Monthly Archives: July 2008

Salzburg

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This morning we took the train into Salzburg. On the train we had coffee, a sausage, and duram (kebab wrap) as our brunch. We tried to sit in the business class section of the train, only to find out it costs 15 Euros more so we moved to the 1st class section (as allowed by our Eurail pass).

We arrived in Salzburg around 2pm and walked to our hotel across the bridge. It’s called Strawberry Youth Hostel and is a converted dorm. It even still has the furniture of dorms but each room has a bathroom and shower. The carpet is old and worn and towels aren’t included but it’s quite spacious and pretty cheap.

After we checked in, we headed out to visit Mozart Geberthaus (birthplace). We saw momentos of his childhood and learned more about his upbringing as a child prodigy. We tried the famous Mozartkugel (by Mirabell) and weren’t all that impressed with the taste.

We went to Cafe Furst for the original Mozartkugel, some coffee, and cake. This Mozartkugel had a bit more pistachio flavor. The coffee is really good in Europe. I had something called Melange (milk with coffee) and Ron had the Eiskaffe (coffee with ice cream).

After our snack, we walked around town a bit more before heading to the church for another concert, this time Mozart’s last composition, Requiem. It really is a powerful piece.

After a bit of culture, it was time for some good eats. We walked to the Augustiner Brewery, a former monastery and now a brewhouse and beer garden. The beers are huge and cheap! Only 5 Euros for 1L. I had something called a “radler” which is beer mixed with fruit drink of your choice (I chose lemonade) and this was only 4.5 Euros. They have different stalls of foods: ribs, sausage, fries, scapbi, corn, meat loaf… we were stuffed! We had to roll ourselves back to the hotel.

If you can’t view the slideshow above, click HERE.

Vienna

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This morning we were served breakfast in our compartment of breads, cheese, meat, cereal yogurt (yogurt with cereal already in it), coffee, and juice. We got off the train and bought ourselves a 24h U pass (5.6 Euros) for our short time here. We took the U6 Flor to Alt Strauss to our hotel which was really easy to find, just took a left then a right and there we are! The hotel already had a room ready so we gladly showered and planned our day. All night on a train isn’t very fun.

We first headed to Hoher Markt to check out their special clock. We got there just in time since at noon, the characters in the clock all cycle through. After the clock, we went to check out Stephansdom and find a place to sit and have some Viennese coffee. We stopped by Cafe Hawelka on Dorotheergasse 6-8 (recommended in our guidebook). We didn’t really know how to order so asked the waiter and he brought us something, both quite good. It’s so smart they serve a glass of water with the coffee. It’s good to prevent getting dehydrated and helps to cleanse the coffee breathe a bit. It was expensive though, cost us 11 Euros for 2 coffee and a slice of apple strudel!

We went to explore some more to find a place for lunch and we stopped by a place near Technische Universitat. We tried their weinerschnitzel and fried fish. We originally though that weinerschnitzel was some sort of sausage but is actually a deep fried piece of meat. The restaurant owners of this establishment were really nice though and helped us to translate the menu.

After our filling lunch, we took the U to Schonbrum to see the castle and walk through the grounds. It’s quite spectacular, I wonder how many people it takes to maintain the place. We had a nice undisturbed nap on a bench underneath the tree lined walkway.

Then we headed to Schwedenplatz near the river to walk around before walking back to where we started out day to have a snack at Zanoni Zanoni. I had the sacher torte and Ron tried the nuss torte (nuts) of course accompanied by coffee. The whipped cream is so yummy!

We went shopping a bit and I got myself a nice pair of earrings. We grabbed a quick bite at a sausage stand. The “bun” is very smart in that they use a baguette, cut off one end, then use a device (basically a stick), to poke a hole through the bread before putting the sausage in it and mustard and ketchup. Much better than dealing with a bun that is slit horizontally, less potential leakage.

At our hotel, we had reserved tickets for a Mozart Konzerte at Konzerthaus. The show started at 8:15pm. I was impressed with the instruments but not so much with the soloists. I felt like the man and woman separately were fine but singing together had little chemistry. The conductor kept the concert interesting as he tried to involve the audience with clapping during the performance. The costumes were pretty cool, keeping with the period of the music.

It ended around 10pm and we headed back to our hotel. We were surprised to find that they sell beer in their vending machine and it was only 1.3 Euros for a 0.5L can. We ended the evening with watching some TV and having vending machine beer (and it was good beer too!).

If you can’t see the slideshow above, click HERE.

Venice then to Vienna, Austria

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We had breakfast at our hotel before checking out. We headed back to San Marco and went to the Campanile. It costs 8 Euros to take the elevator to the top and it was a bit disappointing in height. I thought it’d be taller… then we waited in line to get into the Basilica. They offer free bag check-in, I guess so you don’t bump into things while inside. It’s free admission to the church but other parts inside you have to pay for. A bit strange I thought. We weren’t allowed to take photos inside either so can’t share with you the inside. We tried to go to the Doge Palazzo but admission was 13 Euros and since we were that excited about going in, we went to find lunch instead.

