Vienna Day 2-28th March 2008

The day started kinda early. We left the house at 8 a.m!

We wanted to do a self-walking tour in the city once again. Vienna is really a very beautiful city especially with its architecture and children playing musical instruments, harmonica, flute on the streets etc. There's music everywhere~~

I don't want to be too routine in my blog so I shall not describe every detail. It will just be of places we go to, pictures and stories here and there which we pick up along the way.

First stop-Stephen-platz (btw, platz means square in German I suppose.)
There stood one of the oldest church in Europe, St. Stephen Cathedral. The building is hard to miss seriously, right in the city centre. Oh ya, i would use infinity to estimate the no. of churches in Vienna. We passed by so many that I simply couldn't keep track of their names.

St. Stephen's Cathedral

Interior

St Paul's Cathedral if I remember correctly. :)

Where you see the column and the slope behind, that's Beethoven and his house.

Along the streets selling musical instruments

Along the way, there was the Parliament, the City Hall, Opera House, National Theatre, blah blah. I bet they have the largest no. of cultural related halls and museums in Europe!

Yet another church dominating Vienna's skyline

Vienna City Hall

Directly opposite the City Hall. It's either the National Museum, or National theatre. I don't remember. Connecting these 2 buildings lies statues of all kings and nobles in Vienna's history.

Counting down to Euro 2008-I'll most probably miss the event despite being in Europe! haha

Vienna parliament. I just like those statutes. They are beautiful ain't they?

3 guys posing some spastic shots.

An interesting event-We were outside the Parliament when there was this group of kids aged between 11-13 doing some street interview. They approached me and asked if they could interview me. Topic was "Do you think news reporting is being manipulated?" I told them we were tourists and Vienna news is alien to us. However, they say we can just comment on news in general. So Kim & I played around. They were really cute and the boy who acted as the reporter was really nervous. haha.. Singapore should start having these kind of school projects. It looks fun to me at least.

The Interviewers and Interviewees plus Crews!

Oh ya, Vienna's education system. They do not study English, Mathematics and Science separately. Instead, they go by the Unit of Inquiry way. So for every semester you will have 2-3 units of inquiry on different topics. For e.g Shopping, Water, Forces, Cooking etc. When you have shopping, you learn English vocabulary in shopping like groceries, retailers etc. In addition, you go on excursions to SHOPPING MALLS where you learn location of emergency exits, their purposes, what to do in cases of emergencies. That more or less cover a little of the Science aspect. You learn mathematics in problems of purchasing stuff. That sounds so interesting to me!

By noon, we were at the anchor clock. Trust me, it's one of the worst shows in my opinion. The music was poor and soft and it's just figures going in circles! Plus, it was late.

Anchor Clock-(To see the video, message me. I can't upload the file. it's too big.)

On the way to Beldervere Palace

Then off we bounce to Beldervere Palace. The lady at the Tourist Office recommended us to go there. Honestly, it's all Art Galleries inside the Palace now. Of course we skipped it. I mean our maturity level is not at the Art gallery stage yet honestly. hahaha..

Lower Beldervere

Upper Beldervere

Random fountain outside the palace

Now, we need some Viennese cuisine, don't we? One of their specialities is Schnitzel. It's actually pork chop but I assure you it's probably the best I'd eaten in my life so far. We were told to go to this cheap and good one but apparently it was only opened for lunch so by the time we arrived at 4p.m, it was closed. Instead, we settle for 2nd Best but it was still nice. :) The meat was fresh, juicy and tender! I didn't taste any stench of blood unlike those in Singapore where it's not well prepared. :)

Not to miss out, the Summer Palace of the Hofburg royalties. We didn't enter the state apartments this time though. I've been into at least 10 palaces so far!! There we saw the Spanish Riding School (where horses perform a show or two for you.) but we didn't catch the show. There was specific timings and we missed it. Btw, feedback from other friends were it was really boring. You pay 10 EUR to see horses trotting in circles. :(

Hofburg Palace

Ceiling of the interior. NICE!

Spanish Riding School

Where there's girls, there's shopping. haha.. We headed to 2 of the most popular shopping districts, Karlsplatz and the other Ma..platz. (can't recall the name). The best place to shop is always LONDON or rather the UK. haha...

Oh not to forget the famous Danube Tower. Coincidentally, it's within sight from Kim's dad's friend's house. We see it everyday but we didn't go up. Towers are the 2nd most visited attractions on my traveling list already. So sometimes, I should just skip 1 or 2 I think. Hahaha!! Plus, I forgot about photos :(

With that, I more or less summarized Vienna!
Wien, mit Vergnügen!

Vienna Day 1-27th March 2008

Before we could even begin our adventure at Vienna, we experienced a "scare-you-out-of-your-wits" in the woods. haha.. Why do I say that?

