A Day in the Life of Royalty

Saturday, June 26th, 2010

This morning we took the U-line out to Schloss Schönbrunn, the Habsburgs’ 1441-room summer palace, of which we toured 40 rooms. It was a quick and easy journey out to the palace, and once off the train there was no need to determine which way to go, you just follow the herds of people all going to the same place. Once inside, we purchased a ticket that included an audio-guided tour of 40 rooms of the palace’s first floor, entry to the Privy Gardens, entry to the Gloriette, and entry to the Labyrinth and Maze. We had about 45 minutes until we could start the tour of the palace, so we headed to the Privy Gardens, which were directly adjacent to the palace. The Privy Gardens in and of its self was nothing spectacular, beautiful yes, but not all that much more spectacular than the rest of the grounds of the palace. The one nice feature of the Privy Gardens was a viewing platform they had added from which you could take a really nice photograph of the side of the palace with the Gardens in the foreground. I think the ONLY thing Tim enjoyed about the Privy Gardens were the GIGANTIC lemons. The garden featured numerous lemon and orange trees, and I have NEVER seen lemons of this size, they were half the size of Tim’s head (you will see in the picture if you click into our photo gallery at the top of the blog and go to the Vienna pictures). Tim concluded from this that we need a lemon tree. We will see how that goes.

After the Privy Gardens we head for the entrance to the Palace tour and picked up our audio guides. No photography was allowed inside the Palace, so unfortunately I have no photographs to show you its splendor, only my words. The Imperial bedrooms and private living quarters, to my surprise, were grand yes, but were not overly lavish or ornate in design. The Emperor’s office for example was extremely understated and was full of portraits of his wife, children, and grandchildren. Some of the more formal gathering rooms where the Imperial family would have received guests however were much more ornate. There are three rooms in particular that come to mind, a long rectangular hall that had two small octagonal rooms at either end of the hall. The two small rooms in particular were very ornate. They featured some of the most beautiful wood floors I have ever seen with detailed designs highlighted with various types and shades of hard woods. In addition there was an elaborately designed “Chinese Room”, as I understand all of the Imperial Palaces of the time had a “Chinese Room” as the fabrics and designs were considered to be very “regal”.

After completing the tour of the inside of the Palace, we made our way back outside through the grounds and up the hill at the back to the Gloriette. Honestly, I am unsure of the original purpose of the Gloriette, it had a small interior building which now houses a café and two long arched open hallways on either side. It was a beautiful structure looking down on the Imperial Palace and grounds. The ticket we purchased also allowed for us to take a winding staircase to a viewing platform at the top of the structure which again provided an amazing photo op with spectacular views of Schloss Schönbrunn and modern day Vienna, which I’m sure would’ve seemed very far away in the Imperial days. From the Gloriette we headed back down the hill to tackle one of several mazes on the Palace grounds. After successfully defeating the maze, which took longer than I anticipated I must add, we walked back to the U-line station and caught a train back to the center of Vienna.

Upon our arrival in Vienna we set out to find a restaurant that was recommended in our guide book as being a classic Biesl, traditional Viennese pub serving solid Viennese fare. After switching trains and a 10 minute walk, we arrived at our destination, a bit out of the “touristy” part of Vienna we were pleased with the atmosphere and were looking forward to our first true Austrian meal. Zu den 2 Leiserln has been serving enormous schnitzels, and when they say enormous they mean ENORMOUS, to politicians, blue-collar workers, and everyone in between for 100 years, so of course we ordered the “Wiener Schnitzel”. A note to anyone who might find themselves in Vienna and want to order a Schnitzel at Leiserln, one schnitzel was PLENTY for the two of us. As Tim has already explained, Wiener schnitzel is NOT sausage, but in fact a giant piece of meat (traditionally veal, but Pork is the most common) pounded thin, breaded and fried. I found Wiener schnitzel to be very much like the pork tenderloins you find so often back home in Indiana. It was good, but not really my type of food, but I feel very strongly about sampling local cuisine. Now the potato salad that came with the schnitzel on the other hand was amazing, and incredibly unlike anything I had ever tasted. I don’t even know how to describe it other than to say that it didn’t have a mustard or mayonnaise or any sort of cream base, and it had almost a vinegar taste….YUM! After lunch we went back to the hotel for a short rest.

After a break we took the train back up to Stelphensplatz, the plaza along the pedestrian Kärntner Stausse near the Stephensdom Cathedral. From here we made our way to Zwölf Apostekeller, a heurigen, or wine tavern, located in the city. Heurigens sell “new” wine that they often produce on the premises, and it is thus usually very inexpensive, less than €2.50 a viertel (250ml). The majority of the heurigens in the area are located in the wine-growing suburbs to the north, northeast, south and west of the city, but we found this gem in the city, thanks to our guide book, and sat down in this atmospheric cellar for a glass of wine.

