Vienna How I Love You

Day 10

In my post before, I described my train ride to Vienna. After we got off the train the morning got a lot easier. Our hostel was only about 4 blocks away from the train station, which was nice after a difficult night train. We got there and the staff was really nice and we were able to lock up our stuff and use the bathroom to freshen up before heading out for the day. Afterwards we found the Austrian version of Aldi, got breakfast, and then we ate it at a neighborhood park. By the way the weather was absolutely beautiful compared to Berlin (you could say we were in heaven) :)

We then walked to the train station and took a train to Michaelerplatz which is almost the city center (a famous city square). 

This is for you mom!  ;) (there were a lot of them)

This is also the place where we could see the Vienna imperial palace. I really wanted to see the Imperial Apartments and K accepted. We paid for the Imperial apartment museum but accidently saw the Sisi museum as well (went more in depth into the life of Empress Elisabeth). Half way through the Sisi Musuem I began to tag along with a talking English guided tour and followed them until almost all the way through the Imperial Apartments until they went too fast for me. In doing this I lost K for most of the museum and we needed to find each other at the end, which was unusual because we are used to just being able to just text each other where we are. This would be the first of many similar incidents. 

Courtyard of the Imperial palace.

When we were finished with the museum we decided to walk a ways and came upon the museum quarter, but we weren't prepared to do any more museums. We did sit on the grass and eat lunch while planning the different things that we wanted to do in Vienna.

 Around 1 we decided to go back to the hostel to see if our room was ready, and it was!! We showered rested and then headed back out into the city. 

Our room.

Outside our room

We went to Stadtpark. We walked around and took pictures, just taking in the incredible architecture. We then sat down on a bench and decided where we would go to eat and how to get there. 

How much I love Vienna. 

We chose to go to Amerlingbeisl, which would be our first sit down restaurant of the entire trip. 

This restaurant featured authentic Austian food in a very cozy outdoor courtyard.

 We thoroughly enjoyed our meal.

 When we were finished we were going to head back to the hostel, but we stumbled upon a rose garden during the beautiful golden evening light and decided to take pictures and just people watch. This included a man swimming in a fountain (needing to be taken out by the police), new engagement photos, and baby ducks. 

Again how much I love Vienna

Then after our really successful long day we headed back to the hostel, where I planned my visit to the Vienna Spanish riding school for the next day. 

Day 11

Originally, K and I planned that we would each go our own ways in the morning, but I was afraid I would get lost and so K was gracious enough to come with me to find the box office (which proved to be difficult). I then had an hour before I was allowed to go into the early morning exercise and we went in search of breakfast. We ate it and then I rushed off to my morning of horses, while K went to experience the Sigmund Freud museum. I absolutely loved every second of the early morning exercise and I was lucky enough to get a 1st floor seat after an hour of sitting upstairs, which was nice because of the better view. 

First view, from up high. Wasn't supposed to take these pictures (whoops).

Second view, but standing. 

Final view sitting. 

After I was finished, I had planned to meet K in Michaelerplatz, but we had some miscommunication and had some trouble finding each other but did so in the end. I was not without things to do though. I asked a couple if they wanted me to take their picture together and we got to talking (fellow Americans--they were from Cincinnati, Ohio). They had gotten married 6 weeks ago and were on their honeymoon. We talked about the Imperial Apartments and my suggestions (get the audio tour as the plaques had not been enough information). Where they were staying, where they would be traveling to and from, college and degree and where I was going afterwards (Americorps in Leavenworth Washington [the husband actually knew where it was]). They apparently have a niece in Americorps working in Washington (too bad I didn't get contact info). Either way after I saw them off, K showed up not long after and we got lunch. We had a picnic in the rose garden, it was nice to discuss our different things and day. We peopled watched and talked in the park until I had to go to my guided tour of the Spanish Riding School at 4pm. 

I am so glad that I splurged on the guided tour because it was really interesting and informative as well as getting the chance to get up close and personal with the behind the scenes stuff and seeing the horses (we weren't allowed to take pictures or touch the horses, but still seeing them and just being in their presence was more then enough). 

Different saddles, bits, etc for each horse

Empty arena in the floor seats! 

On my tour I met a girl from Canada and we hit it off, it was really nice to have someone to talk to before the tour, during the tour etc, I wish that we could have done more together, but alas. K and I found each other more easily this time. While I was in my guided tour K went to the Vienna opera house and took pictures, and tried to get inside (apparently it was difficult to find access). Apparently the guided tour was difficult to find as well. He then went to the film museum, but it was just playing movies and whatnot. The theater museum was right next to the film, but it was also confusing to maneuver as well. We sat down and decided what we should do, but a lot of the things that we wanted to do were about to close. We opted to go back to the hostel and look at things for Florence. 

