Austria

After a standard hostel breakfast, we geared ourselves up for a hot day in Vienna. After being underwhelmed over our first few days we were determined to give Vienna another go. We had heard there were some great spots for op-shopping, and were directed to a stretch of road between our hostel and the centre of the city. Walking our way there, we found a few gems, and Andrew managed to pick up a shirt from a British-style 60s place, where the young attendant could have been mistaken for a mannequin in the store. We also found some goodies at a place that had everything from the 50s to the 80s, including some super hot short shorts we’d been searching for, ever since we’d hit Germany and Austria, but sadly nothing fitted.

It was then off to find some lunch, and we made our way towards the Rathausplatz, which had a film festival on in the evenings and food and drink stalls set up all through the day and into the night. The place was buzzing with people, and surrounded by stalls serving up various types of international food where everything is cooked freshly in front of you once you order. We struggled to decide what to eat, as it all looked amazing. After deciding on some teppanyaki, seafood risotto and greek platters, and leaving very full, we walked some more of the huge city. Struggling to find the Rachel Whiteread Holocaust Memorial (mainly due to the horrible directions supplied by the guidebook), we got a bit fatigued in the heat of the day, and almost gave up, but with a bit of help from the locals we finally found it. Designed to be harsh and unattractive, resembling a war bunker, the grey concrete work sits within a small square just off a main street.

We then walked to the Hofburg Imperial Palace, which houses many museums, but we stayed outside to walk the impressive facades, covered with sculptures. From there we made our way to the Secession museum, housing contemporary art. We had read about the Beethoven Frieze, an incredibly long work of art, but as it was wrapped around four walls inside, it was hard to grasp its impressive size, and was a bit disappointing after reading the hype. The rest of the museum had some interesting, and some very disturbing, exhibits. One research art project on the ‘UFO Bridge’ in Slovakia we had just seen, and one on a man doing documentary research in Budapest by opening up a shop in a rundown neighbourhood. There was also a very horrifically violent exhibition on animals and fur, which I ended up walking out of.

We returned to the Naschmarkt, which is the first place we’d been to in Vienna with Susanne and Sabine when we arrived, and after a stroll we decided to find somewhere for a cool drink. Since it was such a sunny day, we thought we would try going back to the Museumsquartier, and enjoyed a drink before the sun disappeared, while sketching, reading and resting our feet. Off to find dinner, we decided to go back to the Rathausplatz, where we’d been for lunch, to see what the film festival atmosphere was like at night.

The place was packed out completely, and such a different space than it had been during the day. They were screening films of classical concerts, and the soundtrack filled the air from beyond the bounds of the cinema. We somehow managed to find a table in amongst the chaos of it all, and another couple flocked to the two remaining seats we had free at it. We shared some platters of seafood and noodles with a few drinks, and started chatting to the older couple sharing our table, who were from Munich. A very friendly couple, they gave us some advice on where to go and what to do during some of our travels. Josh also made us try the potent Greek alcohol he’d enjoyed back home, which didn’t go down so well for all of us. It was then back to beer and wine, but we also knew we had to catch a 7.50am train the next morning so sensibility kicked in at some point and we started to make our way home. We tried to hire bikes to get back to the hostel through the great system they have in Europe where you can hire a bike from an automatic station and drop it off at another station near your destination. It turned out you could only hire one bike per credit card though, and as Andy was the only one with a chipped credit card the machine would take, we ended up back on the underground to the hostel, happy that we'd found some of the great Vienna.

Okay, so we're very far behind. It doesn't help that after talking to the internet company in Amsterdam it may take four weeks to install. So bear with me while I try to "borrow" some internet for the next four weeks and catch up as much as I possibly can! So... back to the end of Ljubljana...