After the heurigen we took a casual stroll back to Flanagans again, to have dinner and watch the soccer. Tomorrow we move on to Salzburg!

"Wiener"

Tim here blogging for the first time, which I'm sure is shocking to the tens of thousands of people who clearly are following along on a daily basis!
This will just be a quick note as I'm sure the real "detailed" Christine blog will follow, but I just wanted to share my learning experience for the day. I feel really quite stupid about this so I am sort of hoping that I am not alone In my lack of "wiener" understanding. Now remember where we are at the present time (Vienna) and do not confuse "wiener" with a certain aspect of the male anatomy!! Anyway for lunch today we had our first taste of Wiener Schnitzel. Now for the moment of potential stupidity. After finishing our delicious lunch I asked Christine why the "Wiener Schnitzel" wasn't sausage. You see I had absolutely no idea what wiener schnitzel was and just assumed it was some sort of sausage since that is obviously what Austrian and German people eat for breakfast lunch and dinner ;-) Now the learning part.... Vienna in German is called "Wien," for some bizarre reason the English language likes to rename cities instead of just calling them by their real local name. So the term "Wiener" is basically just saying that it is from Vienna or "Wien." Well I think I've learnt enough for the day and it is time to shut off my brain for a little while. We'd love to see some comments posted here on the blog to reassure us that there may actually be some people reading this thing!
Lastly,
There is nothing wrong with a male eating a doughnut covered in pink frosting!!! Just saying.

And just like that we are in Vienna

We were sad to be leaving Budapest this morning, after such an amazing time, but it was time to move on. We left the hotel around 8:00 a.m. and walked with our luggage to the closest metro stations which took us out to the main international train station in Budapest. While the metro lines and train stations really aren’t too difficult to figure out, it is nice that most everyone speaks some English if to do nothing else, just to reaffirm your conclusions about what you need to do and where you need to go, because let’s be honest the last thing you would want is to get on a train going in the wrong direction. Luckily that didn’t happen to us. We validated our Eurail Pass and boarded the train to Vienna, which left at about 20 past 9:00. The train was actually incredibly comfortable, and the just over three hour journey went incredibly smooth, while on the train we located the train station on our map as well as our hotel and concluded that it would be fairly simple to get from point A to point B with the metro, or U-lines, as they call them in Vienna. But, of course, there always has to be a wrench thrown in somewhere. We had intended to get off at Wien (Vienna) Westbahnhof station, but as we approached the Wien (Vienna) Meidling station, the conductor came over the intercom and said that all passengers going to Wien must exit the train at Meidling, glad we did all that planning based on Westbahnhof! But again, as it turned out if was just as easy, if not easier to get to where we were going from this train station, just a short journey on the U-line with one train change and we were there, the InterContinental in Vienna is literally write across the street from the U-line. So we crossed the street and were checked into the hotel, less than 30 minutes after our arrival in Vienna.

After checking in and dropping our bags, we headed back out to make our way to the Naschmarkt (market) for a cheap kebab lunch. On our way we passed the baroque Karlskirche (St. Charles’ Church) and stopped for a quick photo op. The Naschmarkt was amazing, spanning at least two city blocks and a couple of isles of restaurants, butchers, produce stands, dried fruits, nuts, spices, and much more. We found an inexpensive Kebab place on the far end of the Naschmarkt with outdoor tables. We both ordered sandwiches, Tim the döner sandwich and I ordered the falafel sandwich, both were humungous and both were delicious. The two sandwiches and two sodas cost us just over 10 Euro. From the Naschmarkt we made our way to Kärnter Strasse, a pedestrian only street lined with shops and restaurants. We stopped at the Café Sacher to savor a slice of their world-famous chocolate cake, the Sacher Torte, baked at this location since 1832. After that small indulgence we continued our walking tour of Vienna which included sites such as the Stephansdom (St. Stephen’s Cathedral), a 13th century Gothic masterpiece complete with geometric patterned tiles on the roof; the Hofburg, the history city-centre home of the Habsburgs; the Greek-Revival –style Parliament building; the 19th century Burgtheater; and the neo-Gothic Rathaus, or town hall. Walking around Vienna today, you can really understand why they call its city center an open air museum as you pass one beautiful building after another.

After this we took the U-line back to our hotel, although first we ended up on the wrong side of the tracks for the second time! We will figure it out eventually. We then relaxed for a bit before heading to Flanagan’s, an Irish pub, to eat some grub and watch the soccer. Tomorrow we have another full day in Vienna, but for now we are off to bed!