We were making our way to Kim's dad's friend house the night before from Salzburg. The instructions were rather clear but i guess Kim was pretty tired by all the traveling and she took the wrong route. We went right into a neighbourhood where construction was in progress and there was this huge grass patch nearby! Indeed we were lost. We had made a big round and if we were to trace back our original route and restart, it will probably take another 20 minutes. So we decided to take the risk and cut through the grass patch. God knows it was fenced. Luckily, we still managed to find a small path where we squeeze our way and get back to the main road and finally at our destination.

That was my 2nd time experiencing the feeling of "lost". 1st was Manchester. :)

Anyway, description about who we stayed with. It was an Indian family, Kim's dad's friend who used to live in Singapore but work and live in Vienna now. They were really nice. Two kids, a girl & a boy and honestly, I really enjoyed my stay with them. Imagine me, mixing around with Indians? haha.. Despite Singapore being a multi-racial society, I don't have much Indian friends except Jaya? This was a beyond description experience for me. I ate Indian cuisine and they are vegetarians so dinner was simple, tomato soup with Indian rice which apparently I no longer remember the name. There was also this fried potato puffs which I give TWO thumbs UP!

The kids were cute! I think I am just too BOYISH. Kim was mixing with the daughter all the time while I had a great time playing swords and fighting with the little son! haha.. He liked me so much that on the 2nd night, he waited for me to play with him again but because we were back late & in a rush to catch the night bus, I couldn't. I could sense his disappointment though.

Yet another cultural exchange that I've undergone during this trip :)

Sunny Day.Alfresco Dining for you?

Back to the itinerary for the day.
We first had to settle our bus to either Brussels or Berlin.
Bus to brussels then to Berlin would mean we would get proper rest since we will be putting up at a hostel in Berlin on Sunday night. In order not to screw things up, we decided to call up the Brussels' office to book our Brussels-Berlin connection. Hilarious! We used an international call booth and we started with 1 EUR. God knows it used up within like 3 minutes when I was halfway through the booking! It's as though we were fighting a battle following it because Kim had her coins in her hands and whenever the level went low, she had to quickly insert new coins!

Luck wasn't on our side because Brussels-Berlin connection was full on Saturday so we had to do the most CRAZIEST thing! Our connection became: Vienna-Berlin.Berlin-Brussels.Brussels-Berlin before we flew back to Stockholm. That simply means we will go without proper lodging for 3 nights. The seats on the bus became our beds :( For me, it would have been something do-able but definitely not Kim. She isn't really used to such hectic traveling and she fell sick on the 9th day of our 12-days trip, which is 2nd day on Vienna. I asked her if she could withstand the long bus journeys once again and she insisted she could. So we went ahead.

We spent almost the entire day at the Schonbrunn Palace, the winter palace of the Austrian royalties. Trust me, the Austrians have the BEST Palaces in all the nations that I've been to so far! It's amazing! This one was a bit out of the city centre and it's INSANELY HUGE. Yet there's another Summer Palace in the city centre whose size is no smaller than this.

Entrance of Schonbrunn Palace

Spastic Shot inside the garden terraces

Garden Terrace View

From the Balcony of the Palace

In order to fully experience the palace, we bought the classic pass which included our entrance into the state apartments, the apple strudel show (Austria is famous for strudels?), the Labyrinth Maze, rooftop terrace in the gardens, & the paranomic view tower. 14 EUR for all that, it's worth it I'd say. There's even a zoo in the palace. Initially we thought it was just a normal zoo so we skipped it. Who knows actually it was a zoo meant for the royalties! WTH? They build a zoo in the palace!

I like this. That's the paranomic view terrace in the background.

Close-up View

Paranomic view from the terrace.

Stairway to Heaven?

Once again, the photos are replacing my words.

The Labyrinth Maze

Where am I?

Lost.
Playing with the mirrors

Stupid Jump Shot! haha..

Prater Amusement Park

In the evening, we went to Prater, the amusement park in Vienna. There it stood, the oldest Ferris Wheel in Europe which has been standing for almost a 100 years if I remember correctly. Anyway, prater will be where the 2008 Euro Cup will be held. I couldn't see the stadium though because you have to walk quite a fair bit and we weren't sure of the directions. However, come June 2008, the metro will be ready to take you right to where the stadium is.

The ride which I've yet to try.

That's really for kids!

I've been on London Eye so ferris wheels no longer arouse my interest much. You need the right person on a Ferris Wheel. haha....

