And then there was one...

Before we knew it there was but one day left. Our time had just flown by and there was still so much we wanted to do and see. Above all we just wanted to do nothing in our new favorite cities. We'd brainstormed about having the cats stuffed into a FedEx box with some holes poked in the side and shipped to us. BMS has offices in both Prague and Vienna, and I can take pictures anywhere... can we move here? I think this is a common question amongst travelers. How can we move here and make it work? But I digress...


We started our day with a subway trip to the Prater Amusement park to ride on the Wiener Riesenrad (Giant Viennese Ferris Wheel) which also happened to be another great location from The Third Man where Orson Welles delivers the great speech: "Victims? Don't be melodramatic. Look down there. Tell me. Would you really feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving forever? If I offered you twenty thousand pounds for every dot that stopped, would you really, old man, tell me to keep my money, or would you calculate how many dots you could afford to spare? Free of income tax, old man. Free of income tax - the only way you can save money nowadays."   The Riesenrad sits in a giant amusement park that is open 365 and looked like it might have been a nice time at night. The view from the top is expansive, but not impressive as Vienna really doesn't have a very impressive skyline. It seems like the majority of buildings are 7 floors or smaller...


Next we made our way to the Stephansdom, an iconic church in the heart of Vienna and apparently also the thing to do for every other tourist in Vienna that day! The plaza was mobbed! So much so that it took the wind out of our sails and we had no interest in waiting in line to press up against people in another church. So we contented ourselves with a few pictures outside (despite the scaffolding) and made our way to the next stop which was right around the corner...Mozarthaus. 


This was not Mozart's first home in Vienna, nor was it the last home he owned, but it is where he lived during the 5 most prosperous and creative years of his life. The tour was wonderful and spanned through the entire building and highlighted his work, his gambling addiction, and his dedication to the Freemasons. It was really fascinating and I recommend for both fans and non-fans alike.


Now we were fast running out of time as we had dinner reservations at Figmueller's (considered the very best schnitzel in the world!) and still wanted to browse a street filled with shops that we'd discovered on our first night to Vienna, but also had the Hofburg Gardens to view... we decided nothing could possibly beat the Shonnbrun's gardens and so the Hofburg's was off the list and it was time to shop! So back to the hotel to freshen up and change and then we were off once again and to our surprise and delight we arrived to find the street was having a festival with most of the shops participating! We strolled up and down checking things out for a bit until we realized that most of the places were packing it in! Oh no, we still had gifts to buy! What started as a leisurely stroll ended in slight panic as we rushed around trying to find the perfect gifts... well some of you know how this turned out already :) In the end we found some very nice things that evoked the perfect Vienna and to celebrate we found a nice sidewalk cafe to rest until it was time to eat. 


Figmuller's is the mecca of schnitzel! If you go to their website: http://www.figlmuller.at/ you will get the full lesson on choice cut meats, best flour, and the 3 pan process for cooking! I can't imagine how many dishwashers this place employs! I'm not one to judge value on quantity, but if you are the type that likes to see food flowing over the sides of your plate than this is for you! I kid you not, they pound out the meat until it is almost paper thin and one schnitzel is as long as a man's arm from finger tip to elbow...and they even offer a double portion plate! We both chose to get a small salad, a side of potato salad and one schnitzel each. The side salads have a lot of potato salad and the side of potato salad has greens and such with it, so order one or the other but not both. I'd also recommend ordering one and splitting it and ordering a second if still hungry. Also note that they don't serve beer here, only wine... in giant beer glasses! But anyway, note that while not every one's cup of tea, the young wine that the region is known for goes well with the breaded and fried pork you have come for :)


The trip was winding down. We took or last stroll back to the hotel and stopped for the last "street-vendor bought" beer and Jager shot then headed home. We had an early morning to what would be one of the worst travel experiences ever and we needed our sleep...