Good Food, Good Drinks, Good Company

Thursday, June 24th, 2010

After a couple 3 Euro 1 liter beers and a long day yesterday in general, we slept in a bit before heading out of the hotel a little after 10 o’clock this morning. Our first stop today was the House of Terror. In 1944, during the domination of the Hungarian Arrow Cross Party, the building at Andrassy Utca 60, now the museum was once known as the “House of Loyalty” and was the party headquarters of the Hungarian Nazis. Then between 1945 and 1956, the infamous communist terror organizations, the AVO and its successor, the AVH, took up residence in the building. The museum commemorates the victims of terror and serves as a memento, reminding its patrons of the dreadful acts of terrorist dictatorships.

After an educational but depressing morning, we sought the comfort of familiarity and had lunch at Burger King. After lunch we headed on to the St. Stephen’s Basilica. Plans for the Basilica started in 1845 but the building was not complete until 1889. The Basilica is home to “the holy right hand”, which is the 1000 year old remains of the right hand of Saint Stephen, the Basilica’s namesake. Not to undermine the importance of this relic to this Church and its followers, but I found it a bit creepy, and then ridiculous when in the middle of taking a picture of the little shrine in which the hand is laid, the light illuminating it turned off and there was a sign saying that you had to pay 200 Hungarian Forints in order to illuminate the hand, no thank-you. From the Basilica we made our way to the riverfront and made our way down to the Parliament House, which was even more impressive up close than it was from the top of Castle Hill in Buda. After walking around the Parliament building we made our way back down the Danube to our hotel and had a bit of a rest.

After a short rest and a cup of coffee we were on our way to Gellert Hill to go to the Gellert Baths and the Citadel. Unfortunately we did not make it to the Citadel or to the top of Gellert Hill as we spent a little too long in the Baths. The Baths were interesting. The building is architecturally the most pleasant of the Baths in Budapest, so I’ve been told, but only has one cold and one thermal pool indoors and one cold and one thermal pool outdoors. We visited both the indoor and outdoor thermal pools which were very relaxing before heading back again to the hotel to clean up before meeting Jören and Živka for dinner.

We met Jören and Živka outside their hotel around 7:00 p.m. and Živka recommended that we try to find a pub/bar that she had been taken to once before near Blaha Luza Ter on a previous visit to Budapest. The pub was a “dive-bar” type pub with a great atmosphere and cheap drinks. I raved about the less than 2 US dollar wine I had last night, but tonight I had wine that cost 200 Hungarian Forints or approximately 90 cents US, pretty outrageous deal, and it was good as well! The food was also extremely inexpensive. Last night we paid 8500 Hungarian Forints for 2 entrees, a beer, and 2 glasses of wine, which is approximately 38 US dollars, but tonight we had 2 entrees for 3200 Hungarian Forints or about $14 dollars. Tim had what he said may have been the best chicken sandwich he has ever had, and I had a Serbian dish called Lescovich (SP?). After a couple rounds of drinks and our meals we walked around the corner to a “supposed” bar, but I was a bit worried that Jören and Živka had just been buttering us up and were taking us to their own version of the House of Terror because the bar had no sign and you just walked into this building that look closed and had graffiti all over the walls and then the elevator opened and there was a guy in tails in the elevator with a dirty looking cooler full of little liquor bottles he would sell to you on your way up. Even once the elevator opened up it appeared that we were entering an abandoned building, but then we turned the corner and saw the first forms of life and a stairwell leading to an amazing rooftop terrace bar. It was amazing, a night we will never forget and an opportunity we would have never had if we hadn’t met this amazing couple. At this unnamed bar we enjoyed another couple rounds of drinks, and quite possibly the biggest glasses of wine I have ever seen, the first glass came in a juice glass, which we thought was big, but then the second round of wine came in beer mugs, yep, beer mugs (don’t worry I took a picture!). Good food, good drinks, good company, all in all we had an amazing time in Budapest, if this is any indication, I think we have some great times ahead of us

On the River Danube

Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010

I don’t recall ever waking up at 2:15 in the morning, but we had to leave the hotel this morning at 2:45 a.m. to head to the Athens Airport for our 4:25 a.m. flight to Budapest. We stayed at the Holiday Inn by the airport in Athens last night, to save some time, unfortunately for us they do not operate their shuttle at that time of day, so instead of free transportation to the airport we had to take a taxi, which because of the hour cost us nearly 30 Euro. It did save some time and money over traveling from the center of Athens however, and even more so for Sue and Granddad who both were headed home later today. We had a short connection in Warsaw, Poland on our way to Budapest. We arrived in Budapest around 8:40 a.m. From there we took the airport mini bus (about which I read in our Lonely Planet book) directly to our hotel, the Intercontinental (got to love those employee rates!). It was more expensive than taking the buses/metro, but still only cost about $20 American, and was definitely worth saving ourselves the hassle of having to figure out the busses/metro and locate our hotel on our own.

