Category: Vienna

Travel, Vienna

Vienna art, music, beer and brats

Mona Alvarado Frazier

We arrived in Vienna, Austria on day five of our twelve day trip, still excited and telling ourselves “we’re really here.”  I snapped a couple of photos before my camera screen said “battery exhausted.” Neither of the two adapters worked in the Prague sockets on days one to four. But I did catch a nice photo of the thousands of blooming tulips in Stadparkt across from our very nice Hilton.   (I will save the adjectives for this hotel for my TripAdvisor blog).

The hotel was close to the transit system, park, and central downtown area. It was about a half mile to St. Stephen’s cathedral, the Albertina, and the largest Swarovski store in the country. I must say that those three sites need to be on your list of must see’s. This Gothic and Romanesque cathedral dates back to the 1100’s. The limestone has absorbed the soot and pollution of hundred’s of years giving much of the stone a black facade. It’s on year five of its restoration to it’s original cream color.

We caught the U-bahn or U right around the corner and took a quick trip to the baroque Schonbrunn Palace, home of Maria Theresa, the only female queen and ruler of the Habsburg Empire and mother of Marie Antoinette. She had sixteen children in twenty years through two wars and commented that if she weren’t usually pregnant she would have gone into battle herself. Tough woman. The other woman of the palace was Empress Elisabeth who was as stunningly beautiful as Elizabeth Taylor in her twenties. Outside of the palace there were several small wood buildings set up for Easter Market selling everything from Viennese coffee, varieties of thick Bavarian pretzels, easter eggs in glass, beaded, wood, cloth and everything in between.

It was getting pretty cold and beginning to rain so we beat it back to the U and went home to change before leaving to one of the opera houses in the park for an evening of classical music. Vienna is the home of Mozart, Beethoven, Shubert, Strauss and Hayden. You can’t forget this with the numerous busts and statues dedicated to these genius composers and musicians (I’m sure I forgot a couple also). We missed the Vienna Boys Choir by two days, but the evening of classical music was enjoyable.

          

The Albertina and Belvedere are art museums you can wander in for days. An exhibition of Picasso’s and Monet’s were at the Albertina and Manets, Klimt’s, and Monets at the baroque palace.

Besides the gorgeous architecture, beautiful gardens and classsical music, there is time for dining. I don’t know how the Viennese brew their coffee but it is the very best. Their desserts of apfelstrudel (applestrudel) and tortes are just as good. But you can skip the Sachre Torte from Hotel Sachre, dry chocolate cake from rude waiters (our friends told us, I had the torte before, like chocolate dust).

 And Schnitzel is everywhere, and not too bad if you like breaded meats. But I liked the bratwurst sausages in five different flavors with the most refreshing beer I’ve ever had: Grosse Radler. It’s like lemonade beer.

Oh, here’s the last photo I snapped before my camera died. The famous Lippizaner horses were coming back from their morning workout. It’s mostly their backsides, much like our own as we cantered back to our hotel after a full day of site seeing.

            
  

Budapest, Travel, vacation to Prague, Vienna

Vacation Preparation

Mona Alvarado Frazier

     You think you’re going on vacation, but you’re wrong, at least on the first day. It takes days for our traveling group (sis and mom) to get ready to go on vacation. It starts six months ahead of time with the airfare watch, Tripadvisor and Frommer sites, travel insurance, locating the passport, and then paying for the whole thing. When the date gets closer the work begins.

     “Mom, the TSA only lets you have a quart Ziploc, not a gallon sized one.” She has improved in this area, her makeup and face stuff that she believes she absolutely must take on board is down to  a one quart baggie. My job is to pack her bags and shut my mouth as much as I can.  In her suitcase, which teeters on the weight limit of 51 pounds, she has large sizes of Scope, shampoo, conditioner, hairspray, perfume, face stuff, bath stuff, you get it. We argued about the Scope-I lost. Then I came across all the ‘track suits,’ her favorites. I threw out two old ones and packed one set. She handled me a pair of her new “Skinny Jeans” to put in.

     “Mom, where’d you get these?” Seems my niece took her to buy some pants and she came out with those things. My mom is 80+, short and round in the middle. She tried them on and I had to stifle the laugh. She looked like Tweedle Dum.

     “Those aren’t as flattering as your dark grey slacks,” I say.
     “You said my track suits were old fashioned, so I bought skinny jeans!”
     “Well I meant that they were old, like used.”
     “Pues, too late, I kinda like them and there stretchie.”
     I will take a photo of those skinny jeans.
  
    Now sis is down from three bags, six pair of shoes, and a carry-on to one check-in and a carry-on. That is a significant improvement. She felt the pain of twice getting busted for overweight bags and decided the shoes weren’t worth it. I just spent twenty minutes walking her through on line check in, and this is from a woman who has traveled several times before, but she’s not a couple anymore and it’s a new ballgame.

     And as for me, I will brag and say that packing is pretty easy because my motto is if it doesn’t fit in the bag I go without and I can buy whatever I forget at a drugstore. My problem is taking care of my household before I leave two older teens/one young adult in the house for twelve days.(Yes, I heard you say PARTY!).
 I have to stock up on plenty of food or our trashcans will overflow with fast food wrappers. The animals (6) are pretty well taken care of by their respective owners, except for our dog. I don’t know why they forget to feed him sometimes, and he’s the hardest working pet we have.

     So the bags are packed, blank journal in tote, snacks, socks, neck pillow, shawl, passport, tickets, and the car is gassed up. I bid you adios and although I did a couple of scheduled posts, to appear later, I doubt I’ll be able to get to an internet cafe to post about Prague, Vienna or Budapest. But you never know. Be well.