How I know my wife loves me

There is a classic film noir from 1949 called The Third Man, starring Joseph Cotton and Orson Welles, which you may or may not remember was shot primarily in Vienna. Set in the immediate post war Vienna in which the city was split up and governed by the Americans, the British, and the Russians, and the French. A major component of the film is the city sewer system and there is a group that runs tours down into the places where the movie was shot! We made our reservations and woke up early Friday and walked not even a mile from the hotel to the place where the sewer is accessed in the famous chase scene of the movie. This is where things go south! :) First off we get there and the 10am tour is in German. We inquire as to when the English tour is and discover that there would not be one that day or the next (or ever?) What a rip off! If your website is in English and you respond to my reservation in English then I'm assuming you have an English tour... in fact I believe the 10 am was listed as an English tour. Well I didn't come this far to be turned away. I didn't need to know what they were saying, just wanted to SEE the caves. Then the next shoe dropped. They made us wear spelunker's helmets. I was fine with this, but Mrs. Heather was having a good hair day and the paper skull-cap and helmet were sure to ruin that! Strike 2. The next issue I'm sure you can guess was THE SMELL. We are already aware of Heather's super-human nasal abilities, so voluntarily walking into a major cities working sewer system was a true act of selflessness! The tour lasted about 45 minutes and we saw a number of key locations and our guide was kind enough to paraphrase a few points in English for us. I thought it was incredibly cool and I will never forget it.

In stark contrast to the dank, confined, and smelly Vienna sewer system we next made our way to The Shonbrunn Palace, the Hapsburgs' summer palace. A-mazing! The palace still holds many of the imperial families belongings and is decorated just as it was in their time. We had a wonderful apple strudel making demonstration and then walked the immense public gardens which include the worlds first zoo, a labyrinth and maze, and a giant monument to the Hapsburgs rule. Absolutely beautiful place and I think both of our favorites in terms of palaces.

That night we scratched our plans to take the subway out to the famous Reisenrad Ferris Wheel (also in the Third Man) choosing instead to go dine at Cafe Sprel and hitting the ferris wheel the next morning. Of course when we arrived they were still open, but had stopped serving food. Just our luck. Never the less we ordered a piece of chocolate cake and two coffee drinks. The cake had a thin layer of what we think was apricot jam and was nothing special, but the coffees were the best either of us had had to that point. Fantastic! We then set off to find a place to eat with the help of Yelp again. A highly rated "tapas" bar was right across the street. We walked in to find what looked to be a very cool alternative bookstore with chairs and tables and a ton of people lounging around. Pretty cool, but then we saw the menu and it was nothing we'd want to have for dinner so we walked out and a block away found an Asian noodle house that was also well reviewed. Having tired of local cuisine and Italian restaurants I insisted we go in for something different and we were both thrilled by our meals...

Vienna = Wien

I'm going to back pedal a bit and fill in the gaps of our arrival and first full day in Wien. After our epic train ride from Prague in which our noses were assaulted, we taxied over to the Hotel Am Konzerthaus where we were excited to find we'd been upgraded to a lovely suite. Heather was given a bar of French Soap (which seems kind of an oxymoron to me) but she was quite excited and assured me it is very expensive... probably because of it's rare nature! Ha, I kid! I'm still just a bit put off by the French after yesterday's "Nightmare at DeGaul".

Our good friend "Yelp" is now in Vienna, so we consulted the site and found an interesting place to eat called Inigo. It was about a 20 minute walk and the weather was great. We sat outside in a church square and had a very nice meal then wondered about and found what a stranger on the street told us was "the best ice cream in Vienna" and it was good.

Thursday was our first full day in Wien. You may recall my Plzen post from Prague, when I said we'd just finished our first full day and were very tired. Well, that was an understatement. On our first morning in Wien, we got up and walked through the St. Charles Church plaza to the Naschmarkt. This famous outdoor food market has two lanes that run the length of about 5 long city blocks and is populated by stall after stall of farmer's produce, deli counters, and cafes as well as mini street vendors selling schnitzel and kabobs and all sorts of exotic stuff. Heather and I have a thing for these really green olives and after passing about 30 olive vendors we stopped and asked the woman for a very small amount of these gems. While scooping them she gave us a free sample of falafel which was quite good. She filled a tiny container less than half way and then asked us for 8,90 euro! That's almost $14! We thought she had said .89 euro and there was an awkward moment where we all stood there looking at each other... well needless to say we weren't dropping $14 on 12 olives so we sent it back and then the other two ladies got involved all while the first lady made sure they knew we'd had free samples like that made a difference in our price!?! I explained we only wanted a tiny bit, two euro worth at most, and so the 3rd woman dumped our olives back and scooped out about 8 olives. At this point we should have just left but we took them and walked to the Karlsplatz park to eat them. Would you believe that only 3 of them were edible! What a racket, but we got the last laugh because the lady that felt it was important to note that we'd had free samples counted out the wrong change and gave us an extra euro by mistake... :)