Luckily when we arrived at the hotel at about half past nine they had a room ready for us already, and let’s just say that I couldn’t have been happier with the accommodations. We had a third floor room with a king size bed (a luxury we haven’t had often thus far on the trip), a proper shower (I am not going to miss the showers in Greece), and a million dollar view overlooking the Danube and over to central Buda. But we didn’t want to waste any time, so we were out the door shortly after 10:00.

There seemed to be a lot of sites clustered on Castle Hill on the Buda side of the Danube, so we decided to make this our first stop. It was a beautiful walk over the Danube to the Buda side of town. We weaved up through beautiful European streets to the top of Castle Hill. Once atop Castle Hill we found the Fisherman’s Bastion and Matthias Church. The Fisherman’s Bastion was built in the early 20th century and is host to in my humble opinion some of the best views of Pest, especially its sprawling Parliament building, which is gothic in style, and is the largest building in Hungary. Adjacent to the Fisherman’s Bastion is Matthias Church, which is under constant restoration both inside and out, but features a spectacular colored tile roof.

After touring the inside of the Church we walked towards the other end of Castle Hill, stopping to grab a quick lunch. For lunch Tim had a hot dog and soda and I had a sandwich and soda which cost us 1300 Hungarian Forints, which converted is less than 6 US Dollars. It’s impossible not to love the prices in Eastern Europe.
After lunch we went to the House of Royal Wines. Our main intentions for going here was to taste some wines, but we decided to tour the “museum” which I will go ahead and say right now, I would definitely recommend giving a pass should you ever visit Budapest. It was definitely not worth the money, but we did learn that at least in the past, wine was one of Hungary’s biggest exports (we didn’t even know Hungary produced wine!). We also got to see some restored royal wine cellars from the 15th and 16th centuries, and got thoroughly freaked out by the creepy medieval wax statues that were lurking around every corner. After completing our tour of the museum, we decided that the tastings were too expensive, which was later affirmed when the wine at dinner was less than two dollars American per glass. From the House of Royal Wines we walked over to the Royal Palace, which is home to a couple of museums, we did not enter the museums, we only admired the Palace from the exterior. After a bit of a walk we headed back towards Pest and our hotel.

We stopped just briefly at the hotel before heading to the Central Market. At the Central Market we ate a strudel and purchased some fruit to eat for breakfast the next couple of days at the hotel. Leaving the Market we walked down Vaci Utca, a pedestrian street lined with restaurants and touristy shops to try and locate a place to have dinner and watch the soccer games later. We identified a couple of options before we headed back to the hotel.

Back at the hotel we turned on the soccer and I promptly fell asleep, as did Tim. We were completely exhausted having been up since 2 o’clock this morning and having walked the equivalent of several miles throughout the day site-seeing. After the afternoon soccer games were over we headed back out and down Vaci Utca to find some dinner. Along this touristy strip the restaurateurs essentially attack you offering you all sorts of incentives to dine with them, I found it a bit overwhelming, and honestly if a restaurant has to mug and bribe people on the streets in order to get patrons, I’m not really interested. We finally sat down at a restaurant that we had passed where no one came and attacked us as we passed by and where there were plenty of people eating and where the food on the table looked and smelled amazing. I ordered the traditional beef gulyas (goulash), which was delicious, and had a couple of glasses of the house red, which cost as I mentioned before less than 2 US dollars per glass.

After we finished dinner we walked down to a sidewalk café that we had spotted earlier that had multiple TVs out, that we were certain would play both of the soccer matches that were on tonight (Germany vs. Ghana and Australia vs. Serbia). We joined a couple at a table and conversation ensued. Jören is from Germany, and his girlfriend, Živka, is from Macedonia, but they are currently living in Bratislava and she was visiting Budapest for a conference. We watched the soccer games together, they were glad Germany won, and we were glad Australia won even though the still will not advance and talked about all sorts of things, we just thoroughly enjoyed each others' company. After the game we went for a stroll together before heading back to our respective hotels, but made plans to meet tomorrow at 7:00 for dinner.

