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 …

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.

Traveling by train in Europe

During our Europe 2008 holiday, we used just about every form of transportation available — plane, train, and automobile.

We always travel by plane and automobile, but wanted to do something different this holiday, so we used the trains system to travel from city to city and country to country.  While it had been over 20 years since I last traveled by train in Europe, I expected this mode of travel to be as reliable as air travel, and it was.  Of course, there were delays and problems, but this happens when traveling by airplane too.

So, when considering air travel and train, there are definitely factors to consider.

Air travel

• pros:  fast.
• cons:  expensive; security (lines, liquids, …); arrival times (1-2 hours); retreiving luggage; scenary (sky and clouds).

Trains

• pros:  inexpensive; spacious seating; no security; arrive times (early enough to take train); no baggage checking; scenary.
• cons:  can be slow; no complementary snacks (not even pretzels or beverages); buying food from dining car can be expensive; frequent stops.

I know a lot of people think that the trains are exclusively used by backpackers and young travelers and they are, but they are also used by travelers who don’t want to fly everywhere or want a different experience.  We had a couple of adventures … missed on train and another train was malfunctioning, but we eventually made it to our destination, several hours late, but we made it.  (More about this later though.)

Like air travel trains give you a couple of options, you can travel first or economy class.  I recommend this option, the first class option, because the coaches a nicer and more spacious.  You also have the option to reserve a seat or not.  We reserved a seat for all our rail travel, but there we many many unreserved seats.  Some European trains sell tickets and passes to board the train, but do not require to purchase or reserve a seat, so you may be able to board the train and not have a seat.  As a precaution, I will continue to purchase reserved seats.

I highly recomment rail travel, especially if you want to different travel experience and want to see the countryside.  Word of caution when traveling by trains.  Don’t be late.  When the trains run on time, they run on time.  We missed our train from Vienna to Prague by minutes!

My day trip to Salzburg

One of the things we like to do when we travel, especially internationally, is to take day trips outside the major city that we are visiting.  While Salzburg is a travel destination itself, when we were in Vienna, we visited the city for the day.  We took a train too … when in Europe travel the European way.

Salzburg was absolutely wonderful and it absolutely added to our memorable holiday.  Unlike German and other Austrian cities, Salzburg was largely spared large scale destruction.  Thank goodness, the city has building dating to the fourteenth century, not to mention that it is the birthplace of Mozart.

Prior to arriving I had arranged a city tour with Salzburg Sightseeing Tours, which was a good choice.  We learned and saw so much on this tour.  We also learned that the tour could have been called the Sound of Music and Hapsburg tour.  The tour was very good with a good mix of coach and walking.  Interestingly, the tour operator offers a “Sound of Music” tour, but we thought could there be more.  For a while we thought that we were on the “Sound of Music” as our tour guide repeated mentioned that “this building/palace/castle was in the movie.

Visiting all the site that belonged to the Hapsburg makes me want to be one.

In addition to the “Sound of Music” and Hapsburg presence, Salzburg is abundant with beautiful gardens and statues.  And if you visit Salzburg, you have to visit the churches and monastery and the castle.  While we were only there one day, it’s probably a two day visit if you just want to sample what the city has to offer … which is much.

Touring Austria with tour operators

While in Austria during the summer of 2008, I took a couple of tours, as I have been doing the past several years.  I find that organized tours, while they can be a little confining, you learn so much more about the place that you are visiting than you would on your own … as least typically you would.  Usually tours are guided by local folk who love their culture and history, some are trained in these disciplines … and of course, some are just lousy.

Usually, I arrange my tours through Expedia, sometimes Travelocity, because I assume and hope that these companies have vetted the companies providing the tours.  Another source that I have tapped is TravelBound.  Often they offer even richer and greater variety of tours than Expedia and Travelocity.  Additionally, many of the tours that you find on Expedia and Travelocity are also found on TravelBound.

The one problem with TravelBound is that only travel agents can book tours.  Fortunately, I have a local travel agency that I can call and ask them to book tours for me.  Works every time.  So far so good with the tours that I have selected through their site.  The descriptions tend to be quite accurate.

Europeans understand public transportation

I want to start by saying that I am proud to live in the United States and don’t plan to move, but I have to give the Europeans credit for public transportation.  We spent our 2008 summer holiday in Eastern Europe (one can argue that Austria isn’t really Eastern Europe, but I won’t).  One of the decisions that we made prior to our trip was to take public transportation, because it is so convenient and efficient and it has less impact on the environment … and most importantly, it is less expensive than taking taxis.  Hey, the dollar is weak!

So, once we land in Vienna … without all of our bags.  We inquire about public transportation to our hotel … 6 euros person to take a coach.  Our hotel, K+K Palais was about a 5 minute walk to the metro stop, which runs very regularly during the week.  Our longest wait was probably less than 3 minutes.  Where the metro doesn’t go, the tram does.  Buy a single day or multiday ticket and you are set.

With this type of public transportation, why would anyone drive?