We ended up back near our hotel and had lunch near the water. We had yummy pizzas and beer. Ron had the house special of sausage, salami, artichoke, and musshroom. I had the gorgonzola and ham.

After lunch we had a little nap on a bench before going to the Accademia Museum. Admission was 6.5 Euros but this place made me a bit upset as they required us to check in our bag, a small backpack, about 10″ by 10″, the size of a large purse (but much smaller than the purses I regularly carry).. anyways, they charged us 50 cents to check in the bag while they let in the couple right in front of us with a baby stroller and diaper bag! It was only 50 cents but they didn’t stop us until we were already halfway up the stairs and then the employee there had no explanation of why she singled me out to check in my bag. She was very rude overall.

It kind of ruined the museum for me as I kept on checking out everyone else’s bag and there were definitely people with larger bags walking around. There was even one guy who was carrying a large army duffle bag slung over his shoulder.

But to tell you something good about the museum, they have translation cards for each piece of art work so there’s no need to purchase the audio guide if you don’t mind reading. It took about an hour to go through. It’s under renovation so there were some rooms closed so maybe once it’s complete, there will be more to see.

Afterwards we didn’t have much else to do so we went back to our hotel to rest and watch our “House” DVDs until we needed to head to the train station. We bought ourselves some dinner on the train, Ron had the carbonara while I had a salad with figs and eggplant.

Our train is an overnighter, we left Venice around 8:30pm and plan to arrive in Vienna at 8:30am!

If you can’t see the slideshow above, click HERE.

Venice and Murano

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We missed the breakfast provided by the hotel but were able to use their wi-fi to find out where we should go and we were able to switch rooms to the main hotel. We got ourselves some bread sticks and croutons at a bakery close by. They had cheese or tomato sauce on them, pretty yummy for a light snack.

We went to figure out the vaporettis (water buses) and ended up buying 36 hour passes for 21 Euros, just long enough for our time here. We caught the waterbus so that we could get to Murano, an island close by where they blow glass. It’s best to ask the ticket attendants the best way to get there.

Once we arrived, we kept our eye out for “fornaces” where you can watch the glass blowers in action. We saw a few vases and a glass cat sculpture being blown. Pretty cool. We went to this one store that had cool scenes of ocean life, like clown fish, anemone, and octopus. A bit on the pricey side though, around $5K so we just looked and said maybe one day…

Afterwards we went to lunch at one of the only restaurants on the island. We had a famous Venice dish of sardines and onions, Volope (seafood) pasta, and fried pesce (fish). To top it off we shared a 1/2 liter of white wine. Our lunch guest was a little birdie in the alley behind the restaurant. We were sitting at a back table and it was open to the outside so this little bird kept on pecking around looking for food so eventually we started sharing our bread basket with it.

We walked around a bit more to see the art on the island before heading back to San Marco to check out the waterways and shops. I had this huge strawberry (fragola) meringue which was super sweet but oh so delicious. It turned my mouth and teeth pink! In our guidebook they recommended this store on the Ponte di Rialto bridge that sells classic style leather bound journals. I got myself a nice red leather photo journal and a smaller one for regular notes. The journal maker and her daughter were really friendly and willing to accommodate.

We went back to the hotel to rest for a while before heading to dinner on the Canal Grande. We had bruschetta with cheeses & fruits, sea bass, gnocchi with aubergine, and chocolate cake with pear mousse vanilla creme.

If you can’t see the slideshow above, click HERE.

The Leaning Tower of Pisa then to Venice (Venezia)

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We had breakfast at our hotel this morning before returning our scooter and heading to the Uffizi to see some Italian works of art. We weren’t allowed to take photos of the art so can’t share them with you but I think our favorite part were the sculptures lining the halls. We tried to guess who they were and were only partially successful.

Afterwards we took a train to Pisa. It costs 5.6 Euros per person and took about 1.5 hours. When we arrived, we had lunch… Pizza in Pisa! Haha, I know, corny. They also had Duff Beer, we didn’t know this was an actual beer.

We went to take the usual pictures of the Leaning Tower. There were so many people there taking pictures it was hard to get a good shot. They weren’t just taking one picture, but many many different shots. This one couple was taking pictures of the guy holding up the tower with his back, pushing it with his hands, etc. The lady also wouldn’t give up and took at least 20 shots and after each shot, she would go check out the picture and take another one. Unbelievable. They also kept on getting in the way of our picture! Sigh.

Afterwards we took the train back to Florence as there wasn’t much else to see and we didn’t want to go up the tower. We still had to book a hotel in Venice so went to do that before buying some Chinese food for our train ride. It was a bit strange, I had curry noodles and Ron had sweet and sour pork. It wasn’t fully Chinese flavor but okay.

We arrived in Venice around 10pm then still had to take another train to get to our final destination, Venezia S.L. We took the autobus to the Accademia station since our hotel was supposed to be there. We didn’t know where to buy tickets for the autobus so just got on. It was late anyways so the ticket booths were closed. The streets were a bit hard to follow but we eventually found our hotel but then the guy made us walk to their “sister” hotel farther away which was a big room that had a bed and fold-out bed but there was no internet so we’re going to ask them to switch rooms tomorrow.

If you can’t see the slideshow above, click HERE.