Category Archives: Austria

Back in Czech

September 12, 2016Austria, Czech Republicairbnb, czech republic, road trip, schonnbrunn palace, sightseeing, travel, viennaJudy

Quiet day on Saturday. When we were at the Gasometer Buildings, Greg bought a piece of apfelkuchen apple cake from a supermarket and has been searching for it since. He tried a couple of places on Saturday morning without success. In the afternoon we walked to, and around, Schonnbrunn Palace. It’s across the road from the apartment we stayed at … sort of. There’s actually a street, tramline, river, metro line and a couple of fences between the apartment and the palace grounds, but we could see it from the apartment, and the huge grounds were a lovely buffer in a city of over 1.5million people. The Viennese equivalent of Central Park.

We walked to the gate closest to the apartment, which had a Lindt chocolate shop conveniently located at the entrance. Bought a couple of blocks from the huge selection – whole product lines that we had never seen before. Then walked through the park to the palace. All 1400+ rooms of it. Part of it is open as a childrens’ museum, a gallery and it is possible to do tours of palace and concerts are held there. Outside, it’s a fantastic public space, free to wander around the huge grounds, which also has a zoo, a swimming pool, a maze and other things that you can pay to see. The cafe in the palace does a Strudel making class which I was going to do until I realised it would all be in German.

We walked up the hill to the Gloriette which offers a superb view over the city, and we think we found the street we stayed in, just past the trees in the palace grounds. Then we walked back to the apartment via the main entrance, with its enormous open space in front of the palace. Hot day, we didn’t take enough water and were very thirsty by the time we got ‘home’.

Yesterday, Sunday, we drove out of Vienna to Czech. We didn’t buy a vignette in Austria so had to use secondary roads, which was fine, through little villages and along a tiny sealed road on the side of the motorway. Probably just for the local farmers, and we did meet a tractor coming in the opposite direction, but a few local cars and a motorbike also used it. Nothing is open in Austria on a Sunday, but as soon as we crossed over into Czech … BAM! Outlet shopping centre just across the border, casinos, 24-hour nightclubs. If anyone can explain how they work, we’d love to know – I thought the point of a nightclub was that it was, well, night-time. Our new favourite supermarket, Albert, was open in Znojmo so we went and bought a couple of things we’d run out of and some bread rolls for lunch. Gosh, the Czechs are good bakers!

Our second-last night of camping last night, and tonight is our last. Then we’re staying in an apartment in Prague for 4 nights and heading back to Munich on Saturday, flying home on Sunday. We’ve been on the road for 5 weeks, but it seems like a much longer period of time, because we’ve been to so many places and seen and done so much.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA — The Kings waiting room at the railway station near the Palace (never used)

img_20160907_093542-medium — Self Serve Bakery at Albert row 1

img_20160907_093545-medium — Self Serve Bakery at Albert row 2

Out & about in Vienna

September 9, 2016Austriaaustria, cemeteries, sightseeing, tourists, viennaJudy

We had a few vague ideas about what we’d like to see and do in Vienna, but no firm plans, so when our lovely Dutch friend Mickey asked if we were planning on visiting Zentralfriedhof, the Central Cemetery, we thought that was a great suggestion! We like cemeteries – we visited the Pere Lachaise cemetery when we were in Paris a few years ago and paid our respects to Oscar Wilde, Edith Piaf, Gertrude Stein & Alice B Toklas and Jim Morrison and others I’ve forgotten now, and Arlington in Washington DC, then when we were in St Petersburg we visited the incredible Piskaryovskoye Memorial Cemetery.

Some of Mickey’s family members have a grave at Zentralfriedhof, and quite a few famous composers are also buried there, conveniently all located in the same section quite close to one of the main entrances. The cemetery is on the outskirts of the city and it’s huge! It occupies over 600 acres of land and its dead population is nearly double Vienna’s current living population. We drove there as it’s a bit of a long haul on public transport; parked outside and we must really have acquired the mindset that we have to pay for parking everywhere, because we were very careful to check with the local Wurst stand seller that we could park there for free.

The composers’ graves are all in a very well-tended section, with nicely mown lawns, flowers and a plan to show who is where. We visited Beethoven, Brahms, Schubert, the senior and junior Strausses, and a cenotaph honouring Mozart, who is buried in another cemetery. We followed Mickey’s excellent directions and found her family’s grave. We took a yellow flowering succulent in a pot and placed it on the headstone, took a few photos and walked back to the entrance along a different path so we could see a bit more of the cemetery. It’s feeling like early autumn here, although the weather is still warm, lots of leaves starting to change colour and starting to fall.

Then we drove to see the Danube River just outside the city limits and to visit another, smaller cemetery, Friedhof der Namenlosen, Cemetery of the Nameless, for people who drowned in the river. And then to the Gasometers, 4 huge cylindrical gas storage tanks which have now been ‘repurposed’ into shops, residential & commercial use and entertainment venues. The buildings themselves are interesting enough, but to then see what they have become is really something!

Today we caught the metro into the city centre, walked along the mall, visited St Stephen’s Cathedral, ate strudel & cake at Gerstner Cafe (established 1847) and strolled around the fascinating Naschmarkt. Bought a couple of things – corn on the cob for dinner, an interesting-looking Turkish cheese, zopfkase, which looks like a bundle of string tied into a ball. I’ve just tried it and it’s very salty – I’ll soak it in water for a while.

