Vienna, Austria (Days 86-91)

We have been having a wonderful time in Vienna.  Who could not?  There is much to see and do.  

Here is a quick recap of our time here.

Friday, September 5, Day 86 - Our first night - Wiener Schnitzel 

We arrive by train around 3:30, walk a few blocks towing our luggage to our Airbnb lodgings.

Unlocking the Door to our Flat in Vienna

The owner of the flat has been delayed in Japan, but we have a key to a lovely two bedroom flat within a few blocks of the city center that we will now have all to ourselves for $55.00 a night.  We just need to make up the bed ourselves. Fresh linens for the fluffy pillows, feather beds, and soft mattress are ready for us.  Just down the street is the Gasthaus Seidel where we enjoy a great veal schnitzel with lemon and mixed salad.

Saturday, September 6, Day 87 -  Music in the Cellar

Russ and I take the tram to the city center and spend the day walking back to our digs through the center of Vienna.  Austria Lions is having a big Lions Day in front of the Rathaus (city/state hall).

 Of course we must check it out, and in so doing meet the student exchange coordinator who has actually visited his exchange student from Auburn, California.  Small world, big Lions family.  

It is a Saturday morning, and shops are open until noon.  In one of the large squares in front of the Imperial Palace, Oktoberfest is beginning.

Beer flows, brats are grilled,  and music fill the beer tent.  While we listen to the band, we indulge on what we thought was a pretzel.  Turns out it is like a big donut twisted like a pretzel with rock sugar (resembling rock salt) sprinkled on the outside. It is still a bit early for us to have beer, but it doesn't stop the other hundreds of people.  The band members all have steins by their feet, and between each piece they take a few swigs.  The music becomes louder and more boisterous.

Outside the harvest parade has concluded, and float participants are selling off the abundance of flora, fruits, vegetables, and grains that were used to decorate their floats.

After seeing the Museum of Armor,

Music,

and Ephesos collection

and National Library,

Reading in a Great Environment

we return to our flat for a rest, and return later in the evening to the Rathaus Cellar for a dinner and musical performance of Strauss, and scenes from Austrian operas.

The audience sings Edelweiss together and strands of the Blue Danube play through our heads as we walk home taking in the nightscape of Vienna.

Sunday,  September 7, Day 88 - Airs Above the Ground

I have waited 40 years to see the Lippizaner Stallions perform the airs above the ground at the beautiful arena of the Spanish Riding School in Palace grounds.  We booked a couple of months in advance to sit in end seats under the Emperors box and paid quite a sum to do so.  

Disappointment number 1:  No photos allowed during the show even without flash, but I did get a shot before the show.

Good News:  The arena, and the choreographed dance of the stallions was beautiful and I would like to have shared a bit of it with you, but sorry....no can do.  I can certainly understand why though as it takes tremendous concentration of horse and rider to precision- prance each step to the beat of a viennese music.

Disappointment number 2:    The airs above the ground,  ummmm, not so much.  The lead horse that performed directly in front of us wasn't in the mood apparently to perform, and while we saw a few smaller airs from some of the other horses, the big leaper was quite reluctant to fly.  I did take a photo though from the poster of what he was supposed to do and has done in the past.  Maybe, I'll see this on PBS sometime, but not today.

After the show, we visited the Imperial treasury collection which was very impressive.

This opal is the size of a large pear

Since it is Sunday, and all the stores and many restaurants are closed, we are happy that we still have some cup-of-soups left in our luggage, so we head back to the flat for an early night.

Monday, September 8, Day 89 - Sissi Museum and Imperial Apartments.

On this day, the two of us decide to get haircuts. We find a place close by the flat, and get ourselves ship-shape for the cruise.  After checking out of our flat, we transfer our bags and selves to the Intercontinental hotel which are  now a part of our cruise down the Danube to the Black Sea accommodations.  The rooms here run about $250 a night.  The inside of the hotel is quite nice, but architecturally it has to be one of the least attractive buildings in all of Vienna.  This hotel is scheduled to be torn down and rebuilt.  We  take a look at the poster rendition of the new building, and in our opinion, it still will be one of the uglier buildings in Vienna.  I know it must be difficult to compete with the beautiful and elaborate 18-19th century style, but really....does it have to look so plain, grey, and unattractive?  

