lifts, we then turned around and trudged back down the street, to find a big tourist map just metres from the train station where we had disembarked a good 40 minutes earlier with "penzion barta" very clearly shown on the map and was infact about 5 metres as the crow flies across the snow, but about 50 metres around the corner by road (Satellite image link here, just imagine it covered in snow).

By this time, we were thanking our sanity of sleeping those extra 2 hours in the morning and not trying to catch the 5am train but the 7.30 train as there was a high level of crankiness in the 2 littlies already. We then blazed forward, swapping jeans for ski kit and headed back up the street to find out how the whole ski thing actually works. With ill fitting, hired ski boots and skis in hand, we had about 1 hour to kill before we all (yes, all 4) had our first ski lesson at 12:15. We spent the time munching a pack of peanuts followed closely by chocolate and skidded and slipped our way around the base camp as there was very little snow and thick layers of ice everywhere.

Our ski instructor Jacob met us at 12:15 and we followed him for the few hundred metres to the kiddies slope with our ski boots feeling like lead; the skis on our shoulders (ours and the girls); ski poles (ours and the girls), while dragging A & S who all but believed the world was going to end if we didn't carry them too.

Fortunately, the novelty of putting on skis kicked in and the mood lightened significantly for the duration of the lesson (which was spent with Jacob just trying to keep A & S upright). Colin & I didn't get very much out of the lesson, but certainly enjoyed watching the antics of the 2 newest ski enthusiasts.

After the lesson, it took us close on 45 minutes to get back to the camp with the now very ratty tatty moods in tow.

We decided to hitch a lift on the local train shuttle to the next town - Železná Ruda (that housed the closest ATM) and have dinner while waiting for the return train.

It was stunning. This little town was incredibly picturesque and we were kicking ourselves for forgetting our camera. Sarah slept the whole while, first on Colin's shoulder while we walked through the town, then on her chair in the restaurant, then on the floor on our jackets in the restaurant, then on Colin's shoulder while walking back to the train. She woke up at the train station and perked up when we started feeding her the chicken schnitzel and smiley face potatoes from her supper.

Sunday morning we got smart. We left the 2 girls for their private 2 hour lesson and we hit the intermediate blue slope for a bit more action. It was great fun and I can claim to even have had a spectacular wipe-out! The weather was stunning with blue skies and the ski run was in the shade of the pine forest. The ski lift was the time killer though and limited our number of runs to about 3 or 4 before we had to go back to fetch the girls.

We had a lunch of pizza and sauer kraut soup and then we walked through the forests a bit alongside the ski runs. The girls were horsies (as usual).

After lunch, we took the girls back to the kiddies slope and in more sensible boots, ran around while they practiced staying upright on their skis. We managed to teach Amber the concept of the "snow plow" which was a momentous occasion; Sarah was just giggling and practicing the sideways-onto-bum maneuvere.

Tip: Chocolate and Jellies are a great mood lifter! Skis off, we had a great time playing in the snow - and as you can see - "The Woods were here!".

(The picture after of our bum prints in the snow has been censored!).
At about 4pm we headed off the snow, swapped ski pants for jeans and walked a bit through the town of Špičák before having dinner at the restaurant next to our pension.

Monday morning, with no ski instructors available to take the girls, we spent with all 4 of us on skis playing on the kids slope.

Colin & I took turns to ski with Sarah down the hill (her between our legs). After Amber had a turn between our legs and remembered her snow plow techniques, she then braved the slope on her own, following in my tracks. She was incredible to watch - snow plow position, bum in air with her poles paddling along side her in a chookoo train motion - very cute!!!

After a lunch of Bratwurst and Chips, we headed home to pack and wait for the train to take us home.

Pending some more snow - See you again, Špičák!

(Link to Our Web Album)