Friday, April 22, 2011
Salzberg, Austria to Vienna, Austria
Up and out, no breakfast as we plan to eat the rest of bunwiches and fruit this morning on the train to Vienna. But, as they say, men plan and the gods laugh ... we never did have our breakfast or lunch on the train today.
Our reservations of yesterday were placed serially by our hotel helper in Salzberg, and thanks to her we are on the train. But, Jan and I were separated by two compartments but in the same carriage. Her compartment, with six seats had a family of five already sitting there, sprawled out with kids draped everywhere. The family was German speaking, with the wife speaking a bit of English but the ten year old child had passable English and Jan engaged the boy in a bit of chatter. I left Jan looking a bit nervous about the coming three hour ride. My compartment had a family of three, the boy also being ten years old. A short time after we launched from the station, I began to chat with the family and found them very engaging. They were Swiss, from an area around Lake Constance, and had begun their journey around 4:00am this morning to get from their home to the station, then from the origin of the train to Salzberg. They were remarkably fresh and chatty in spite of the journey to date, and soon Jan joined us to chat about our shared and future travel experiences and plans. They will be travelling to LAX for a month's holiday in the US in July, about the time we plan to be there as well, and we hope to see them there again. Neither Jan nor I took any pictures from the train, contrary to our normal habits, and the journey passed quickly.
We arrived in Vienna (Wein to the locals) under brilliant blue skies and sunshine, the weather gods still smiling on us. We were confused by the surroundings, and could not find a tourist bureau. No matter, we had hotel reservations and the hotel (an Ibis, a chain that we have used a lot in Europe) was only 300 meters from the station. The question was, in which direction?? The locals were singularly unhelpful, and short of taking a taxi which was a sign of defeat for us, we were clueless. The maps we had were not helpful as the scale was too small (Vienna is a big city, 1.6 million in a country of 8 million) and the street names are ALL VERY LONG, so there was very small print and abbreviations as well, and the names overlapped other streets. Finally we asked a fellow on a bicycle, after walking in a particular direction for about two blocks at Jan's suggestion, and the fellow pointed to the right and said 'there it is'. Yes, it was, and we walked the short distance there to the hotel. We were checked in by about 2:30pm, hit the room for a few minutes to freshen up, and found it to follow the style formula that we were so familiar with from our previous travels, and it felt like 'home'.
Then out to the street for a hike, out and about, looking for sights and dinner. We wound up at a small restaurant at about 5:30, still quite light out and very warm, and we sat in the outdoor seating. Very pleasant. It took a while to get our drinks and meal, the restaurant was very busy on such a lovely night, but everything was very much worth it when it arrived.
After dinner we began a walk about and were standing on a corner by the restaurant when some motion attracted our eyes to the street beside us. A large brown rat, the size of a small cat but unmistakeable in the shape of its body, snout, tail, and short little legs propelling it quickly along. Skittering, I suppose, moving comfortably, not a full-out gallop but quicker than an evening stroll as he (she? we didn't ask) crossed the wide street and stopped in front of a clump of bushes ten feet from where we had been eating. A shudder and a retroactive fright overcame Jan and I, as we remembered that, on the scale of rats, if you see one there are ten more nearby you don't see. What do you expect, really, you eat outside, drop crumbs, and rats are the world's cleanup crew. They live here too.
We walked a short distance away from what we have now dubbed 'Rat Strasse' and made the discovery of a little bar a couple of blocks from our hotel, called "Inga und Gary's Gasthaus", and it was charming with a real character of a bartender/waiter/host, Gary by name. In appearance, size, and speach very much like the actor Gary Busey, 'an ageing surfer dude' said Jan. A thousand stories, knew everyone and everything, been everywhere, and seemed to be telling the truth about it all. I had a beer but only drank a quarter of it, Jan a coffee, and we shared a strudel. In spite of Gary's banter, we were too tired. Maybe another night, tonight we are heading for home and bed. Vienna is a big place and tomorrow is coming fast.