Day 12 

This was the day of our night train, but we would not be leaving until 9pm. We had a full day a head of us. We decided to do some gardens. The first that we went to was Belvedere, which was the Winter Residence for Imperial family.

The gardens were absolutely stunning and so large! We just walked around and took pictures.

My new house. 

Come visit me and stay in my guest house. ;)

I was wearing my chacos and so I was getting a lot of gravel stuck under my feet which was the only unfortunate fact about this trip. We opted not to go to the museums because we thought that it would take too much time from our day and we had other places that we wanted to go. Honestly, it would have needed an entire day if not more to give it justice. 

When we left Belvedere, we got some picnic stuff and then headed to Schnbrunn, the Summer Residence of the Imperial family. As soon as we walked in we knew that this garden was going to be different, the walk up to the main building was a stretch. On our way to the side garden to find a place to sit, we saw a wedding party taking pictures and we stopped to gaze at them (alright alright, mostly me ;)  ). I thought it was so cool that they were taking pictures at palace (the bride really did look like a princess in a huge poofy dress, and the flower girl [ I assume ] was wearing a huge poofy dress too, that wuld make alla little girls feel like princesses). Anyways, off of the bridal tirade, we found a private garden to sit and eat at. We sat on a bench that overlooked a pond or fountain at began to eat. And then it began to rain and we thought it would pass, but it was getting worse and worse. We opted to run and find shelter underneath a tiny pavilion (we were not the only ones). We finished our meal under there and by that time the rain had slowed. We continued on and as we rounded the corner of the side of the house we had been on ( now at the back side of the house--building ) we saw a huge land spread before us. 

I don't have a good picture from where we stand on my phone, but I have one from a different direction that will hopefully give it justice. 

We walked around and took pictures (as per usual :)  ). There was this huge fountain that we gazed at for a time and then realized that people were taking pictures underneath it and we decided to see what that was all about. 

We walked up and took pictures . Directly behind the fountain was a huge hill that you could climb to see the views and a building (which I thought was the guest house, but it was kind of a monument type thing [no rooms, just airy]). 

We climbed up the hill, which was a nice little hike that we were not expecting, but was really cool and very rewarding! 

I got a chance to break in my chacos even more and see them in a terrain setting, which was nice. Unfortunately between getting gravel stuck under my feel and the hike, I got more blisters :( . There was an option to pay to go to the top of the building, but we were satisfied with the view that we had gotten from our hike, wouldn't you agree it was still pretty cool!

We finished the garden and hill (we didn't even see half of the entire garden [too large]. Once again we did not go into the musuem, because it would be closing in a couple of hours and we did not think that was enough time to give it justice. Also, I wanted to see the Spanish Riding School Horses from the courtyard that their stable surrounds. They have the option to stick their heads out of their stalls and into the courtyard. I had not been able to do it the day before because all day the courtyard was being prepared for a party that was going to happen on later that night. We went back to Michealplatz and found the courtyard, but it was still being taken down from the party. Though, I was able to get closer to it then I had the day before, and so I used my camera to zoom in the horses. Those cutie pies ;) . As we came back there was a rally occurring and so a lot of police were surrounding Michaelerplatz which was slightly concerning, just by the sheer amount of police people around and the amout of sirens and screaming cars driving through. We found some post cards and decided to go back to the hostel, I couldn't bare my shoes another moment. :( . Back at the hostel we cleaned up for the train ride, I downloaded the Vienna pictures (sooo many), wrote postcards, and waiting until 8ish to head over to the train station. 

We got dinner at the train station and got on our train and headed towards our final destination--Venice. I will tell you about the train ride in a different post, because this one is already so long. I will say a lot better then the one from Berlin to Vienna. Anyways, we made it to Venice and today are planning on getting lost in the canals! :) Until next time. 

Much Love,

Taylor 

Berlin to Vienna: A Train Journey to Remember

First, I will write about the train ride from Berlin to Vienna and do a separate post for Vienna because otherwise the entire post would be much too long. K and I were quite happy and excited to be leaving Berlin and heading towards Vienna. 