We left the hostel and bought some more tasty lunch supplies from the markets and made our way to the train station. Our compartment was shared with a guy from Ljubljana who had travelled quite a bit and was really into extreme sports. We had one change during the journey and ended up switching to first class (putting our good old Eurail passes to use), as the second part of the trip was very busy in second class, but first class was empty. I managed to sleep most of the way, despite the pash-happy French couple at the end of our carriage making slurping noises and sucking each other’s faces off. Josh got a bit fed up with it, and asked them to kiss a little quieter, which embarrassed them so much they gave it up.

An old colleague of mine from Wellington - Susanne, who worked for us on an exchange to New Zealand and lived an hour out of Vienna in an area called Traisen, had very kindly offered to have us for a few nights, and she and her sister Sabine picked us up from the train station, and we decided to go the famous open-air markets for a drink. The markets were near closing, and we decided to cook them dinner, and ended up rushing around the markets before they closed trying to put together the pieces for a great vegetarian meal for them. We ended up with a bucket load of olives - and I mean bucket load, as the woman at the market counter went a bit crazy serving them up. Josh and Andrew tried some stuff with incredibly spicy chillies, which had them in tears (and we ended up taking out the chilli to eat the rest and it was still very hot). We found some fresh haloumi, couscous and veges, and drove back to Susanne’s place into the country in the pouring rain. We met their gorgeous new kitten and cat, who provided quite a bit of entertainment for us all.

The dinner turned out to be a bit of a disaster, as the veges took forever on the bbq, and the haloumi turned out to be some strange variety that doesn’t hold it’s shape and melted everywhere (which was such a pity as it was really tasty!). It was safe to say it wasn’t our best work at all. At least the olives were tasty. Susanne’s mother’s partner had a keg in the basement of local beer from the local restaurant, so Josh and Andrew got to try some of that while Sabine made us a delicious traditional Austrian dessert, which is like a fluffy, eggy pancake with fruit on the side. It was very tasty, and put our dinner to shame. It was great to be in a real house again, and it was one of the best sleeps we’d had on the trip so far that night, reviving us for our adventure through Vienna.

We had a lovely slow start to the next day began with delicious fresh breads for breakfast while it poured with rain outside. Deciding to go and see some of Vienna for the day, and then meet Susanne and Sabine there for dinner and a few drinks that night, we were driven to the train station about 20 minutes from their house by Susanne. Boarding a very crowded train that had come from Salzburg, there wasn’t a seat in sight, but we found places to lean for the 40-minute trip.

Emerging from the train station, the sun had arrived in Vienna just as we had. Our first stop was a traditional Viennese coffee house, which was apparently an essential part of a trip to Vienna, but we were warned about the possibility of bad service. Entering the dated original interior, with billiard tables in the corner and a host at the door (who doesn’t seem to do much but sit a bit higher than everyone else), we thought that the place might have been charming had we not been completely ignored. It was such a hot and humid place, bustling with rude, surly waitresses. We finally had three coffees dumped on our table, which were ridiculously expensive for coffee, and left with a slightly bitter taste in our mouths.

We decided to start to walk the ring road that surrounds the centre of Vienna, and first arrived at the cathedral and through the gardens (which lie next to an extremely dirty river with very low water levels and rubbish floating down it). We also wanted to spend some of the first day visiting the Kunsthauswien, which is home to the Hundertwasser collection. We should have taken a tram there, as the walk along the river to the museum turned out to be a decidedly bland route down a dirty river. A quick stop for some iceblocks in the courtyard, then into the museum with limited time, as there was only an hour left before it closed. With an option for two exhibitions, but only enough time to see one, Andy and I visited the permanent collection of Hundertwasser’s work, while Josh chose Jean Tinguely’s machine works.