Views from the Top

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

After breakfast we got back on the bus for our last day in Greece. Today we are visiting the site of the geological wonders of Meteora, on top of many of which are perched monasteries or convents. The site of Meteora falls between two mountain ranges, between which was once a deep ravine, where a river once ran depositing silt, mud, etc. The plains that now exist adjacent to the mountain ranges were in fact once a lake, which coincides with the accounts of Herodotus who described the area as unsurpassable in the 5th century B.C. Then when the water withdrew, the lime dissolved and compact masses were formed which over time were shaped by the winds and the rain into the amazing geological formations we see today. The name Kalambaka was given to the area by the Turks and means “Wow, the fortress!” because when they came to the area the rock faces looked like great fortresses. The name Meteora comes from a Greek word meaning “suspended” which accurately describes the site of the once 24 monasteries that stood atop the rocky peaks. Currently there are only 7 visible monasteries (and the ruins of several others), only 2 of which are working monasteries. Several of the monasteries have been converted into convents. We visited two such convents, Saint Stephens and another.

After touring the two convents and multiple photo opportunities we headed back down to the town of Kalambaka where we had our lunch. We had lunch in a restaurant called “Restaurant Meteora”. This was one of my favorite meals in all of Greece. When we arrived they shuffled us all back into the kitchen where there were giant pots full of amazing smelling food and “Mama Kate” told us all about her cooking and then dished it up on to your plate. I must admit, there was something nice about getting a home cooked meal from “Mama Kate”, even though she may not be my “Mama Kate”.

After a delicious meal we got back on the bus for our long journey back to Athens. We arrived in Athens between 6 and 7 and luckily, Irini, our tour guide had informed us that we could take the bus and it would drop us directly opposite the Holiday Inn at the Airport for only 3.20 Euros each. This was good news as the metro was on strike yet again today, and a taxi would have cost us close to 50 Euros. So we arrived at the Holiday Inn near the airport around 8:00 and had dinner. I have to admit it is so nice to stay at a Holiday Inn, and I must say it is by far the nicest hotel we have stayed in thus far, they even have electrically operated curtains (don’t worry, being the hotel nerd that I am, I photographed them as proof!). It’s a shame we won’t enjoy this hotel for long as we will be leaving tomorrow at 2:45 a.m. to head for the airport for our 4:25 a.m. flight to Budapest.

Visiting the Oracle

Monday, June 21st, 2010

We left the hotel this morning around 9 o’clock to make our way to the ruins of Delphi. Delphi was in my opinion was one of the most spectacular archeological sites we have seen thus far. I’d say Pergamum is the only other sight that compared when it came to the number and quality of the ruins and location. Ancient Delphi is located high up in the mountain side between what was referred to in ancient times as the shining rocks. In more recent legends, Greeks say that the divide in the rocks at Delphi is where Noah’s ark struck. Delphi was home to the sanctuary of Apollo, where in ancient times people would travel great distances to come make offerings to Apollo and receive advice from the oracle of Delphi, perhaps one of the most famous oracles of ancient times. People would approach the city and walk by the Temple of Athena, and then they would cleanse themselves in the Kastalia spring, and paid a set tribute (tax or fee) before making their way into the upper terraces of the city. Along the route there were hundreds of statues and treasure houses from all the great civilizations (i.e. the Athenians, Kings of Argos, the Sicyonians, etc.) and wealthy prominent individuals from the time. Once individuals reached the Temple, they would wait for the Priest to bring the 12 goats. The Priest would then wash the goats in the Sacred Well to prepare them for sacrifice, and if the goats shivered it was taken as a sign that the God was present, but if the goats made no motion, it was taken to mean that the God was elsewhere. Then if the God was present the individual posed their question to the Priest who went into the Temple and down to the level where the Pythia, the priestess of the shrine, dwelled, who had been inhaling various gasses and was in a high state of elation. The Priest then posed the individuals question to the Pythia who mumbled words which the Priests interpreted and returned to the individual waiting outside to deliver them the oracle. The advice of the oracle was always cryptic. For example, one recorded oracle to a Spartan warrior was “you will go you will come back not in the war you will die”. The oracles were almost always continuous speech without pauses or punctuation. So this could be interpreted two ways, “You will go, you will come back, not in the war you will die” or it could also be interpreted as “You will go, you will come back not, in the war you will die”, two very different interpretations.

After touring Delphi we headed into the town to have lunch around mid-day before heading on to Kalambaka, where we stay tonight before seeing the monasteries of Meteora tomorrow. On our way to Kalambaka we stopped briefly at Thermopyles, site of the Battle of Thermopyles between the Greeks and the Persians. We arrived at our hotel in Kalambaka around 6:00pm and had a quick swim in the pool before dinner, and then off to bed. Tomorrow will be our last day in Greece.