Mid-Semester Break Vacation - Leg 1 - Vienna, Austria

The kids were out of school last week for one of many breaks during the academic year. They started earlier and end later than our school in Allen, but end up going to school the same amount of days. The result is that they get a week off out of about every five or six weeks in school. Cindy and I discussed where we wanted to go for this break early and often. Anything north would be even colder so Berlin and Paris were out until spring or summer. We discussed Rome, but at the time we thought we had less time due to Cindy's close schedule at work. We decided on Budapest as the primary destination and to break up the drive we stopped in Vienna along the way. Later we figured out that we had a couple more days so Salzburg on the way back was a late addition.

We left last Saturday morning and took a northern route out of Germany to Vienna (or Wien as the road signs show). The morning fog was soupy and the sun was fighting hard to burn it off. Cindy captured this cool pic along the way.

The kids were packed with electronics and other items of entertainment for the four hour drive.

The northern route was a road we had not been on yet. It is further away from the mountains and the fog obscured most of the drive but we still got to enjoy the beautiful fall colors during our trip.

Our time in Vienna was going to be short, only one night. We drove directly to Schönbrunn Palace even before checking in to the hotel. This palace is the most famous in Vienna and dates from 1642.

We took the tour of the palace with the handheld audio guide. It was really packed with guided tours and other tourists. The weather was beautiful and everyone was out and about. The tour was mildly interesting, Cindy and I had no idea about the history of Vienna going into it. The interior was not as amazing as some of the other palaces that we have toured in Germany. Still very impressive and over the top, just not as much as some others. This palace also had a Children's Museum on one side that I wanted to make sure and see. The kids had a pretty good time there but it was not as much fun for them as I had hoped.

 

 

They did get to dress up in palace apparel which included the wigs that neither kid wanted to try on. David, to my surprise played along enough to make Mommy and Daddy happy. 

Cindy got these two pictures back to back with the kids swapping places on the slide.

  

 

There were also a couple of rooms with "old school" toys and other non-electronic items that the kids enjoyed. We put together this six sided puzzle too.

There were still a couple of finished rooms on this side of the palace that we got to see. This was another one of those dining rooms where the table was set and prepared below then raised up to the dining floor. At the end of the visit we stopped and had wax molds of our hands done. It took a while but we actually made it home with all four of our hands intact. 

Cindy is giving us a Texas Tech guns up salute even though the guy told her it makes it hard to get off her hand.

Above is the garden area around the palace as we made our exit. We had a good afternoon at the palace but we had big plans for the evening and had to get going.

Finding the hotel in Vienna was interesting. We had our navigation take us there only to struggle to see any indication of which door we should go in to. There was also the added pressure of a town center location with no parking and traffic all over. All of the streets in the area were one way streets and we ended up driving in circles for a while. We finally identified what we thought was the right door and found a parking place. As soon as I pulled in a parking police guy walked up and told us we could not park there without a permit. He was nice enough to allow me to go check in to the hotel before moving the car to somewhere else. The hotel was not really a hotel, it was more like an apartment building they leased out as hotel rooms when they were not occupied. It was not my favorite place ever but it was fine for one night. The check in guy was able to give me some advice on the public transportation to get to our Mozart concert that night. I returned to the car and we managed to find another parking place that to our best guess was not required to have a permit and was fine to be there parked on a Sunday too. I was done with driving around in Vienna for a while.

We got our stuff into our room and got ready for the evening events. I did not do a very good job planning meals for this first busy day. Now I was really pushing it asking everyone to hold off on dinner until we got into the area of the concert, then we can eat and take our time. We had a few Pringles, got dressed and headed for the underground train. It was a five minute walk to the bahn station. We purchased our ticket, walked down the steps and got right on a train that was there waiting for us. Three stops later we had arrived at our destination. Unfortunately we did not immediately see any places to have dinner. We went for the one place that we saw, just a few meters away from our concert venue. It turned out to be a very nice restaurant with good food. One of the guys came by and gave the kids some gifts that they played with while we waited for our food.

