Mary had a little lamb ...

Just got back earlier this evening from a wonderful week in Austria. I'll write more on this in the next few days. I really must unpack and do some housework.

So here we go...all you need to do is replace a few key works and this little tune rather sums up my visit :-)

Vienna

This is my very first visit to Vienna and I was a little worried by the taxi ride into the city, as we passed the chemical works. I thought, what did I get into? Fortunately, the scenery improved.

This is at the Heeresgeschichtliches Museum in Vienna. Personally, I think, one of the gems of Vienna. It's outside the Ringstrasse, so somewhat off the beaten track. We arrived there just before mid-day and virtually had the whole museum to ourselves.

The Military Museum is inside an operating arsenal and is divided into 5 sections, detailing the founding of the Hapsburg empire, the Napoleanic wars/pressures from the Ottoman Empire, World War I and War World II. Even if you're not a history buff, the displays are well thought out and interesting. You can borrow a free audio guide from the front desk. The museum is one of the cheapest, entrance was only 5.10 euros per person. There's also a great breisl at the entrance to the arsenal. They serve ginormously large portions of schnitzel and cold beer for a very reasonable price. It cost under 20 euros for a hot lunch for 2, cheaper and significantly superior to the fare at the airport.

We trudged back through to our hotel via the Belvedere Palace. The place was absolutely teeming with tour buses. We walked through the gardens and admired the fantastic views. (while thanking the stars that we were walking downhill). The gardens were laid out formally, lots of grass and imposing statues. What a fantastic place to rest our weary legs.

No visit to any city would be complete without a stroll through the seat of government. Do you think that it's appropriately named? Rathaus? :-)

Within Vienna, we strolled through the Ringstrasse several times, to orient ourselves and also decide which sites we actually wanted to visit. I personally found both the guide books (Lonely Planet and Insight Guide) that we had to be somewhat disappointing, both in content and information. I'm going to write them both to complain, although I the history part of the Insight Guide was good whereas the Lonely Planet did a paltry write-up, highlighting a few interesting facts.

We also visited the Kunsthistorisches Musem (I thought expensive tickets 8.50 euros per person and the art wasn't that well displayed, the outdoor photo exhibition(free) was fantastic.), St Stephans (which I also thought was over-rated, the cathedral is lovely but can do with a good scrub, some tourists also seemed to have forgotten that it was cathedral, a place of worship, not a free touristic site built for their personal pleasure and feet should not go on the pews (sigh))

Melk
We also ventured out of Vienna and visited the fabulous Stift in Melk. Melk is about an hour's drive out of Vienna and upon arrival, the place was packed with tour buses of every nationality. Although you were allowed to visit at your our pace, the crowds meant that you really couldn't see very much. I can't count the number of elbows that were thrown at me. It was disappointing because the stift is fabulous. While most of the displays were in german, there were english subtitles. ( I was getting tired of writing down german text so that I can translate them when I got home.)

The husband snapped these photos. The rain was a great deterrent in encouraging the crowds to stay indoors. The view from the Stift is breath taking.

The church was superbly decorated and there was A LOT of gold leaf on the inside.

My advice is to go, but to go early. I think our mistake was in getting there by about 11am. Lots of people had come for the noon service at the church and it was just too busy to dwardle and enjoy. It was definitely too busy to read the text and learn a bit more about what I was looking at.

Salzburg
I've been to Salzburg before and loved it. We didn't visit too many places this time. It just rained and rained the whole time that we were here. We did go up to the Hohensalzburg Fortress. You get a wonderful view from the top.

Now, to get up there, you can do it the expensive and easy way, via the funnicular. (3.60 euro each way + 7.20 euro to enter the fort and the museum) or climb your way up. After getting up there, could you blame me for taking a knitting break? Unfortunately the gift shop was open but the cafe wasn't serving and I really could had done with a cold drink.

The museum is worth the visit. The tours are guided but you get an audio guide in your language of choice. Given my very limited/non-existent German and the ability to continually mix up schwein (pig) and zwei (two), mine was obviously in English. Again, I encountered some very badly behaved tourists. There was the American that pushed everyone out of the way so that he can take 5 pictures of every item in a variety of angles. The Polish woman that insisted to climb first up on the spiral staircase, causing an enormous tail back when she climbed slower than I get out of bed in the morning. The 2 young Japanese girls with 3 inch designer shoes that not only had trouble climbing, but walking on even terrain was a challenge. I'm not every going to describe the German woman who HAD to sit down on the stair blocking everyone from getting to the Register or the young Italian gent that had to have a smoke and attempted to light up inside the museum.

I could had spent the whole day up the fortress. It's huge, but in the end, we went down via the funnicular. It was fast and fun.

Finally, on our last full day in Austria, we went to the Hohe Tauern National Park. It was well worth the trip and the early start. Upon arriving, we were told that the park was closed due to icy roads. We waited for 30 minutes minutes and the gates finally opened.

It was really foggy, but the view was fabulous.

Here's a photo of me in front of the glacier on the panoranic walkway. I sort of walked right back onto solid earth when I realised that the metal platform was bolted onto the side of the mountain and the wind was causing the platform to shake rather alarmingly.

I certainly, wasn't letting go of this. Husband had already proclaimed that he was not climbing down to the glacier to retrieve my knitting... and the other climbers were nodding at him vigourously. They probably thought that it was a good ideal to humor the idiot knitting on top of the mountain. What the heck? Gives new meaning to extreme knitting?

Posted by atu at September 26, 2004 09:19 PM