Before the sky darkened, we hurried to the supermarket to grab snacks though it was near dinner time! Woohoo~ But we gotta be back b4 1930 so we skipped our shopping plans...We met this really F***_up sales woman at the supermarket. Just because we couldn't speak German, she totally ignored us. She was sweeping the floor when we asked her if she could come by so we can check out.

1st attempt: Ignored us.
2nd attempt: Took a glance at us and continued her work
3rd attempt: Speak a string of German words which she didn't understand

The bill came up to 5.55 EUR. So we asked if we could give her 0.55 EUR. We said that at least 4 times but she completely IGNORED us and just gave us back our change of 4.45 EUR without muttering a word. What the hell is wrong with these people? There wasn't any smiles, not even a Danke! How rude can these people be!

Euro 2008!

Football for LIFE! ~

Salzburg-26th March 2008

Departure: Munich Haufbahnhof @ 07:45hours
Arrival: Salzburg Haufbahnhof @ 09:05 hours
This shall be a photo do the talking post.

Once we arrived, we went straight to the tourist office. Trust me, the train station was like some deserted venue. Haha..Salzburg is a small town. The reason why we were there was because we heard is beautiful and of course Sound of Music.

I didn't know much about the show prior to the visit in the sense I heard of it before but I hadn't watch it. Everyone said it was worth going because of the sights that you will go to and obviously if you are really into the show!

Yeah, the sights were great just that I couldn't really identify with it because I didn't watch the movie! But anyway, Kim summarized the movie for me in like 3 minutes. Immediately after I came back from the tour, I caught the movie. For all music lovers out there, please watch the show. It's really really NICE!

I shall show you some photos and those who have watched it will really enjoy it.....

Gestapo where 16 going on 17 was sung

Just a snow covered patch on our way

The Alley where she did the jump-skip steps on her way to the house

The alley where the father drove through-the kids climbing trees

Trying to do my snow angel!

The Castle which you see in the movie.

Their House

The Gestapo was placed right in between the two houses. The lake where they fell into.

Sorry but I can't remember what was this.

The red top building was the Abbey Maria was from.

Inside the Abbey-where the wedding took place

The Horse Fountain

The tour took up 4 hours so we more or less utilised half a day already. After the tour, we went to the city centre for our usual walking tour. However, there wasn't any guide. It was our self-walking tour. haha... The first stop was Mozart's Birthplace!

The thing about Salzburg is you see MOZART's display almost everywhere!! From shirts, souvenirs to chocolates or even cookies. Almost everything had his print on it. Shopping was part of the itinerary too but things weren't too cheap.

The Monchsberglift is the one I love best. You take an elevator up the most stunning panorama terrace in Salzburg and the view there is magnificent. If you have been reading my blog often, you will realise I have been to a million of towers with paranomic views. haha.. Yes I did. I mean nothing beats seeing the city from the top. But Salzburg doesn't have the best view. The city is very flat and houses all looked the same-yellow! Nevertheless, the fact that it was covered with snow made it all worth of.

Paranomic View - Salzburg full of bridges because there's a division between left and right bank

See the Austrian Alps from afar!

More Paranomic Views...

We took a walk around the surroundings and finally found our spot to build our snowmen!! Finally! Spent freaking 1.5 hours making the snowmen and by the time it was done, my hands were frozen.haha...

Snowmen in progress
Me and my HUGE snowmen

Kim & Her Mini-one

Striking down the snowmen.
P/S IF: Your hands will hurt after that. :)

Eating Pizza on the streets! You have to be fast. Otherwise it turns cold easily

How would it be like to spend X'mas in Salzburg honestly?

Imitating Mozart

I love horses. Symbol of Freedom...

Another of our mischievous acts suggested by ME :)

In the evening, I took this Cable railway up to HohenSalzburg Fortress! It's sloped 45deg and the speed was fast! But it was a short trip so it isn't that scary. Here, I encounter the typical Austrian and German attitude which I will elaborate again in my other German post.

Me: May I have the ticket for the cable railway? How much would it be?
Staff: It's $6,70 EUR up and down the cable railway. Everything is closed at the top.
Me: Sorry I don't get it. Does that mean the railway won't stop?
Staff: It's $6,70 EUR up and down the cable railway. Everything is closed at the top. I don't speak English. Do you want the ticket?
Me: Okay I will get it.

WTH? I was just trying to clarify. These unfriendly people. Anyway the view up was magnificent too. It's actually a fortress but it's closed that day. I think it must be due to winter or easter. That happens when you travel during winter or easter. You see lesser things.

That's the fortress!

Kids throwing snowballs at each other. So cute...

Our last stop was the Hellbrunn Palace and the trick fountains. Took photos, try to do the snow angels. Nothing much.

Me & my snow angel finally! But the ground was white so it isn't that clear. Kim looked funny in this one..

Wien, Hier komme ich!