Vienna

I think one could spend close to a month in Vienna and not see everything that really needs to be seen, particularly if one were to include side-trips to the surrounding countryside. We did one day of that (more later) and it was my favorite part of the entire trip. Don’t get me wrong … Prague is absolutely fabulous. But aspects of Prague seem a bit like medieval Europe combined with Disneyland. Away from Old Town it doesn’t feel that way AT ALL so maybe that’s a bit unfair, but for now I’m gonna stick with it.

Vienna is considerably more refined and feels like it could completely do without tourists. The history and architecture combined with a seemingly endless circuit of hidden courtyards with interesting buildings and terrific restaurants and cafes make it incredibly appealing. It sort of feels like how London might be if it were to try to reinvent itself as a smaller / quainter town with a bit more character and better food. Maybe that makes sense. Maybe it doesn’t. But that’s how Vienna comes across to me.

Anyway, as usual we did all of the mandatory stuff – St. Stephen’s Cathedral, a good bit of the Hofburg Palace and its environs, Mozart’s apartment, Schonbrunn Palace, at least 3-4 other churches – and a fair number of extras as well. But as usual, I'll focus here on the out-of-the-way and/or unexpected:

Train from Prague to Vienna – Our train trip to Vienna featured my favorite air / rail / subway / tram / bus passenger of all time. I don’t know the guy’s name but I do know that he was from Australia and that he was traveling with his wife and one high school-aged daughter. I also know that he spent at least an hour of the 4 ½ hour trip rearranging / crinkling the plastic grocery bags that he was using to store stuff in the family backpack, obsessively combining partially full Sprite and water bottles (see picture below), and walking to another coach to buy bags of potato chips (which he took great pleasure in crinkling as well). He also spent at least 90 minutes standing next to the two-seater in front of him where his wife and daughter sat. Some of the time he was sort of talking to them. The rest of the time he was just standing there, invading Paige’s space across the aisle and being hilariously annoying simply by virtue of his presence. Then, a full 30 minutes before we pulled into the Vienna station, he triumphantly pulled down all of his family’s bags, took them to the exit door between the coaches, and stood there, absolutely swollen with pride, secure in the knowledge that he would, in fact, be the first person to exit our coach. In many ways he reminded me of a much-less-lovable version of Clark W. Griswold, Chevy Chase’s character in the Vacation movies. I wanted to thank him for helping us make a memory, but I didn’t think he would get it.

Vienna Zoo – If you know Paige, you will not be surprised at all to learn that about half of our time at Schonbrunn Palace was spent visiting the Vienna Zoo. Yes, Schonbrunn Palace – the summer residence of Austrian royalty – is the site of what is supposedly the oldest continuously running zoo in the world. Francis I, founder of the Habsburg-Lorraine dynasty, put it together in the mid-1700s. Actually his wife, Maria Theresa, wore the pants in the family so it probably was her doing, but whatever. The zoo has hippos and capybaras and pandas and hippos and koalas and hippos. Plus hippos. And that basically is all you need to know (again, if you know Paige). The palace and grounds are spectacular. Overall, the feel reminds me of a combination of Versailles and Sanssouci (the palace of Frederick the Great) just outside of Berlin. Inside pictures are prohibited, but if you’d like to take a semi-virtual tour, go here.

State Hall – One of the buildings secreted away within the in-town Hofburg Palace area is the Austrian National Library. Within the Austrian National Library, the State Hall contains over 200,000 old texts along with a series of 20-or-so stations that explain much of the history of Vienna up through about World War I. And yes, Archduke Franz Ferdinand – the guy whose assassination ostensibly brought about the beginning of World War I – was a nephew of Franz Joseph I, who was the longest-ruling emperor of Vienna and also is the guy you hear most about while you're doing historical-type things in Vienna. Anyway, old books plus history plus intricate carvings and ceiling frescoes always make for a good time. This place certainly is a hidden gem. You can see a virtual tour here.

