Category: Europe 2017

Today we moved down the Danube to Bratislava the capital of Slovakia. It was only about an hour train ride from Vienna. It is another gray rainy day here so it was a good day to travel.  

The Bratislava train station is surprisingly small and dingy. Both Duke and I had the same reaction. To us it seems like you can still see the communist influence from thirty years ago.

 We are staying in a lovely hotel very near the historic town center called Hotel Marrol. 

We walked around the town center. 

And then stopped in a cafe for cake and coffee. 

For dinner we ate at a restaurant called Flamender not too far from our hotel. It was wonderful. 

We have been very lucky with weather on this trip but today we woke up to wind and rain. 

We put on our rain coats and took the subway into central Vienna. Although it was extremely windy the temperature was not bad (10 c/ 50 f). And although it rained on us a bit it was never a downpour and we managed to not blow away. 

We started at Albertina Museum. They have art from all the modern artists that I know and a lot more.  It was fun to see the second painting below because it is a Cezanne, and we visited his studio in Aix en Provence. 

Next we took a tour of the Vienna State Opera. We looked into getting seats for a performance tonight but they are sold out. Standing room goes on sale two hours before the performance but I don’t want to stand. We plan to go through Vienna again next week and we are thinking about arranging our itinerary to attend then. 

The tour of the Opera House was fascinating. Here are some bits of information that I found especially interesting.  The Opera House seats 2,300 people. The most expensive seats are €250. Standing room costs €3 or €4 depending on where you stand. 

Although they always sing the opera in the original language each seat has its own screen where they display subtitles in English or German. 

The opera is subsidized by the government. They put on a different ballet or opera every night. The ten month season includes a repertoire of 50 operas 25 ballets. 

After finishing our tour we did the Rick Steves walking tour of Vienna. I have his app on my phone so we just followed his directions. We saw St. Stephens Cathedral. 

We went into St Peters and listened to a free organ concert with a soloist singing. 

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We ended up at the Hofburg Palace. 

We took the subway back to our hotel and rested our feet for a while. Right now we are sitting in the lounge on the 57th floor. The view is stupendous The wind is blowing so hard that it is howling in the elevator shaft behind us. 

Today we took the train from Graz to Vienna. On the train the young lady across from us was quietly singing along to opera music with her Beats headphones on, which only seems right since Vienna is considered the music capital of Europe. 

We took the subway to our hotel in Vienna. We are staying in the tallest building in the city. The hotel is right on the Danube. The view is stupendous!

We had drinks and snacks on the top floor (57).

We didn’t want to go all the way to Vienna today so we went about half way. We took the bus from Klagenfurt to Graz. Before we left Klagenfurt we went to the bakery for coffee and pastries just like yesterday. 

At our hotel in Graz we looked at a brochure of things to do around Graz. In the town  of Thal about 4 km from Graz we could visit the Arnold Schwarzenegger Museum!  His original home houses the museum. We decided to skip that this trip. 

We are not staying in the center of Graz so after checking in and resting a bit we took a tram into the center. 

The mountain in the picture above was used to shelter 40,000 people from air raids during World War II. Before the war 6.3 kilometers of tunnels were built into the mountain. Today there is a children’s train ride in the tunnels; – The Fairy Tale Express. There is also an elevator to the top. Duke and I avoided the stairs and took the elevator. 

For dinner we ate in the building next to the building with the dancing clock figures below. The restaurant is called Glöckl Bräu. 

Duke really wanted sauerkraut so he had sausage and sauerkraut. I had wiener schnitzel with potatoe salad. They started out by bringing us pretzels with our beer. 

We spent today in Klagenfurt, Austria. We started out with one of my many ideal European experiences, coffee and a pastry at a local bakery. 

We have a map of Klagenfurt with all the local sites marked and explained in English. We walked all around the town checking out the remnants of the walls, the churches and the notable buildings. 

I especially liked this watering truck. 

Klagenfurt is on the eastern shore of Lake Wörthersee. In the 1500s the local nobility built a canal to move goods between the lake and the town. We walked along the canal a ways and then sat and enjoyed the beautiful day. 

According to Wikipedia, Klagenfurt was the first town in Austria to create a pedestrian only area in the center of town. We spent a lovely hour at a sidewalk cafe drinking coffee and people watching. I signed up for the online New York Times crossword at the beginning of this trip. Duke and I work on it throughout the day. We don’t always finish it but it is a fun thing to do. Today we used the free wifi from the H&M store near us to finish the last few clues that we needed help on. 

Before going back to our room we wanted to find a grocery store to buy some fruit and water. We had walked by this building a few times but didn’t realize it is a very big three story shopping mall including a grocery store. So we got some water and even managed to weigh and tag our fruit before checking out. 

You can see the outside of the mall behind the statue. 

For dinner I had potatoes, sausage, and onions with an egg on top. 

Duke had braunschweiger and dumplings. 

It was another great restaurant.