Visiting the Vienna Woods

While in Vienna, we took a tour operated by Vienna Sightseeing Tours that’s called Vienna Woods.  This was a most interesting tour just outside of Vienna.  So on this tour, we visit an old hunting lodge, an abbey, and the largest subterranean lake in Europe.

In route to the old Mayerling hunting lodge, which is now a chapel, we passed through the picturesque and culturally rich Baden.  The hunting lodge is dedicated to the Crown Prince Rudolph and Baronesse Vetsera.  There’s a lot of history about these two … like how did they die.  Was it suicide or murder.

The Cistercian Abbey of Heiligenkreuz was absolutely incredible and well worth the visit.  The abbey dates back to 1133.  If history appeals to you, you want to visit the abbey.  Like so much of the historical sites of Austria, the abbey helps connect the history between Austria and Hungary.

After the abbey, we make our way to the Seegrotte, the largest subterranean lake in Europe.  This subterranean lake is like a massive air conditioner and it too has a rich history, particularly, it’s use by the Germans, during World War II, to build machinery for the war effort.

The Seegrotte ends our tour and on our way back to Vienna, we get a treat and drive by an old Hapsburg castle.

Fortunately, for this tour we had an excellent tour guide.

Salzburg brandy … hmm

One of the things that I like most about traveling is learning something new.  I always thought that the Austrians were known mostly for their beer.  I must say that I was a little indignant when asked for a local Austrian beer and the server brought me a Budweiser.  I thought what the hell!  I don’t even drink Budweiser at home.  I am really a wine drinking, but I like beer too, but if I am going to drink beer it better be good stout beer.  Well, as it happens to be, this Budweiser is a local beer and it was good.  Not as strong as some German beers that I had in Frankfurt, but not American beer either.  So, this was lesson one.

During our trip to Salzburg, I had no idea what to expect in terms of alcoholic drinks … other than beer.  Well, to my surprise, during our city tour, I learned that brandy is big in Salzburg … at least that’s what the residents told us.  I am such a skeptic, they are probably laughing at me right now, saying that “Dumb American.”  I don’t really think that and so what … that brandy is really good!  It’s apricot brandy and very smooth.  Actually, that’s bad because you tend to drink too much!  So, I learned at least two things on my Salzburg trip.  Actually, three, their wine is not too bad either.

Best Dining Experience in Vienna

Whenever we travel, we always eat local food.  We even do this when we travel within the United States.  So, no restaurant chains for us … except Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, but that’s a story for another day.

While in Vienna the the summer of 2008, as usual we eat at a variety of places, “mom and pop” owned restaurants to 4 star gourmet.  One may think that the 4 star restaurants are always the best food, but this has not always been our experience; however, they tend to have the best service though.

As for Vienna, this is a must “eat at” restaurant — Mörwald im Ambassador.  This restaurant is definitely one of the high end restaurants and is located in the Hotel Ambassador.  Not only is the food to die for, but the service is excellent … even by pampered American standards.  You have a captain and co-captain ensuring that your dining experience is excellent.  The food is Viennese, but not necessarily traditional.  You can either order the 3 or 5 course dinner or order a la carte.  My foie gras was excellent … and grilled.  I have never had foie gras grilled.

While not inexpensive, the meal and the experience will be worth it.  As an aside, don’t forget to make reservations.  We were smart enough to do this, but also wear a business coat/jacket if you are a gent.  I was not smart enough to do this.  I felt a little under-dressed.

Enjoy your dinner …

Vienna night life … street performers

One of the things that we like most about most European cities is that they are walking friendly … not necessarily pedestrian friendly.  Some drivers are totally nuts, i.e., crazy!

Typically after dinner, we like to walk around.  Vienna was perfect for this … I still wonder how European women are able to walk on those cobblestone streets, especially in high heel shoes.

Not only is Vienna ideal for walking, but like many other European cities, the street performers come out at night to perform.  Lets just say that not all street performers are created equal.  Some are good and some are really bad … too bad for street and free performing.

What’s funny, while we were in Vienna this past July 2008, there was a Canadian performer from Montreal … he was in the not so good category.  Even when the street performers are not even good, it is still entertaining to watch.

I don’t mind to tip, if you are working to try to entertain me.

English anyone?

One of the joys of being English speaking is that we can almost travel anywhere and expect to find the local people fluent to some extent in English.  The summer of 2008, we visited Austria, the Czech Republic, and Hungary and had not issues talking with people (well, actually we had a little communication problems, but nothing major).

Now, we were not just whisking off to Europe as solely English speaking, between the two of us, we speak some German and a little French and Spanish.