Silver Collection – If table settings and cutlery and candlesticks and napkins and centerpieces are your thing, then this part of the Hofburg Palace is not to be missed. While I thought it was mind-numbingly dull, I did find it completely brilliant that there were tons of people who actually did the full 50-minute audioguide tour of room upon room upon room upon room of this stuff. After finishing the Silver Collection tour you can take the equally minutiae-driven Sisi Museum audioguide tour. Mercifully, my battery died about 10 minutes into that one, which gave us an excuse to just walk through and browse at our leisure. Ultimately, Paige and I decided that the real reason Goebbels and Hitler committed suicide was because they had intercepted a transmission telling of Allied commanders’ plans to force them to tour these two areas (with no shortcuts) after Berlin had been conquered. Actually, the Sisi Museum is pretty interesting if you just take it at your own pace. Note: Empress Sisi basically is the late 19th century Lady Di of Vienna, except she was a recluse and people didn't become obsessed with her until after she was assassinated. No inside pictures are allowed, but you may find further details about these two museums here. The photo below has nothing whatsoever to do with the Hofburg Palace. Rather, it's a view of St. Stephen's Cathedral from the terrace of our digs at Hotel Lamee (which I heartily recommend).

Melk – Of all the places we visited, Melk was my favorite. Melk is about an hour west of Vienna by train. It is famous for the Melk Abbey (the picture below is not mine), which is a Benedictine monastery that has been in operation on the same hilltop location since the 11th century. Because it is a working monastery, it has been subjected to various updates and renovations over the years, including major work in the 19th century after a huge fire wreaked havoc on the monastery and the town proper. The monastery itself is completely ridiculous. It is gigantic, houses a lot of super-important Benedictine monk stuff, and has a fabulous library and a sick cathedral. If I knew anything about art and architecture and the Catholic church I could be super impressive in my description of it, but instead I’ll just have to punt and say that it absolutely is a 10 on the gaudy scale. The stained glass isn’t in the class of St. Vitus / St. Chappelle / Notre Dame / Westminster Abbey / etc., but for full-on insane carvings, frescoes, marble, and gold, it takes the cake. Honestly, though, the best thing about Melk is the fact that it is a beautiful little cobblestone lane-ridden town that overlooks the Danube River. The entire Wachau Valley is lovely and I certainly could see spending a LOT of time there.

So that's all I've got. We got home last night to find the house clean and the kids in good spirits. They made several day-trips in our absence (including a walk-down-memory-lane College Station adventure) and handled their responsibilities beautifully. It is nice to know that we can, in fact, head off and pretend to be real adults periodically without having to worry about things too much.

Prague

Paige and I headed to Europe on Tuesday to celebrate (belatedly) our 25th anniversary. Paige's mom and stepdad were at the house until today (Saturday), and now the kids are on their own until we return on Thursday. The most recent update indicates that nobody has starved and the house hasn't burned down yet, so at this point it could be a lot worse (knock on wood).

So our flights from San Antonio to DC to Munich to Prague were easy and totally uneventful. My only complaint is that food concessions at the DC airport apparently shut down at 9 p.m. which is completely ridiculous, but whatever. We got in to Prague at about 5 p.m. local time after 16 hours in transit from San Antonio, walked around for a while and got our bearings, hung out, and went to sleep at more-or-less normal time ... so jet lag hasn't really been much of an issue.

We saw most of the stuff you're supposed to see here (Charles Bridge, St. Vitus Cathedral, Strahov Monastery, Old Town, the Museum of Medieval Art, the Jewish Quarter, etc.). We also saw a jillion other cool churches and things, and as always there were some pretty awesome and sometimes random surprises. These follow:

Our Apartment - Our apartment is on the west side of Old Town Square facing (and maybe 250 yards away from) Tyn Church. The not-really-zoomed view from our window is below. So yeah ... if you are coming to Prague and want a fabulous central location, I can set you up.

