Leave your money here. You won't be needing it any more.
All righty heading south out of munich we drove to berchtelsgaden. It is a fantastic little town nestled snuggly in the heart of the German Alps on the Austrian border. This is Also the site of obersalzburg or it's somewhat more nefarious name "The Eagles Nest". This was Hitler's mountain top retreat and eventually became a second command post after Berlin. TO get there you've got to drive up this CRAZY road. It's like driving up a cliff. That said though it is beautiful. I can see why anyone (even homicidal insane crazy evil people) would want to be there. But while driving up the road all I could think of was that the place would be perched on a cliff with a giant boardroom with one high backed chair at the head. You know, like those evil hideaways with the self destruct mechanism? that was not to be. Almost all of the buildings from the Nazi era have been destroyed and the site now houses the Dokumentaion Obersalzburg. This is a museum dedicated to WWII. It chronicles Nazi Germany and the war in great detail. We decided to spring for the English audio guide as everything was in German. It really is a great museum. But there is something to be said here. There is very little told about what happened AT The Eagles Nest. This kinda irked me. Not enough to not recommend it though. If you find yourself nearby make a point to see it if only for the view. In any case that museum does hold a small part of the vast underground bunker system. That was pretty cool. Again these guys did nothing with modesty. The Bunkers were HUGE! Just wish we could see more of them. After spending way more time than we thought we would we were back on the road and headed for Austria.
The hills are alive!!!!
We arrived on the highway outside Salzburg in an startlingly quick time. THis is Sound of Music country. Roll down the windows and I swear you can hear Julie Andrews and the Von Trapp family singers ... wait a minute. no you can't. All you can hear is the sound of wind rushing past the car. That's because once you are in Austria there are a whole lot less cars. The entire trip between Salzburg and Vienna was virtually deserted. Which meant it was time to put all 1.6 litres of engine to work!! I got the car up to about 180-190 km/hr. I think that is about as fast as I will get it to go. The GPS gave an top speed of 182.
Wien (Vienna)
ROughly translated Vienna means leave all of your money here. It is also as far east as we will make it this trip. It is even further east than Prague. So Take that Europcar!!! My first impression was not a great one. I had some Specific images from films like Before Sunrise and The Living Daylights and the two did not meet at first glimpse. I will say this: Vienna is Big. Vienna is kinda dirty. Vienna is ... (bad language ahead) FUCKING EXPENSIVE. To give you an idea. We are paying 100 some euro a night to stay in a place taht would loook at home on the Granville Mall. Now it's nice enough once you get in but there are some NUTS on the street. So this was the start of our time in Vienna. I also want to make another point here. Before coming all the guide books said that EUropeans really conserve energy because it's supposed to be outrageously expensive. Well I do not buy this. Why? you may ask. Because all of their building are heated to a very oddly high degree. Perhaps it would cost less if THEY didn't use so much. Just saying.
Vienna in the Morning.
After waking up late and having breakfast we went to the Spanish Riding SChool. This is a dream come true for Lisa. It was also a turning point in my relationship with Vienna. The riding school was okay. Lisa will tell you it was fantastic I#m sure but for me it took quite some time to get interesting. By the end though the horses were doingg some pretty crazy jumps that I won't try to describe. The only thing that I found odd was why they make the horses do some things. Like jog in place. That just seems mean. As for the change of heart for me it came from getting into old Vienna. Everywhere you turn you seem to run smack into history and beautiful buildings. And the Music! It's everywhere! We bought tickets to a Mozart/Strauss concert for 20:00 (they use the 24hr clock here). THat left us with about 7 hours to kill. We wandered the town for a bit ogling the buildings and went for lunch. What happened after lunch deserves mention. We met the craziest person. He was selling tickets for a bus tour that we wanted to take around Vienna. He was also selling them to about four other groups ... at the same time. I cannot explain any better as it's late and I am beat. We got a picture. You'll get the idea. The bus tour had some great facts. Vienna is the 5th most visited city in the world. Lisa and I tried to think of the top 4 and see if we could debunk that. NYC, London, Paris, Rome ... Tokyo but we are not sure. So could be! it#s offseason and the place is CRAWLING with tourists. ALso on this tour was Mozarts Figaro house. MEaning that was where he wrote it. Pretty cool.
TONIGHT WE'RE GONNA PARTY LIKE IT'S 1341!!!!
SO after crazy McGee's Vienna Extravaganza we sought some dinner. We again wandered for what seemed like forever while most places were closing down being Easter and all. We ewventually stumbled onto Berzel-Gwöld. It is a very funky place where we were seated in a basement of a building built in 1341. Original lighting too ... not joking. It was pitch Black with the exception of candlelight. Once you got used to it it was lovely. Also I should mention this. The portions on this continent are massive. It's like they use one animal per person per meal. They are that big!