After "lunch" we walked into St. Charles Church and were faced with the first of many scaffolds in Vienna. The prestigious art school there was midway through the beautiful ceiling mural's renovation and they had a massive step/elevator scaffold erected all the way to the tiny top of the steeple. The elevator took us most of the way up but we were then faced with what seemed to be more stairs then in Prague's mini Eiffel Tower, Petrin Hill. Of course it says, "no more than 10 people allowed up from that point", and there was no way of knowing just how many people were already up there! We took the gamble and luckily only two other people were at the top. Funny, you don't feel the motion in the scaffolding until you get to the top and as we stood there alone looking out at the Vienna skyline from the tip top of the steeple we felt as though we were at the end of a whip! That thing shook and I swear I heard a screw fall out and all I could think of is how about our luck being at the top of this church in an earthquake. Luckily that wasn't the case, but we both hightailed it right off that thing. 

From there we were off to Belvedere Palace, the summer residence for Prince Eugene of Savoy. The palace consists of two Baroque style palaces, the upper and lower, separated by an immense garden that stretches at least a quarter mile. The upper houses the best of Vienna's most popular artwork including what is supposedly the world's largest collection of Gustav Klimt's works. The Kiss and a few other recognizable works were there, but I think the Schonbrunn had more. Anyway, our journey there took twice as long since we were in desperate need of some water and a snack (since all we'd had to this point were 3 edible olives) and to our surprise we couldn't find a minimart or anything for almost 2 miles smack in the middle of the city surrounded by apartment and office buildings. Where do these people get their snacks? Ha, speaking of snacks we found ourselves way past the Palace on a major artery looking for something when we came a cross a door with the word SNACKS written in green neon above the door. I opened it and started to walk in to a room with two gambling machines and a heavy black door that prohibited anyone 18 or younger from entering? I don't know what snacks means in Austrian, but it's not the same as our definition I assure you! 

After returning to our hotel to freshen up, we were off to the Leopold Museum for what looked to be a promising photography exhibit. Looks were certainly deceiving as we both agreed there was next to nothing that warranted being on display in a prestigious museum and the works that were of high quality and engaging were reproductions of Edward Weston and Ansel Adams works... The walk was nice and we had stumbled on to one of Vienna's oldest and most celebrated cafes, Cafe Sperl. Unfortunately we arrived 10 minutes to closing (we'd be back) and instead ate at this "cafeteria" style Italian restaurant called Vapiano. Here one is issued a debit card that is placed over a machine when ordering from a chef or bartender. The machine records the purchase and tells the cashier what you've had at the end of the night. The food is all quality ingredients and there were 4 pasta stations, a pizza and antipasti station, a salad station, and a bar with a nice selection of wines. The food was good and all in all it was a fun experience. At this point we'd been up for over 12 hours walking all over the city and we walked back and into our room like zombies. 

Good R vs great PG

So we are back in the states after a day of travel that is beyond belief. I still need to write about our time in Vienna before wrapping up with the worst travel day (short of actually getting bumped or missing flights) but let me say as a teaser that it involved early morning obstacle courses, several trains, subways, and trams, long lines, and a 5 minute interaction with French security that mimics a scene from the movie Dumb and Dumber. 

So Vienna, my how big you are. Heather and I imagine we must have walked on average about 8 miles a day on our trip and the bulk of this must have been in Vienna. But before I get to that let me do my best to explain what I mean by comparing Prague and Vienna to the movies. Vienna is really a beautiful city and after seeing pictures of how it looked immediately after WWII one can't help but be completely impressed with all they had done to bring it back to past glory. Truly amazing! The city is quite impressive with it's cleanliness and is amazing for it's public transportation and accommodations to bicyclists and walkers alike. The feel is very cosmopolitan and there is a lot of "high fashion" in the city. It is also seemingly very safe. Never once did we feel uneasy in any neighborhood or at anytime of the day, which is amazing considering one can buy beer and jaegermister from a hotdog stand 24-7 you'd expect a little more disorderly conduct but there wasn't any. Instead we found Vienna to be friendly and accommodating to not only ourselves but seemingly everyone from all walks of life. In that I say it's like a good PG movie. Interesting and fun in a family friendly package.