The Museum of Communism - For the full story you can visit the museum here. The abbreviated story is that the museum occupies a single floor that might be as big as the downstairs area of our house in San Antonio. It's filled with post-WWII Soviet era Czech communist paraphernalia and also has a well-done section relating to Czechoslovakia's initial major anti-communist uprising in the late 1960s (Prague Spring) and then again around the time in the late '80s when the Berlin Wall was torn down (Velvet Revolution). Within a few years, the nation split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia and the rest, as they say, is history. Anyway, we both thought this place was brilliant, both in content and in its complete tourist trap feel.

Strahov Monastery Library - OK maybe this one isn't random, but as my favorite thing so far I had to include it here. The Strahov Monastery was founded in the 12th century. There are quite a few things on the grounds, but the highlight is the library, some of which was built in the 17th century and some of which was built in the 18th century. There are two large rooms filled with a lot of old books. I don't know what more one would want. Again, more detail can be found here.

Guide at Old-New Synagogue - The Jewish cemetery contains 85,000+ bodies buried as many as 12 deep in a plot of ground that can't be bigger than an acre. Why? Because Jews in Prague weren't allowed to bury their dead anywhere other than in this one spot from the mid 1400s until the late 1700s. Only about 12,000 tombstones are visible at this point and many of them are strewn about seemingly randomly slash stacked like cordwood (if you aren't from Texas, you can look that up somewhere). It is unbelievable. But the highlight of our trip to the Jewish quarter was Mr. Janacek, the volunteer guide at the Old-New Synagogue. Mr. Janacek first asked us if we would like to know anything about the synagogue ... then pulled up a chair and talked to (at) us for 10 minutes ... then asked us if we would follow him please into another area where he talked to (at) us some more ... then asked if we were in a hurry, because he probably would talk to us for about half an hour (direct quote). I mean really, how could we refuse? The dude was soft-spoken, eager to tell us absolutely everything about the place (and the history of Jews in Prague), and seemed like he needed a friend. Seriously, he added huge value to the experience.

Na Ovocnem Trhu - On a wide, semi-empty street that runs southwest from Celetna street to the Estates Theatre (where Mozart premiered Don Giovanni), you will see Na Ovocnem Trhu. I can't comment on the food in general that is served at this place, but I can tell you that you can get an outstanding order of fruit dumplings, two gigantic Czech honey special lagers, and a glass of Moravian white wine for 200 CZ ... which is about $8. We've had insanely good food and drink everywhere we've gone - traditional Czech, Indian, French-Czech, and Thai - but the bang-for-the-buck at this place is without peer. Paige also learned a valuable lesson at Na Ovocnem Trhu, which is that Campari on its own tastes remarkably like Raid.

Trdelnik - Trdelnik is a flaky dessert-type thing that is roasted and rolled in nuts and sugar. It's kinda like a pretzelish cinnamon roll that isn't anywhere near as sweet as a cinnamon roll nor anywhere near as salty as a pretzel. Not sure if that helps or not. Whatever the case, Trdelnik drives home the point that I have ALWAYS tried to make, which is that any food that has five consonants within its first six letters has to be amazing. I have eaten two every night we've been here, no matter how much I ate for the rest of the day. They are solid.

Vysehrad - Vysehrad is a former fortress that is believed to have been built during the 10th century. Other than the outer walls and the Church of SS Peter and Paul, which has been rebuilt and restored at various points in time, most of it is gone and the entire area has been turned into a gigantic city park. The national cemetery is here as well. It includes the graves of various famous personages (including Antonin Dvorak) and important modern families as well. Anyway, the entire place is very, very, very, very cool. The first picture below is of the church and the second is a view looking north toward St. Vitus Cathedral, which you can see a few miles upstream in the right half of the picture. For more details on Vysehrad, click here.

And with that I will close. We hop the train tomorrow to Vienna, where we'll spend four nights (as we did here in Prague). At this point I definitely can say that Prague is highly recommended as a vacation destination. I think I would rather be here in Autumn when the leaves are turning and most of the tourists are gone, but I certainly will not complain.

Cheers,
Mike