Sunday, April 24, 2011
Vienna, Austria
Jan awoke this morning to the sound of Easter Sunday, the pealing of church bells and the sound of a choir singing. I slept through it, but she went to the window and listened. Happy Easter, everyone. With her characteristic thoughtfulness, she brought with her on our journey some easter eggs from Purdy's for our Easter morning so far from home, so special. The weather again perfect, brilliant sunshine, blue sky, yesterday's temperature hit 28 degrees apparently, today scheduled to be the same. The weather gods continue to smile on us, it seems.
A late morning in the room, we slept well last night and were lazy this morning. We got an eyefull yesterday, and to be honest this city doesn't have the appeal to us of the old walled cities with their high promintories and medeival buildings. Vienna is sprawling, a large city by the map, and like any large city most of it appears unlovely, based on what we saw inbound on the train. Its buildings in the old city, as seen from the tour bus are huge and imposing and austere as befits the capital of a military empire. But austere is not welcomining, and the Danube canal is an ugly and graffittied ditch, and on reflection this morning Jan and I decided to give the downtown a pass today. Not to say that we've been and seen Vienna, just that we've seen enough for us this pass. Decided then, we were up and out for brunch.
We walked down Mariahilfer Strasse again, the main road to downtown, retracing our steps of yesterday. Almost everything closed today, Easter Sunday in a Catholic town, and the roads and sidewalks nearly deserted compared to yesterday. Everybody is either drunk, hung over, sleeping it off, or in church - wherever, but they aren't out here with us. Walking along, we felt like we were walking along Regent Street or Oxford Street in London, the main shopping roads of that city's downtown, so many of the same stores and signs and styles. Its a big and homogeneous world now. Finally found a sidewalk cafe, the tables deserted but the door open to the restaurant across the sidewalk. I went in, asked, and was tolk the 'the garden' was open and have a seat. Ok, but the only thing this garden was growing was cigarette butts, concrete, and pigeons. Pardon a small bit of bitching here, but this is a smoker's town and with characteristic abandon the smokers fling their residue wherever they like and Vienna, like Paris only perhaps moreso, is a dirty place. Based on the sidewalks, a lot of people also chew gum here, and don't use the wastebaskets afterward. Most of the time I don't look down, but today, sitting 'on' the sidewalk, I noticed.
But I quickly forgot (except my thoughts typing this) and we ordered caffe latte's, and quiche and sanwiches for lunch, followed by another caffe latte each and then the long awaited Austrian pastries. OBoy, yum, they were worth the wait. After a long, full, quiet and peaceful lunch we moved on a little further down the street, then crossed it as we turned for home. Slow gentle walk down the sunny side in the early afternoon sun. Back to the hotel, and we settled in to a quiet afternoon, Jan doing some emails and photo work and me napping.
Later we got on the web and investigated Budapest in terms of hotels and sights to see, and thought about our next moves. Seems that we now think that Istanbul is not to be part of our journey now, we reserved this decision for the last minute and part of it is we haven't contacted Dan, our friend from the cruise in Bucharest. So after Budapest we will likely turn north and west and head for Poland, likely Krakow as we have been advised that Warsaw is no longer an attractive tourist destination after everyone fighting over it blew the thing to bits during WWII. Now, we've been told, it is mostly early fifties Soviet style in terms of architecture. Less than appealing, so we will pass. Finally, a late dinner in the hotel, very good food here at this Ibis, and then to bed.
I am writing these notes while on a train from Vienna to Budapest. It is a modern, 'RailJet' service of OBB, the Austrian train service, and there are about five stops between our origin in Vienna and our destination in Budapest. Between stops we get up to speeds like 160 kmh, not fast by Eurostar standards, but fast enough. Lately, we have been making almost panic descents from the high speeds down to around 50kmh, the brakes squealing and the smell of the overheated brake linings filling the cars. People look up, around, at each other, you can see the question marks in the thought balloons over their heads. Jan and I are the only English-speakers on the train, but question marks in thought balloons require no translation.