Prague on the other hand seemed instantly racy and slightly dangerous. There is an edge there. Something dark that lingers in the shadows of the former communist era. This city was virtually untouched through both World Wars and all military campaigns previous. The history of architecture is unparalleled in the world and I can say with total conviction that I know of no other city in which every street, every turn, every inch could potentially be a postcard view. There is something amazing to see everywhere you look! I could do a 15 pound coffee table book on the "Doors of Prague" alone. But as I said there is an edge to the city. The visible evidence of rebellion and angst is literally written on the walls with the overwhelming graffiti. People here, especially the older generations, are not warm to strangers. We guess this to be a hold over from the communist regime when strangers could be potential spies lurking to rat someone out to the secret police. Seeing pictures from as recently as 20 years ago will also bring feelings of admiration for what the Czechs had done to revitalize there amazing city, but where Vienna seemed to get the brass cleaner out and remove the tarnish, Prague accepted the patina and embraced the beauty of it's decay. For it's edgy and gritty nature and tease of unseen dangers we liken it to the rated R movie. Thrilling and not good for all audiences, but authentic and substance.

The longest day.

Last day in Prague. Such a sad phrase. So much more to do and see in the city. Today we wanted to check out an icon of cubist architecture and also hit the museum of midevil torture before catching the train to Vienna (Wein). Of course both were opposite directions from our hotel! Cubist building out of the way we hit the museum which was at the base of one side of the Charles bridge. While quite interesting I was most impressed with the view of the square and churches from the open windows on the second and third floors! We had a few options to get to the train station. 1st was the car service that picked us up at the airport = 600. 2nd was our hotel's fine Audi for 450. 3rd was the official cab of Praha, AAA yellow with an amazing 150... Conveniently our hotel forgot to call for our cab and so when it was time to leave there was no AAA but their fine Audi was right there! This pissed us off and we'd read it was the one thing that has put other visitors off f an otherwise wonderful hotel. No one likes a bait and switch. Anyway, given our now time crunch we seemed to be in a pinch but they didn't know just how badly we needed to get moving so I used that to our advantage and got their 450 down to 200 and we road out of Prague in style...until we caught the stink train! Our 4+ hours on the train can be described in BG & AG. Before the Girls and After the Girls. Our train and compartment was pleasant enough and "before the girls" got on we shared it with two nice enough Czech guys, father an son, who teamed of BO. I mean bad. But it was hot out and we have encountered it before and know it's not in their culture to wear deodorant so whatev. It is whatbit is... We were so thankful when they got off about an hour later and were replaced by "the girls". Two pleasant early 20 something's who were quiet and had zero offensive qualities. The perfect train companions. Unfortunately we only had then for an hour and "after the girls" we got the foulist smelling drunk in all of Europe! Of course he sits right next to Heather! Those that don't know, Heather has a super-human nose and I think it's psychic sometimes in that she can smell the future and the past in addition to everything else within 50 feet! So she was in hell. I kid you not, I went to the dining car to get us sandwiches and when I returned I could smell the stench 30 feet away as I approached our cabin! Apparently while I was away he'd pulled out a water bottle full of beer and a bottle of booze and started pulling sips off both and knocking into Heather after which he apparently cussed her out a bit in Czech to which a young guy who knew what was up said somethng to the old guy that quieted him up. Needless to say at this point we decided we missed the girls... Thankfully he only lasted about an hour too and our final hour was with one gentleman who chose to stand outside the room watching the landscape go by... He probably thought we reeked and didn't want to sit too close! Vienna is a great city but totally different on many levels from Prague. I'll go into greater detail but it's like comparing a thrilling rated R movie to a really good PG....

Plzen and the Pilsner Urquell brewery

I'm afraid this entry won't have the zing of others. It is almost midnight of Heather and I's first full day in Vienna and we feel like we've walked all over kingdome come. In Prague things appear far away on maps but in reality they are quite close. In Vienna I think things are almost twice as far as they appear on maps! The natives get past this by being the most bike friendly city I have ever seen in the entire world! Their very wide sidewalks are split evenly between pedestrian and bike lanes and the streets are wide enough for two car lanes...so as you can imagine it takes forever to cross a lot of the streets. Get to a major artery and you can add trollys to the list of obstacles. We were stuck midway through one of those intersections! Vienna has a city wide bike rental system tha I want to try in which you put in a card at a kiosk and pick a simple bicycle. The first hour is free and subsequent hours are a euro or two. Bikes can be returned to any kiosk in the city. It's like Austin's Yellow Bike Program taken the the Nth degree.