We also do a little shopping for a few things we think we will need as fall is in the air, and some warmer, dressier clothes might be appropriate for our next leg of the trip.  In the afternoon, we join the 2:00 English Speaking tour of the Imperial apartments, the Sisi museum (history of Empress Elisabeth) http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empress_Elisabeth_of_Austria , and the silver and tableware collection.  Stunningly beautiful and extravagant.

At 6:00 pm we meet up with our Avalon tour group for a champagne reception and presentation. Most of the participants are from North America, USA with the most, followed by Canadians, then UK, Australia, New Zealand, with a few from Singapore, and Brazil. The group is scheduled tomorrow to take a morning city tour, and an optional tour to Shonbrunn Palace.

Tuesday, September 9, Day 90 - City Tour, Shonbrunn Palace, and Mamma Mia!

We wanted to see the Schonbrunn Palace, but decided to do it on our own rather than with the tour group.  I think we are becoming increasingly anti-tour group.  Not only would this tour cost us about 90 Euros, it just isn't appealing to be scheduled and herded around. Mid-way through our city tour

Parliament

Rathaus

with the group we saw some newly discovered Roman ruins in front of the National Library building,

 bugged out, saw St. Stephen's cathedral on our own

Looking Back as We Walk Away from the Palace

and headed out to the Palace on our own nearly two hours before the group was scheduled to even leave the hotel.

Schonbrunn Palace...Summer Cottage of Habsburg Dynasty

So for our round trip tram tickets of 2.50 E and 14.00 E for the Grand Tour, we enjoyed an unfettered walk through the Palace on our own with an audio guide and were leaving the Palace about the same time our tour group would be arriving.

We spent our afternoon relaxing, catching up, and then instead of a group concert tour, we got on the tram again to see a live performance of Mamma Mia in German.  We had reserved tickets, had a great Italian meal beforehand, and thoroughly enjoyed the musical.  By the end o the evening, everyone in the audience was singing, swaying, an clapping their hands.  I thought I would have enough ABBA in Sweden, but I guess I can never get enough ABBA.  The music and energy was ausgezeichnet!   

Wednesday, September 10, Day 91 - Leaving Vienna for Bratislava, Slovakia

This morning, once again, we bowed out of a tour to a monastery and wine tasting, and have opted for some quiet time in our room and later  a bicycle ride through the Stadtpark to the Danube and back.  We leave for Bratislava and ship boarding at 2:00 pm this afternoon.  Not sure how strong the WIFI will be on the boat, so this may be the last photo-laden blog for awhile.  Cheers!

All is Well with the Worrall Travel R's in Vienna, Austria

Days 82-83-84-85 Slovenia - Caves, lakes, castles, Oh My!

Today is Thursday, September 4 is day 85, and if all goes as planned, we will be out and about exploring this afternoon, but this morning we are hunkered down in the kitchenette of our Airbnb taking care of needed business (laundry, email, photo editing, blogs, trip planning for Turkey, etc.).

Tomorrow, September 5 - our five year anniversary of our Sail Away from San Francisco,  we are on our way via train to Vienna.  I've been waiting over 40 years to see the famous Lipizzan stallions perform in Vienna.  When Russ and I lived in Germany in the early 70's, many of our military friends had gone to Vienna and raved about the show.  We never made it at that time to Vienna, so now we will be on our way and have already purchased tickets for Sunday's performance.

Let's back track to Days 82-84.

Monday , Day 82 - Rain in Ljubljana, Slovenia

Slovenia feels and looks like our memories of Austria.  Alpine houses,

flower boxes filled with geraniums, small village towns with narrow winding streets, tall mountains, waterfalls and rushing rivers, beautiful lakes, castles built in seemingly impossible places, ski areas waiting for snow, green farm fields surrounded by forests.


Everything is green because it rains here quite a bit.  

Our first day here, we spent most of it in old town Ljubljana, walking the wet and rainy streets, taking refuge under cover for bowls of hot soup and waiting for the rain to stop.  Eventually it did, but the skies were gray and the sun didn't peak out once.

We took the rail train to the old castle and had a good look around.  Unlike many castles that have been restored to look old, The castle here has left windows into historical parts of the castle, but by and large it has been modernized into a venue that supports performance, arts, fairs, weddings, etc. so that it can be self-supporting and residents of the community as well as tourists can enjoy the ambiance on top of the mountain where it presides over the city.

Attached above one of the castles arches a family of swallows was having lunch on the fly.

Watched for quite awhile and the last little guy on the right rarely got fed.  The pecking order goes from left to right.

