A "meat market" with high culture. :)

The City Hall Food Circus with the City Hall in the back.

Today we got a late start, so we ended up heading right over to the "food circus" in Rathausplatz right outside the Vienna City Hall. From 11am until late at night, the plaza is full of food stands and people. There was also a gigantic movie screen hanging from City Hall with a few thousand folding chairs in front of it. According to Rick Steves, the city of Vienna sets this up every summer and plays broadcasts of opera performances, orchestra concerts and more every night - all for free to "promote culture" in the young people of Vienna. According to Rick Steves, "Officials know that the City Hall Music Festival is mostly a "meat market" where young people come to hook up, but many believe these people will develop an appreciation for classical music and high culture on the side." :) The food stalls themselves are different than any I have been to; the food is all served on real glass plates and glasses with metal silverwear - the only disposable things are the napkins. This gives the place a "classier" feel than most food courts. The food itself is mostly "ethnic" food, like Indian, Mexican, Japanese, Chinese, etc. Gavin and I were craving Indian food, so we had some tasty chana masala and samosas. Gavin and I decided we wanted to go back this evening to watch the concert and experience the night life of thousands of people coming to mingle and watch the concerts.

After lunch, we headed over to Mariahhilfer Strasse, one of the main shopping drags in Vienna, only to find that every store was closed! The whole city, besides restaurants, completely shuts down on Sundays. Even most of the grocery stores were closed! We thought perhaps stores in the touristy area near Stephansplatz would be open, and we were right, but ONLY souvenir shops selling their array of magnets, keychains, t-shirts and touristy junk were open, none of the nice clothing shops we had admired yesterday were open. Instead, we went to a little cafe called Cafe Europa for some ice cream.

After ice cream, we went back to the apartment to try to figure out how Gavin's family would get to the airport - they had to be at the airport at 5am before the metro was running. We tried to call a couple taxi companies and got recorded messages in German and couldn't get a person on the phone. Gavin, Olive and I walked around for a while trying to find a taxi company, but he accidentally deleted his map, so we never found it. We finally stopped and asked a taxi driver waiting if there was a phone number we could call to get a taxi, and he pointed to one on his windshield. I called it from a pay phone, and thankfully got someone who spoke English. But by the time we got all this figured out, it was too late to go to the City Hall Music Festival. Sad!

Dark Chocolate gelato at Zanoni & Zanoni.

I tempered my sadness at missing the City Hall Music Festival with dessert. :) We went to a gelateria near our apartment named Zanoni and Zanoni - what INCREDIBLE gelato! The best we had on the entire trip! I had a Ferrero Rocher and a dark chocolate flavor. Dark chocolate gelato, which I have had before, is incredible - it is coffee-brown, the darkest ice cream I have ever seen Chocolate ice cream never looks like that in the states! Gavin, not a fan of dark chocolate, thinks I have questionable taste in ice cream. :) Thus, sugar-happy, we ended our last night in Europe.

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A torte-tastic day of cafe hopping. :)

This morning I decided we should do the Vienna city walk in our Rick Steves book to hit all the major sites. We started at the opera house, then checked out the WWII memorial and at once were hungry for lunch; we didn't get very far on the walk. :) (another late start this morning) We went into the gardens of the Hofburg Palace to have lunch at the Café Restaurant Palmenhaus, which was in a huge greenhouse at least three stories tall, with plants, trees and vines growing all the way up to the ceiling - a beautiful, sunny space! Gavin and I decided we had to come back at night, knowing it would be a completely different atmosphere in the dark.

The lovely Café Restaurant Palmenhaus, complete with indoor palm trees.

A note on Vienna in July and August - this is NOT a good time to visit Vienna; at the world's center for opera and classical music, one can't see an opera at the Staatsoper or the Volksoper. The opera houses all close for a summer break! I was really disappointed that I didn't get to see a performance, but Gavin and his non-opera-loving family were probably relieved... :)

Vienna's famous opera house: the Staatsoper.

