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| Erin's Journal for 9-27-02 Today we left Prague for Vienna. We showered and packed up from Sir Tobe's, went down to enjoy the rest of the juice we'd left in the fridge, and found that someone had already cleared it out for us. They were cleaning the fridge out for the large group of conference-goers who had booked out the hostel and kept us from staying this extra day. We strayed around the corner to the grocery store to spend some of the remaining crowns we'd had to keep, in the form of our sheet and key deposits, and picked up some breakfast and lunch snacks. Then we rushed across the street to the bus stop and hopped on the X-C, a replacement bus for the non-functioning subway (since the floods). This took us straight to the train station, and we made it to our platform almost an hour before departure. We purchased a juice to share for breakfast and waited in the sudden sunshine for the train to be ready to leave. Once we were underway, we settled in to reading and watching the very pretty countryside go by out the window. We had reserved our spot, so for most of the trip, we were alone in our 4-seat row. Glenn and I wrote out some postcards and shared a good lunch of bread with salami and cheese. Finally we arrived in Vienna an hour earlier than we'd been told, and confusedly found our way to the tram that would take us to our hostel. The buildings were quite impressive; very clean lines, large and stately. That seemed to be the norm in this gorgeous city. Everything was clean and orderly, and seemed quite safe. Once we'd checked into our hostel, we had the luck to have a couple of local ladies give us their u-bahn tickets, which didn't expire for 3 more days! We immediately took a subway into the main part of town, Stephensplatz. Our guide book said this was the premier sight in Vienna. St. Stephens is a huge cathedral which has been under construction since the 1100's and is still not complete today! However, it is quite an impressive sight. There were several street performers doing everything from breakdancing to puppeteering, which distracted us for a little while. Then we walked along the street, totally pedestrianized, admiring the shopping along the way and watching the people. At the far end, we saw a Starbucks right before hitting the Opering, the street which housed most of the opera houses in the downdown area. We walked past the Stadtsoper (State Opera House) just as people were lining up to get in, dressed in all their finery. As we walked along, we saw a theater with the English version of Road to Perdition, and decided to catch dinner & a movie that night. We walked a bit further and found a corner cafe. We tried it out, and were extremely pleased to have our first good example of real wienerschnitzel and an excellent chicken cordon bleu. I also tried their local Octoberfest Brau, which was quite nice! After this, we made it in time for the 8:45pm show of Road to Perdition, which we both agreed was a very well-made film. On the way back to the U-Bahn & hostel, we stopped to take a few night shots of the Hofberg Palace (seat of the Hapsburg dynasty for many centuries) and the City Hall building. Then we finally headed back to crash. |
| A spectacular chandelier in the Viennese royal chapel |