Our next stop was the Musikverein a.k.a The Golden Hall. This was a big deal for me. For those that don't know, I was an OrchDork in junior high. I played the double bass and had a lot of fun being a part of a great group. Also, our first week in Germany I turned on the television and landed on a performance of Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusik by the Berlin Philharmonic. They were playing at.........you guessed it, the Golden Hall in Vienna. Fast forward a few weeks later I am preparing to see the Vienna Mozart Orchestra play several pieces that included Eine Kleine Nachtmusik at the very same place.

This place was very beautiful. I don't think the kids were as excited as I was. This was a performance that started at 8:15 in the evening after a long day of driving and palace touring. This was not just one symphony, there were several pieces being played. I also liked that the performers were wearing period specific attire too. Our seats were not the best, the goal was just to get into the house and experience it during an actual performance. Here is a one minute video from parts of the performance.

This turned out to be a great experience and a good end to our first day. We got on a train back to our hotel and got to rest up for our next day of adventure.

Day 2:
We packed up and checked out of the hotel first thing. All of our stuff was in the car ready to head out later that afternoon for Budapest. But first we had some sightseeing and exploring to do in Vienna.

Not too far from our hotel, we walked to this neo-Gothic city hall building. The area directly in front was fenced off and it looked liked they were tearing down bleachers from the day before. It was Austrian National Day on the 26th. 

 This park is in front of the city hall building. We were out early enough that morning that not many people were around.

 We had tickets to see the Imperial Apartments, along the way we found some other things. We came across several embassy/consulate buildings and then started to see several armed police and military personnel. It got to the point that I was starting to be concerned about what was going to happen.

Near that same area we started seeing some street food options. The little donuts were made fresh right in front of us. We also found some chocolate and creme filled pastries that were all very yummy.

A little further down near this museum we began to realize that there was a showcase of the armed forces going on. We got to see some tanks and helicopters and stuff. There was also a crane set up with bungee jumping available. This was not any of us, but we took a video anyway.

The Imperial Apartments were interesting and we pretty quickly went through and tours of the building and the silver collection. Not knowing much of the history of the city it was difficult to spend too much time in the palaces with so much to see otherwise. Then it was on with our walking tour. 

 Our next stop was St. Peter's Church opened in 1733. This was one of many beautiful churches that we saw on this trip.

St. Stephen's Cathedral was just down the street. It is another Gothic style church built in the 1300's. It was very dark inside and tough to get some good pics. This was Sunday morning so both of these churches were in service. They have public tourists access going on during the service. Cindy and I were talking about how distracting that must be for the members that attend each week.

 

 

 

 

Compared to the baroque style churches, where every inch of every wall and ceiling is decorated, the Gothic style is not as showy in colors and designs. I still think it is pretty amazing though. The amount of detail that goes into every arch and the carvings out of stone are beautiful. 

After a busy morning walking a long ways and seeing a bunch of sights it was time for lunch. We found a McDonald's near by and the kids deserved a reward for being so good on this day. 

After lunch we jumped on the underground and took it back to the car. Our last planned site in Vienna was another palace on the way out of town. We came close to bypassing this site to get on the road, I am glad that we decided to go. Once again we had questions about our parking. I found a place on the street right in front of this popular attraction. After much debate and asking some people walking by we decided it was okay. 

This is the Belvedere Palace. We did not tour the inside of this one but really enjoyed the views of the area that we had walked earlier that day. Once again the pictures do not do it justice.

Most of the sites that we visited are visible from the back garden of this palace. You can even see the crane from the bungee jumping area.

That is it for Vienna, at least for this trip. We felt like we got to see a whole lot in the 24 hour period that we stayed. Now we just had a two plus hour drive to get to Budapest for our next leg of the trip. The next post will be all about the three days that we spent in Budapest followed by a final post for Salzburg to wrap up our trip.