As I write this we are en-route to Budapest from Vienna, on the train. We have spent the last 4 nights in Vienna, and have another 4 days to go in Budapest.
Anyway, Vienna. It is a lovely city. We arrived in the afternoon on Saturday and spent the evening wandering from our hostel down to the old town, looking at the impressive buildings and discovering the Rathausplatz (square in front of the town hall) which had a big screen and outdoor foodcourt for the Summer season of music movies. The weather was balmy and we had pizza and beer sitting on the street. Vienna has wide streets, many trams and cyclists, and lots of drinking water stations where you can re-fill your bottles and push a button to get a mist to cool you down!
On our wandering we discovered a sort of outdoor festival area in the Museums Quarter (MQ) with bars and cafes and a DJ, so we had some drinks and hung out here for a bit soaking up the atmosphere.
The following day we had a breakfast of Viennese croissants (they were invented here, apparently) and coffee and jumped on the tram to Schoenbrunn Palace. That is where Marie Antionette was born and raised before she was married off to the French guy. The palace was EXTREMELY grand, huge gardens, fountains, statues, a maze, and luxurious state apartments. I couldn't keep up with all the info about the important people that lived here but it was pretty impressive to look at.
We had a very Viennese dinner of Gulash (well Richie did, vege gulash doesn't exist) and more beer and spent the evening wandering some more. Vienna is a city with plenty to look at even if you aren't doing anything in particular. I attempted to speak German with varying degrees of success. Because of the high numbers of tourists and the fact that nearly everyone learns English at school from a young age, just about everyone speaks perfect English so as soon as they heard me speaking to Richie they would revert to English. This was a little bit annoying since this is one of the few countries where I can actually get around without speaking English! But hey I still spoke lots of German so that was cool.
That evening we went on an adventure to the Donau tower, like the sky tower. We rode the lift up 200 odd metres and took in the view of Vienna by night. They take your picture as you go through the barrier and try to sell it to you as you come down. So weird. Especially as they take the picture with basically no warning and so you look completely stupid and then they print them all off so there is a big wall of surprised looking faces staring at you as you come out.
On Tuesday we had a lazy start and more coffee and croissants, before catching the u-bahn (underground) to Kunsthaus Wien, which is an art gallery designed by Friedensrich Hundertwasser and which contains lots of his paintings, models for buildings and other art. Hundertwasser is the guy who designed the public toilets with the grass and trees on the roof in Kawakawa. He lived in NZ in his later life and is buried there. He also designed the green Koru flag as an alternative to the Southern cross/Union Jack one. The building was fab, all crazy tiling and undulating floors. He was totally against straight lines and obsessed with spirals. He also experimented with plants as water purification tools and came up with the ideas of 'Tree tenants' for high density city housing, where the trees are grown in 1 metre square window boxes just inside the walls and grow outside the building and up the walls. All very interesting!
We also visited the Hundertwasser House, which is basically his ideas put into practice in a council block in Vienna. You can't go inside, as people live there, but it's pretty choice.
That night we planned to go and watch a music movie at the Rathaus, but when we got there the heavens had opened and we were completely soaked. I have never seen it rain so hard. Umbrellas and raincoats stood no chance whatsoever. We basically waded back to our hostel and in the end spent the evening drinking lovely CHEAP Austrian wine instead.
The next day, after our customary coffee and croissant, we headed to the MQ to the Museum Moderner Kunst. The building was choice, the modern art was somewhat over rated, but maybe I have just been spoiled by the Tate Modern in London. Each to their own and all that.
We also visited the Architecture Centre, which was quite interesting, and conspicuous in it's absence was any reference to Hundertwasser. Maybe he isn't classed as a real architect.
We took a tram ride around the city, looking at the old buildings and interesting new ones, and did some more wandering. There are dozens of interesting churches and statues all over Vienna.
This morning we had an interesting time getting on the train which was overflowing with young people heading to Budapest for the Music Festival. We didn't have reserved seats and the corridors where full of people sitting on the floor so we decided to take the later train and went and reserved our seat for that one. So now we are lucky and sitting in a carriage by the window looking out on wind farms and fields of sunflowers. I think we have passed the border as the ticket inspectors are no longer speaking auf Deutsch, but we haven't shown our passports yet.
Anyway this has been a good way to while away some time on the train, this baby computer of Richie's is brill.
Steph
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