Purpleberry was too! :)

As stated before we believed that we would be traveling in similar style as the Amsterdam to Berlin trip, but much to our dismay we were not, instead we were in a 6 seat compartment with 3 other people filling up 5 of the 6 seats available. The seats did not recline so K and I along with the other people needed to figure out a way to place all of our seats in which to be comfortable. This was difficult, and I found myself scrunched up in the fetal position in my seat turned sideways trying to sleep. We did meet three nice people, two college aged boys from England traveling on to Venice and one man from Berlin visiting his brother in Vienna. 

Our quarters. 

Now for the weird things that happened with our train ride. The first thing that happened was at our Dresden stop, we were there for an awfully long time. When finally inquiring as to why we were waiting so long at this stop, we learned that our motor broke down and needed to be replaced. And so we waited there for an hour and a half while they took our motor away and brought us a new one. We figured after that we would be fine, wrong. About 20 minutes after leaving Dresden we came to a complete stop in the middle of nowhere and just sat there for 10 minutes, you can imagine what we were thinking. Did our motor give out again? This time in the middle of nowhere? And then all of a sudden we started up again and continued on our way. Around 12 we picked up more passengers and there were some that had no seats in the compartments and were required to sit on seats in the hallway, there was one man who was there sitting in a suit and had a briefcase, he was probably there for about 20 minutes. Then all of a sudden the entire train went black (or so I heard from my compartment mates--I was trying to sleep) and the man in the suit and had the briefcase had entirely disappeared. Creepy, right?

Hallway late at night.

The last weird thing to happen with our train was around 5 am somewhere in Austria when we were at a stop for another unusual amount of time.

Sun rising.

Sun up somewhere in Austria. 

 We found out that during this time they took away some cars that had been with us on the journey and added new ones. We figured this out because I had been using another compartments bathroom due to the working sink and when I went to use it, there was new car in its place. Weird. Anyways, we made it to Vienna in one piece, the poor English guys didn't make their Venice connection-- we never did hear what they were going to do (stay in Vienna or wait for another train). I did get to see the German man be reunited with his brother, which was nice.

K and I went and reserved our tickets for the Vienna to Venice night train and then started towards our hostel to clean up and start our day, which I will write about in a different post. 

Much Love,

Taylor

Hot Berlin

I am currently writing this from an overnight train from Berlin to Vienna. We could not agree on another German city and so we decided to look east to Austria. Salzburg was too expensive, but Vienna was pretty inexpensive and has a lot of history attached. 

Anyways, on our first full day in Berlin we traveled to the main train station and booked tickets for an over night train to Vienna since the journey would take about 8 hours. We didn't want to waste the day and we would save on a night in the hostel. We chose to go with seats (5 euro each) compared to couchettes (15 euro each)--that might have been a mistake. There is currently 5 people in a cabin for 6 and we are squeezed in here pretty tight. We will see how this sleep thing goes. 

Day 6

Anyways, writing of trains. The train from Amsterdam to Berlin was quite nice. 

K and I have decided we would have rather travelled on that train on an overnight trip to Vienna instead. The seats actually reclined. But hey this is an adventure right? The train ride from Amsterdam to Berlin was about 6 hours. We left at 11 and arrived around 6ish. 

We took a public train one stop and then walked a few blocks to our hostel, so it wasn't too bad. The only downfall was that it was HOT HOT compared to Amsterdam. The hostel did not have AC either, which I guess I should not be too surprised by. Also, because it was Sunday night by the time we got there all of the supermarkets were closed. On the plus side, the food in Berlin was pretty inexpensive, and so we ate at a German falafel place. It was pretty good. 

The rest of the night we decided whether we were going to Vienna, Salzburg, or Venice next based on hostel prices. You know which we chose. We then went to bed and boy was that room hot. We have now learned the art of taking cold showers to cool us down before bed (thanks Bethany for the tip ;)  ). 

Our room :)

Day 7

The next day started off early because the sun was shinning directly in my eyes and the room was beginning to get hot again. We paid for the hostel breakfast which was only 3 euro each and was a lot better then the breakfast the hotel in Amsterdam offered. We decided where we were going to go that day after the train station. We went and saw the Berin Wall Memorial. It was very interesting and gave a very in depth perspective to this era in history. I definitely felt the power of the ground that I was standing on. 

We then tried to find a grocery store. We found that all of them were closed and we could not figure out why. K googled it on his phone and we found out that it was because it was Whit Monday (a holiday where markets are closed--we should probably look further into this). We decided to go to a park to cool off from the midday sun. We think we went to Mauerpark (it could have just been some neighborhood park). We decided that since all of the supermarkets were closed we would have to eat out and luckily the food was not too expensive here. We looked at our guidebooks and chose a burger place they suggested that was not too far from where we were. Kruezburger, it was actually really good. 