We met up with our AirBnB hosts Milenko and Anna after our tour and had some great Thai food. They are a lovely couple who now live in Italy, and help Milinko's mother rent out the rooms in her three story alpine home.  Slovenia is such a small country, that an hour's drive from the capital city in any direction takes you into another country.  We are staying in one place for the week and drive to almost anywhere in 45 minutes to see what we are interested in and to see most of the country.

Tuesday Day 83 - More Rain - Good day for Caving

Tomorrow looks like the best day to visit Bled Lake (the sun is supposed to peak out for a couple of hours), but today is a rainy day and a good day to travel southwest to Postojna to the limestone caves.
These caves are a popular tourist attraction and have been since the 1800's.

We boarded a small cave train for the first two kilometers of our excursion.  Today's trains are electric, but earlier trains were not.  The beautiful formations were covered in soot from the past and we were growing more and more disappointed with the condition of the cave's interior, but once we reached the walking part of our tour, our disappointment turned to wonder.  We walked a kilometer under ground and then rode the train back out.

The train ride was fun.  It was like the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland zipping through the tunnels many of which had been barely cut away so that our heads were not ripped off.

You definitely had to keep your hands and arms inside the open cars, and just to be on the safe side we both moved our heads to the middle where the ceiling was generally a little higher.

The cave system here is over 21 kilometers long with three different levels.  Much of level one has collapsed.  The third level is where the river runs wild now.  Our tour was on the second level.  The cave ceilings on level two are 30-70 meters high depending on where one is standing.  There is such a huge distance between the stalactites and stalagmites that the dripping mineral filled water splats on top shaping the bottom formations more like hoodoos than pointed spires.

Can you see the chicken in the upper left

Postojna is a very wet cave of over 3,000,000 years old and still growing, and is incredibly decorated with pure white limestone and rust and amber dripping from iron and other minerals through which the water seeps.  There are examples of chambers that are all white, others that are warm reds and pinks, some side by side columns are completely different in color.

Soda straws and spaghetti hang from the ceilings.

These formations grow 1 centimeter every 1000 years.  Some of these fragile hangings are 20,000 years old and less than a foot long.

Flow stone, and translucent curtains ooze from the walls.  

We just couldn't help but say wow! at every turn.  It was massively stunning.

Look closely to see the people in the lower left quadrant (red shirts) for relevance of size and scale.

After our cave explorations, we drove to the Predjama Castle, initially built and added onto since the 1200's.   This castle is built into the mouth and side of a large cave.

Not built for comfort or beauty, the castle was built for defense against intruders with an escape route through the caves above and below.

It served it's purpose well withstanding sieges up to one year and a day until the then current owner and robber knight Erazem was killed by a well aimed rock ball thrown by a catapult while using the privy in 1484.  It has changed ownership and gone through many reconstructions and additions since then.

Wednesday, Day 84 - Lake Bled and Lake Bohinj

According to the weather forecast, between 10 and 2:00 today, we might see some sun.  So we head out to Lake Bled.  Wish we had had full sun to capture the blue green characteristics of the clear alpine lake, but we were happy to see glimmers of sunlight as we took the 6 kilometer walk around the lake, snapping photos of castles

 and churches,

casting off the rain gear, sipping lattes and eating the famous Lake Bled Cream Cake.

The birds are not shy.  One must eat quickly or the birds will eat it all.

Fall is definitely in the air.  First of the leaves are turning yellow and fluttering to the ground, and ivies are turning crimson.

From Lake Bled we drove to Lake Bohinj where we visited an ancient chapel with worn but still prominent frescos.

This lake looks like it is meant to be a summer camp for families and kids, and a fun place to be with kayak and bike rentals, established tenting areas, ropes courses, and hiking trails.  Speaking of bikes, this one looked fun, but I don't think the guy was too happy to have his photo taken....or is that a peace sign?

Our drive home to Ljubljana was via a one lane twisting backroad through a countryside of forests, green hills, dales, little churches and Alpine villages. We saw some hay stacking racks we had never seen before.   Russ jumped outside of the car once just to capture the Sound of Music Moment.  Absolutely lovely.

So that brings us back to today, Thursday, September 4, Day 85.  The laundry is now hung out to dry in the garage (no dryer here and still drizzly).    We will see how that goes, and hope by this evening it is dry enough to pack our bags for our early morning departure tomorrow. The blog is almost done, breakfast has been eaten,  photos still need some editing and uploading, but it looks like maybe we'll have some exploration time in the afternoon.

All is Well With the Worrall Travel R's in Ljubljana, Slovenia