Paid bike storage at the local U-bahn station - like you would never get in Adelaide — Paid bike storage at the local U-bahn station – like you would never get in Adelaide

Vienna, Austria

September 7, 2016Austria, Czech Republic, Polandaustria, camping, czech republic, krakow, poland, road trip, Wieliczka Salt MineJudy

Our last post was 3 days, dinner at a Michelin-starred bistro, a visit to a salt mine and 2 countries ago.

Dinner at Zazie Bistro was wonderful! We got a table in the cellar part of the restaurant rather than in the smaller street-level section. Great menu, which you can see here. When my parents see the menu, they will know immediately what I had for an entree, but I’ll tell the rest of you anyway – the veal sweetbreads. And they were superb. Then I had French potatoes gratin with chicken etc, and Greg had the veal chop(s) on the bone etc. With 2 big beers, the total came to less than $35, and we were so impressed with the meal and so surprised that it was so cheap that we left a 20% tip!

Next day, Tuesday, we left the apartment in Krakow and drove to the Wieliczka Salt Mine. We put on our walking boots and some warm clothes and spent a couple of hours doing the excellent English-language guided tour. We didn’t take any photos while we were in the mine, partly because it cost a few dollars extra and we hadn’t realised when we bought our tickets, but mostly because there are already loads of photos of the interesting things at the mine on the interwebz, and one of my commonly uttered phrases from this trip has been … ‘for f@#ks sake, how many selfies and photos do these people need?’ So many people take photos of themselves at very uninteresting places, as well as at interesting ones, but do they ever look at any of them again?

So then we pooled our remaining Polish zloty and went to the supermarket where we thought we were loading up on everything we thought we needed, but only managed to spend half of the $40-odd we had left in local currency. So I went back and bought some wine and cider, but we STILL have zloty left! We’ll keep it for when we go back to Poland some day, or if someone we know goes there.

We camped at a municipal campground in the north of Czech Republic last night (Tuesday). We had to find an ATM to get some Czech koruna, but the campground reception was closed when we arrived there at 6.30pm, so we just pitched the tent and sorted out payment this morning. Nice camgpground, but it was almost next to a railway line, so it was a bit noisy.

And now we’re in Vienna! We’re staying in this Airbnb apartment until Sunday. It’s just across the street from the grounds of Schönbrunn Palace, close to the metro and the Museum of Technology is nearby as well. The apartment is used for tutoring primary and high school students during term time, but it’s still the summer holidays in Austria until the middle of September, so our host is renting it out until her ‘real’ work begins.

A picture of the wieliczka salt mine we took from the internet because we were too cheap to pay the extra money to be allowed to take pictures in the mine.

Camping in Liechtenstein

August 10, 2016Austria, Germany, Liechtensteinaustria, campground, camping, germany, liechtenstein, road trip, travelJudy

Last night we camped in Liechtenstein. Well, there’s something I never thought I’d get to say.

But let’s catch up on the last few days. We flew Qatar Airlines from Adelaide to Doha to Munich on Sunday-Monday. Good flights, almost-new planes, both of them fairly full. Getting through Immigration in Munich was probably the worst experience we’ve ever had, and we’ve been through the LAX ordeal a few times. Too many people, not enough officials to process us all. Anyway, both our enormous duffel bags were there, with the 60kgs we seem to travel everywhere with – tent, sleeping mattresses, gas stove, ice box, about 8kgs of travel guides and all the rest of the must-haves.

We picked up ‘our’ shiny white Ford Focus station wagon from the Avis counter, and that was a bit complicated because we’re renting it for more than the standard 30 days, but it eventually got sorted and headed to our hotel in a little village about halfway between the airport and Munich.

Then yesterday we started the drive south towards Croatia, passing through Austria and into Liechtenstein. It’s always such a thrill, going to another country without catching a plane, and in fact yesterday we were actually in 3 different countries in the one day!

We’re having the usual minor problems of trying to find things – folding chairs, gas cartridges, ice. The folding chairs seem to be rare here, or we’re just not looking in the right places. Finally found some, at 3x the price of home. Gas cartridges are even rarer, and much more expensive, and ice is non-existent … so far. Hopefully as we head further south and it gets warmer, we’ll find some.

We tried a campground in Austria last night, but they only had one tiny site, so we kept on going to a campground between Feldkirch and Vaduz, the capital of Liechtenstein. $50 for an unpowered tent site, but the campground is gorgeous … terraced sites built on a hill, fruit trees everwhere, and the apple trees are all laden with ripe fruit at the moment, cute little chalet-style cabins, grass and an outdoor pool. It’s 11C here today, so we’ll be giving the pool a miss, I think. We can see across the valley to villages on the mountain opposite. It rained last night, but is fine today … so far!

And here are a few things we’ve learnt about Liechtenstein – population 37,000 (no, I didn’t leave any zeros off that number!), 3rd highest GDP in the world after Qatar & Luxemburg, 6th smallest country in the world and it’s double land-locked, which means it is landlocked by countries which are also landlocked. I really hope that last fact is a question at a Quiz Night sometime soon! Like Norway, they are not part of the EU, but are in the European Free Trade Association. Unemployment rate of 1.5%, German speaking and they have a monetary union with Switzerland, so prices are in CHF Swiss francs, but the campground also accepted our euros, at a rate of 1:1. When we were checking in, there was an Asian family who were not happy about that exchange rate for complicated reasons, but we just figured that paying the equivalent of $50 for a tent site was so outrageous that saving a couple of bucks wasn’t going to make much difference.

Munich to Mlini

Judy and Greg in Croatia and around

Category Archives: Austria

Back in Czech

Out & about in Vienna

Vienna, Austria

Camping in Liechtenstein