We then headed to Alexanderplatz (a square with a lot of shopping stores, a clock, a fountain, a place to watch bungee jumpers from a building, and where you can see the TV tower--more famous landmark). We took a couple pictures and thought that we would put our feet in the water of the fountain until we saw it (pretty dirty looking and filled with trash). When we sat down the stones were burning hot, needless to say we left pretty quickly. 

We then walked over to Rotes Rathus (another place with fountains). We would have loved to sit down on these fountains but the first had varying degrees of spraying water and sitting alongside the fountain would make our bottoms wet. While the other fountain had people having a water fight in it, which was pretty cool to watch, but we did not want to join in.

We did find a nice bench in the shade to sit on. We people watched for a bit. I took a mini nap while K watched our stuff and continued to people watch. 

We then when into a church and watched/listened to a choir sing. 

They were very pretty and the church was very cool (meaning respite from the overhead sun). 

Afterwards, we went back to the hostel . Which was probably a good thing as my chacos were giving me a blister and my contacts were bothering me. At the hostel we rested and tried to cool down, but to no avail. We then headed out to find dinner. On our way we explored a bridge that looked pretty old or at least had some history. We walked down a little restaurant/residential part. After we got passed a certain point we found a park, but we did not stay for long (gut feelings kicked in) we found a tiny pasta place to sit and enjoy dinner. The place was quite homey and quaint and I would have stayed all night if I could have. 

When we finally left we went back to the hostel and wrote postcards. The night finally began to feel nice, but it was 9:40pm at night. We went to bed early that night because the heat had drained everything from us. 

Day 8

We woke up again early due to the sunlight as well as the heat. We went to a German Aldi (was really excited) and got breakfast and brought it back to the hostel to eat. We then travelled to the Holocaust Memorial. The place had very interesting architecture 

There were blocks of concrete at varying heights and along sloped walkways. As you walked along them you felt as though you were going through a maze. We went into the memorial as well.  Not only was it free but underground (making it cold). The museum was very interesting and quite insightful, but also very sad. 

Afterwards, we went in search of a grocery store and bought picnic food and brought it to Tiergarten. We found a nice shady bench that looked over a sunny grassy field and sat to eat. 

We stayed for a while to get away from the brutalizing midday sun. It was very nice and relaxing. We then decided to walk the length of the park, as we knew that we would never be able to explore all of the park due to its sheer size. 

Our path led us to the Victory Momument. We decided to go into the center where it was located to get a better look. This required us to go underground to reach it, which was a blessing since it was underground and cold. When we got inside the bottom of the Momument we were required to pay 3 euro each in order to go through the museum and climb the steps to the top. K was generous enough to pay for both of us. The museum was a tribute to all great momument type buildings around the world. We breezed through the museum, anxious to get to the top. About 280 steps awaited us. We made it, and boy was the view absolutely incredible. 

When we came back down we decided to treat ourselves to cold drinks at a cafe that we had seen from above. K got a beer and I got a sprite and we toasted to our victory ;)  .

We then found a way to get to the post office (post bank) and mailed our postcards. After that we were kind of finished with the day and so we headed back to the hostel. We got dinner from a nearby grocery store (different sandwiches, grapes and cheese). Then we had a nice conversation with our Austrailian roommate and then were invited to sit outside with another two our roommates (brother and sister visiting from a different part of Germany). We had an interesting talk as well.  We were exhausted from our day so we declined their invitation to go out. 

Day 9

This was our travel day. We were taking a night train from Berlin to Vienna that didn't leave until 6pm. So we decided that we were going to visit some of the other famous places that we could get to and take pictures of them even if we could not get in. We went to Reichstag (German parliament).

We also went to Berlin Dom. We took pictures, sat on a bench and enjoyed the grey weather. 

Then it started to rain and so we headed for a covered column area that overlooked the river. We stayed there for a while until we decided that we should go back to the hostel and wash our sweaty clothing from Berlin before heading out to get to the train station and get dinner. While washing our clothes at the hostel we ducked out for a bite, to grab curry wursts.

We then folded laundry, packed luggage and started on our way. Obviously, we made it to to the train on time, but the train had some difficulties throughout the trip and we are a little behind schedule at this point--but I will tell you more details about that in my next post. 

As per usual I'll post this when I get a chance. Until next time.

Much love,

Taylor 

P.S. We made it to Vienna at 7am today. It is simply wonderful here, we are going to go out and enjoy this absolutely beautiful city now! ;)