The collection was very cool, especially his graphic print work, and I hadn’t realised he had such a connection with New Zealand and had visited many times, eventually proposing a redesign of the New Zealand flag in the 1980s. The building itself is also a work of art; its curves and mosaics echoing the nature of his work. Josh will have to fill you in on the exhibition he visited, although after the last time he took so long to do an entry I think it's best we continue so we don't get even more far behind...We were basically kicked out of the building as it closed, and made our way by metro to the city centre. Arriving at Stephensplatz as evening set in, we were hit with hoards of tourists crowding around street performers, the church, and there were far too many people for our liking. Susanne and Sabine were on their way to meet us for dinner, and we tried to find a place for a drink in the hour we had to meet them. It was a bit of a case of fruitless searching, as we were in the completely wrong area for bars, and the ones that were around were horrible themed places. We weren’t getting a great impression of Vienna so far, although we knew we weren’t in the right places. We finally found a tiny local pub that was the best of the lot of them, and had a drink served by the owner who, judging by the photos he had on the wall, had been there for many, many years. As Susanne and Sabine were vegetarians, their meal choices are very limited in meat-filled Austria. We ended up finding an Indian place that smelt pretty good, and settled there for dinner. It was quite a tasty meal, and we left extremely full afterwards. From there the girls showed us Museumsquartier, which is a huge square surrounded by museums, that sets up open-air bars in the summer. The entire square is filled with stylised blocks moulded as seating. We had a drink there before catching a tram to a different area, where rows of bars run under the trains but are still above ground. We had a few drinks there, and listened to their music set change from German hip hop, to rock, but called it quits when it ended up at emo… There was still an hour to drive ahead of us, and we made it back to Traisen at around 3am.

The next morning we were initially intending to take a day trip to Krems – a small university town that Susanne studies in, but we were drawn outside by the sun and drove to the nearby hills with Susanne, Sabine, and their mother. In winter you can ski down the slopes, but in summer the chairlift still operates to transport hikers up to the top. A 20-minute journey on single chairs to the top, surrounded by nothing but forest was a far cry from the tourist-riddled streets of Vienna. After Josh got a turn on the playground, we walked through some wide open fields that must be great for boarding down in winter, and ended up at the mountain café. Taking a seat outside, we had to hide under the umbrellas to shield ourselves from the sun, and took a look at the menu – or rather, had it translated to us.

Austrian food can be quite heavy, and hard to eat on such a hot, sunny day, but we sampled some local dishes. A huge roast meal for Josh (which he managed to get through somehow!), and two equally filling meals of dumplings with mushrooms for me and Andy, which filled me after a few bites, and left the table looking basically identical to when it arrived. It must be great food after a long day on the mountain though – in winter. We then trekked through the steep hills, down past small waterfalls, fallen bridges, and by the end we were exhausted, and a bit muddy. We stopped at a local icrecream shop for some scoops, and ate them in Susanne and Sabine’s old school courtyard before heading back to the house. After all that walking and such a big lunch it was a lazy evening, with a small bbq dinner (with proper haloumi this time!), a bit more trip planning, and then off to bed.

We left Switzerland for Salzburg, Austria the day before the national holiday (not intentionally, but that was how things worked out). We had really enjoyed Zurich, and it seemed like a great place to live in, if you could afford it I guess. Now it was time to enter the home of the Sound of Music, and Mozart’s birthplace (although we read that he hated the place and couldn’t wait to leave). We crossed into Austria past snow-capped mountains, and the housing style changed once again to very rustic cottages, with sharply inclined roofs so the snow doesn’t settle too often. We arrived with an hour to spare before the hostel opened for afternoon check-in, and headed to a nearby park through the industrial side of town to relax underneath a tree. Our hostel was a very tidy place, where we shared a three-bedroom room with our own shower, which we were very happy with.

Still feeling the heat in the late afternoon, we left the hostel to walk towards the river and the old town. Our first stop was a brewery just out of the old town ‘Weissbierbrauerei’, which looked completely dead at the entrance and through the inside until we entered the bustling and lively garden at the back. Immediately branding ourselves as tourists through our poor German, we were offered the English menu, which proved to be great entertainment as one section translated to ‘Pickled food makes you happy’. Testing this theory, we ordered some (and were happy). I asked the waiter to get me a beer you would try if you normally hated beer, and he brought over one that was actually pretty good, as were the others.