So Plzen! The day started with a thrill ride on the super steep escalator I mentioned in a previous post and a 90 minute train ride to the birthplace of Pilsner Beer. The train is a little more expensive than the bus but we chose it because the stop in Plzen is 5 minutes from the brewery vs. 30, the train goes through beautiful country side, and it has a bathroom for the return trip!

The brewery is quite impressive but we both felt a bit slighted by the tour. We took the English tour and while the girl did speak quite well, her voice was kind of hard to hear and her speech was rushed like a 5th grader reciting something they were forced to memorize. As a result our time in certain areas was cut short and a 90 minute tour turned into 75. They brew and bottle all of their beers (Urquell, Gambrinus, Kozel, & each brands various versions) there and the bottling plant is massive! We got a quick few minutes about the system and were then lead up to an observation deck. At this point it was too loud to hear anything else she might have said. The place was humid as Houston in August and smelled of hot beer. Visually Heather and I felt we had walked into the opening sequence of Lavern & Shirley! :) Saddly this part went no further. There was a large and well protected "cat walk" that bisected the production floor and would have given us an amazing view of the shipping oppuration too, but the gate never was opened and our guide walked right passed it twice. We could see massive plastic wrapping machines and other interesting things that we would have liked to have seen but no go :( A few minutes later we were on the country's largest elevator. To accommodate groups of 68 people the elevator was build to hold 77! And it looked as if one could park 4 cars side to side inside it. A quick video about the ingredients and then a walk through an interactive explanation had us in the brew rooms. The first was the original room with 8-12 giant copper tanks set in pristine white tile on two levels bathed in natural light. I was in heaven and anxious to take a few pictures but our guide barely stopped long enough to explain what these were before leading us into the new room featuring less tanks in a sterile modern environment. Still quite impressive but I felt we'd been rushed for no reason again. My feeling of loss was soon subsided in the tasting room where we were treated to large cups of unfiltered Pilsner Urquell straight from a giant wooden cask. At this point Pilsner Urquell is no longer brewed in casks except in small batches for tours like ours. In short: it was awesome! Heather, the non-beer drinker, loved it and I was pleased to find it (the unfiltered) for sale in the restaurant after our tour. Side note, the restaurant is also the largest in Czech seating 505 people! The tour ended shortly after the tasting. If you plan to come, and I do recommend it despite the negatives I've described, wear shoes that have good traction on slippery wet rocks. I was not wearing such shoes and almost hit the floor multiple times (before the beer!).

Trains run every hour, so we took some time to walk Plzen and see it's impressive church and square. It is a cute town with lots of charm and I could see spending more time there.

On the way home we stopped at a subway stop that held artwork remnant of Soviet occupation and found a few bronze murals. Pictures are on flickr.

Best day in Prague

So we were originally planning on heading to Plzen the day after Terezin, but to be honest after all the hiking around with cameras and the early mornings and in my case the time change still playing tricks (in fact I still couldn't tell you with any certainty what today is!) we decided to switch things up and stay in the city. It was a beautiful day and after our groundhog day breakfast we headed out to meet Roman Bily at the astrological clock for his popular Jewish ghetto tour. Actually Roman runs a short and long version of this tour as well as a communist tour and an underground Prague tour and if any of you come to Prague we can't recommend Roman's tours enough.

We left the former ghetto and made our way to the Mucha museum where in addition to the beautiful art nouveau master's work we saw a Japanesse man attack his girlfriend! No one ever expects public violence, or any sort of violence really, but in a museum full of beautiful artwork it seemed even more deplorable.

Next stop was the museum of communism, which appropriately enough is located next to McDonalds and a casino! Needing a bit of a snack before heading in, we bypassed Micky-Ds and went to a Pilsner Urquell pub next door and I somehow ended up with a liter of beer and a jar of pate :) Heather's choice of pickled sausages and cheese were good as well. Newly fortified we entered what turned out to be one of the most interesting museums I've ever visited. I remember images of the velvet revolution on my TV as a kid, but was really too young to understand and appreciate what was going on for these people. Now after spending several days walking the streets of Prague then seeing these same streets with tanks and police beatings and old ladies standing in front of a marching military the whole thing came to life.

Best of all the hurricane had passed and we were faced with facts of the situation and not tense with anticipation. A weight of sorts was off our backs and we could finally spend the day not worrying...much. lol a deep and heartfelt thanks to Don, Kim, and Cole for going above and beyond in looking after our home and cats in our absecence. Each having their own homes and animals and such to worry about and finding the time to check the damage and ultimately pumpIng out the water from our basement.