Concert
We trudged to one of the many palaces around town for our concert. I refused to take a cab. This city has enough of our money already. We went to see a selection of Mozart and Strauss by the Vienna Residence Orchestra. They are a 7 - 35 piece orchestra that act as one of Vienna's top Orchestra's behind the Vienna Philharmonic. The Concert was pure magic. That's about all I got. I am tired. We did buy a CD which was then signed by the lead violinist. Sweet!
In any case we may or may not be leaving Vienna tomorrow. We may stick aroound to see what else we can find. In closing the past couple of days have been great. It's hard to believe that we have only been here a week and have twice as much time to go. In closing it's been great. Vienna has been great. Happy Easter!!! .... again.
The hills are alive!!!!
We arrived on the highway outside Salzburg in an startlingly quick time. THis is Sound of Music country. Roll down the windows and I swear you can hear Julie Andrews and the Von Trapp family singers ... wait a minute. no you can't. All you can hear is the sound of wind rushing past the car. That's because once you are in Austria there are a whole lot less cars. The entire trip between Salzburg and Vienna was virtually deserted. Which meant it was time to put all 1.6 litres of engine to work!! I got the car up to about 180-190 km/hr. I think that is about as fast as I will get it to go. The GPS gave an top speed of 182.
Wien (Vienna)
ROughly translated Vienna means leave all of your money here. It is also as far east as we will make it this trip. It is even further east than Prague. So Take that Europcar!!! My first impression was not a great one. I had some Specific images from films like Before Sunrise and The Living Daylights and the two did not meet at first glimpse. I will say this: Vienna is Big. Vienna is kinda dirty. Vienna is ... (bad language ahead) FUCKING EXPENSIVE. To give you an idea. We are paying 100 some euro a night to stay in a place taht would loook at home on the Granville Mall. Now it's nice enough once you get in but there are some NUTS on the street. So this was the start of our time in Vienna. I also want to make another point here. Before coming all the guide books said that EUropeans really conserve energy because it's supposed to be outrageously expensive. Well I do not buy this. Why? you may ask. Because all of their building are heated to a very oddly high degree. Perhaps it would cost less if THEY didn't use so much. Just saying.
Vienna in the Morning.
After waking up late and having breakfast we went to the Spanish Riding SChool. This is a dream come true for Lisa. It was also a turning point in my relationship with Vienna. The riding school was okay. Lisa will tell you it was fantastic I#m sure but for me it took quite some time to get interesting. By the end though the horses were doingg some pretty crazy jumps that I won't try to describe. The only thing that I found odd was why they make the horses do some things. Like jog in place. That just seems mean. As for the change of heart for me it came from getting into old Vienna. Everywhere you turn you seem to run smack into history and beautiful buildings. And the Music! It's everywhere! We bought tickets to a Mozart/Strauss concert for 20:00 (they use the 24hr clock here). THat left us with about 7 hours to kill. We wandered the town for a bit ogling the buildings and went for lunch. What happened after lunch deserves mention. We met the craziest person. He was selling tickets for a bus tour that we wanted to take around Vienna. He was also selling them to about four other groups ... at the same time. I cannot explain any better as it's late and I am beat. We got a picture. You'll get the idea. The bus tour had some great facts. Vienna is the 5th most visited city in the world. Lisa and I tried to think of the top 4 and see if we could debunk that. NYC, London, Paris, Rome ... Tokyo but we are not sure. So could be! it#s offseason and the place is CRAWLING with tourists. ALso on this tour was Mozarts Figaro house. MEaning that was where he wrote it. Pretty cool.
TONIGHT WE'RE GONNA PARTY LIKE IT'S 1341!!!!
SO after crazy McGee's Vienna Extravaganza we sought some dinner. We again wandered for what seemed like forever while most places were closing down being Easter and all. We ewventually stumbled onto Berzel-Gwöld. It is a very funky place where we were seated in a basement of a building built in 1341. Original lighting too ... not joking. It was pitch Black with the exception of candlelight. Once you got used to it it was lovely. Also I should mention this. The portions on this continent are massive. It's like they use one animal per person per meal. They are that big!
Concert
We trudged to one of the many palaces around town for our concert. I refused to take a cab. This city has enough of our money already. We went to see a selection of Mozart and Strauss by the Vienna Residence Orchestra. They are a 7 - 35 piece orchestra that act as one of Vienna's top Orchestra's behind the Vienna Philharmonic. The Concert was pure magic. That's about all I got. I am tired. We did buy a CD which was then signed by the lead violinist. Sweet!
In any case we may or may not be leaving Vienna tomorrow. We may stick aroound to see what else we can find. In closing the past couple of days have been great. It's hard to believe that we have only been here a week and have twice as much time to go. In closing it's been great. Vienna has been great. Happy Easter!!! .... again.
posted by Glen Scotia at 12:38 PM
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