From there it was off to the old town, past the Mirabell gardens (where the Von Trapp kiddies danced around the statue, although I had to be told as I wouldn’t have otherwise remembered). Along the river to the old town, which was another maze of high-walled narrow streets, with horse-drawn carriages (which provide a very unappealing stench to the streets of the city), statues of Mozart, museums, artists, buskers… We found a reasonably priced traditional foodhouse just out of the main square, where the boys got their first and much anticipated batch of sauerkraut. The skies darkened, but no rain came, as we walked back to the hostel via the river, where teens had congregated for a few drinks and music on a Thursday night, and we pondered Andrew's comment that one of his favourite things about travelling was seeing how the rest of the world lived their lives.

Wanting to get an early start for our one full day in the city, we mapped out the places to see, including some of the token Sound of Music sites, but definitely choosing to ditch the long guided tour… We instead hired bikes for the day, which was a great move as it is an incredibly bikeable city. The first stop was Hellbrunn Palace, about 4km out of the centre, which was a very easy riverside bike. The palace was built by a bishop in the 17th Century, and boasts expansive gardens and many sculptures and fountains. It is also now home to the Sound of Music pavilion which was gifted to the palace, and is now locked due to an elderly woman breaking her hip while recreating Liezl’s scene (so the story goes). We climbed to the lookout over the area, and then left the palace to bike towards the lake and pick up picnic supplies along the way. Loading up our bike baskets with food (my bike ‘Hercules’, didn’t live up to the power of the name it was branded with), we passed people swimming in the narrow blue chilly waters of some smaller rivers on our way. Biking around the lake (which is the one they also used in the film that the children fall into at the back of the house), we biked past their house to a nearby park for lunch.

After biking back into the old town, and visiting the grand Dom Cathedral adorned with beautiful paintings on the roof and walls, we walked up to the huge towering fortress of Festung Hohensalzburg for a view over the city. After visiting the museum and getting a bit of history about the area, we visiting the staterooms richly decorated with gold trimmings. Josh also got to have a play with a marionette string puppet... those awful things had a museum dedicated to them. The rattle of thunder quashed our chance to visit the observation deck, as they didn’t want to electrocute the tourists… so it was instead off to Nonnberg Abbey (yet another Sound of Music site), which was a beautiful old church set on the side of a hill overlooking the other side of Salzburg. A very quite and peaceful place, we were basically the only ones there. Then after a beer at a beergarden with a great view over some of the old town, we headed back down the hill. The bells in the square ring every hour, so after waiting for them to sound, we visited St Paul’s, passing through the cemetery into the Cathedral. This was the first one we’d been to that had an organist playing, which made our visit very memorable.

Once we’d biked back to the hostel, we got a recommendation for a dinner place from the hostel worker, and jumped back on our bikes to ride down the riverside to a beer garden. A place with casual service, nice beer, and when we finally pounced on a table, we were able to order some food – Austrian staples of schnitzel, dumplings and bretzels… We’d managed to secure a table under cover without realising, and were joined by two others when the first few drops of rain arrived with the distant sound of more thunder. Later, flashes of lightning began before the rain came pouring down by the bucketload and all the patrons were rushing for cover.

Dinner was over, and the rain was not yet easing so we moved inside for warmth, tried some strudel (which was delicious and encased in a soft baked dough rather than pastry), and had a few more drinks. More rain, hours of lightning, and once it had passed midnight we realised it wasn’t looking like easing at all, and maybe we were going to have to make a run (or a bike) for it. Riding in the pouring rain, the boys discarded their shirts while I layered up, and we were in hysterics as we saturated ourselves, the rain driving into us in the pitch-black night. Andy’s bike had no mudguard, so he arrived back with a stripe of thorough saturation down the middle from back to front… and we were all just plain wet, though we did find it damn hilarious. It was time for showers, then sleep.