We ate in small mom and pop restaurants and we ate in gourmet 4 star restaurant in all three countries and had little to no problem order food.  Riding the trains were a little more complicated especially en route to Prague and Hungary … English was scarce.  A couple of tour companies also sparsely spoke English.  All the tour guides spoke English quite well.  Of course, all the hotels had fluent English speakers.

Despite the criticism of being arrogant, because we speak English in non-English speaking countries, I remember (actually, I was not born) that prior to English, there was another international language … French.  We have hundreds of dialects throughout the world and dozens of major languages.  It makes sense that we have an unifying language, and right now, it is English, but lets not get too arrogant … there have been other standard languages in the past.  By the way, who speaks Latin these days?

My ugly American moment in Vienna

To start, we had a wonderful time in Vienna July 2008 and made good use of Europe’s rail system.  Earlier during our stay in Vienna, we took the train from Vienna to Salzburg and back without incident.  It was efficient and comfortable.

Now, my ugly American moment.  A couple of days later, we were traveling by rail from Vienna to Prague and had a direct train, which, of course, would make periodic stops.  We were supposed to depart Vienna at 10:04 am and arrive in Prague later that afternoon.  We were getting to Prague in plenty of time for our 5:30 walking tour of Prague Castle.

Well, my excellent planning, did not pan out so well … we missed our train, probably by minutes and here’s why.  The previous night, I packed all our bags (3), leaving out only toiletries.  We get up a little late and have breakfast, a little longer than we should have.  Then we take a walk around the block to help digest breakfast, probably shouldn’t have.  We go back to our room and get ready.  I’m getting concerned about time now, since we had planned to take the metro and the tram to the train station.  We finally leave the hotel around 9:20.  I’m debating should we take a taxi.  We finally reach the metro station with our 3 bags.  It’s the weekend, so trains run slower, but not slow.  We reach the end of the metro line and I have to ask directions for taking the tram, which is right across from the Opera House … not too far from the metro line.  We now have about 15 minutes before 10:04.  So, I am thinking we are not going to make it.  We reach the train station and didn’t know where to go.  There were no escalators, so, we had to drag heavy bags up steps.  We finally reach the correct platform.  I’m thinking we have missed our train.  And, we had!

I explode and throw my bags on the ground … and may have used an expletive or too and may have given an old lady looking at me the evil eye.  Of course, missing our train was no one’s fault, but ours.  I am still fuming mad!  I ask staff at the station how we would get to Prague now that we missed our train.  We could take a direct train much later and miss our Prague tour or we could change trains 2 times and get to Prague by 4 or 4:30.  We took option two.  I was also irritated because we had paid for first class tickets and had reserved seats for the long journey, but the first couple of trains had no first class compartment.

We finally arrive at the border station, Breclav, where we would take a train direct to Prague.  This train had a first class coach.  Of course, we boarded in the middle and walked all the way to the opposite end of train looking for first class.  We had to trace all the way through the second class coaches before finding first class, but we finally did.

In closing, we eventually reached Prague, checked into our hotel, and enjoyed our walking tour.  The lesson in this story, European trains run on time, so get to the station on time.

Tour operators in Vienna

While on holiday in Vienna July 2008, we took a couple of tours, a city tour that included Schonbrunn Palace and a tour to the “Vienna Woods.”  Both tours were provided by Vienna Sightseeing Tours, but there were some differences between the two in terms of how personable the tour felt.

One thing that we liked about Vienna Sightseeing Tours is that the retrieved us from our hotel and took us to the company’s bus terminal where the tours departed.  The city tour with Schonbrunn Palace was supposed to be 3.5 hours, but the tour did not last that long and felt rushed and there was unbelievable traffic.  I thought that we would periodically make stops at some of the sites like most other city tours that we have taken.  Perhaps, the traffic was the reason why we did not make any stops or perhaps, we did not make any stops because we were on a large motor coach.

Our first stop … and final stop … was Schonbrunn Palace in which a guided tour of the palace was included.  The Palace really provides insight into how the monachy lived and puts history into context.  The one problem … all the people from our large motor coach had to crowd around our one little tour guide and try to listen while other visitors are trying to pass by.  The bottom line, this tour had too many people, especially for the Palace visit.  At the end of the Palace tour, which was also the end of the tour, we had 10 minutes to visit the gardens … we opted not to take the motor coach back to the city center, so we could have time to visit the garden.  10 minutes would not have been enough time.

In summary, even though the city part of the tour was more or less pointing out what this building is and how old it is, the tour did help orient us to the city … later during our stay in Vienna, we revisited the interesting sites we wanted to see.  Schonbrunn was definitely worth a visit … just make sure you get to visit the gardens, which also include a small zoo.  Also, have lunch at the cafe … the food is good.