After lunch we continued the city walk tour, heading down Kärtner Strasse passing St. Peter's Cathedral and Stephansdom. At this point, most of Gavin's family headed back to the apartment, but Gavin, Tyler and I stayed out. Between Stephansdom and the Hofburg palaces, we found ourselves near one of the most highly recommended dessert places in Vienna, Café Demel. I decided we must stop for dessert, so we walked inside, drooled over the many fresh tortes in the display, and picked a slice apiece. We then headed upstairs to get a table, and we had to wait almost 15 minutes! When we were finally seated, we had the waitress bring our cake and some wine. All the flavors were DELICIOUS! I had Ana's torte, which was chocolate piled upon chocolate with shaped milk chocolate instead of frosting, Gavin had an apple pie-ish torte, and Tyler had a strawberry torte. YUM! The cafe itself had a very "old elegance" feel - high ceilings, lots of chandeliers, wood tables both silky smooth and dented/scratch from years of use.

St. Peter's Cathedral at the end of the street.

Tyler and I eyeballing the delicious torte at Demel...

The beautiful upstairs of Demel, where we enjoyed our torte and wine. :)

After dessert, we ended the walk at Heldenplatz (Heroes' Square) in the Hofburg palace. Then I dragged us all to the Haus der Musik, a museum dedicated to the Vienna Philharmonic, the Viennese classical composers and also a scientific part about the nature of sound and hearing. The science part was really interesting - I got to test the highest pitch I could hear, listen to the "fastest" beat I could hear before my brain turned the beats into just one long tone, etc. Unfortunately, there were a ton of little kids running around and screaming into the mics at each station, so I finally lost patience and left the nature of sound section. :) At the end of the museum, there was a little Wii-like video game where one could "direct" the Vienna Philharmonic to classical Viennese music favorites like "The Beautiful Blue Danube," etc. The orchestra would supposedly follow the beat of your baton, and if you got all the way through they would applaud you. If you messed up, they all put down their instruments and make fun of you. :) Despite my year of conducting training in college, I failed miserably at this game. Not only could I not get the virtual orchestra to follow me, but the baton suddenly broke and I was left holding only the handle! I got booed by the Vienna Philharmonic! How embarrassing! :)

After working up an appetite conducting the Philharmonic, we decided to go cafe-hopping for dinner - having a drink and an appetizer at each place. We started at Sky Cafe, a cafe on the top floor of a building on Kärtner Strasse, where we thought we might get a nice view of Stephansdom. The smartly-dressed hostess gave us an obvious "you're-not-dressed-up-enough" look up and down, but still seated us anyway. I ordered wiener schnitzel for us all to share - I had had it on my last trip to Vienna, but everyone must try wiener schnitzel in Vienna. :) Wiener schnitzel is basically a pork tenderloin - breaded and deep fried, but really soft and tender. I think our waitress was also irritated that we didn't order more than that, but we had told the hostess that we only intended to order drinks and an appetizer... Snooty place overall, but the wiener schnitzel was good. :)

Sky Cafe on Kärtner Strasse at night.

The next cafe we "hopped" to was Cafe Sacher, home of the famous Sachertorte - a famous Viennese dessert of chocolate cake with apricot, but we didn't order it because I am not a fan of pairing apricot with chocolate, plus Rick Steves warned us that the torte is really dry... :) I instead had a delicious hot chocolate with homemade chocolate liquor and a homemade piece of chocolate on the side. (chocolate fix number 2 for the day... :) ) This cafe had a lovely, antique feel and a ton of tourists. :)

Tyler and I examining the menu at Cafe Sacher.

Last but not least, we headed back to the beautiful Café Restaurant Palmenhaus to end the evening. We were right that the atmosphere changed completely at night into a lovely, romantic restaurant with candles, low lights and lounge music. Thus we ended our evening, sipping wine and holding hands, enjoying a lovely Vienna night.

Cafe Restaurant Palmenhaus at night.

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Guten tag, Vienna.

This morning we left Prague and took a train to Vienna. The trip was about four hours, and we once again were packed like sardines into a small, cubicle sized compartment, this time with six seats facing each other across the compartment. We arrived in Vienna in midafternoon and quickly figured out the U-Bahn (Vienna's subway system) to get us to our apartment. We arrived in exactly the right corner, but we were unable to find the office where we were supposed to meet the apartment manager. We had to call her on a nearby pay phone, and we discovered that the office was actually in her home, while we had been searching for an actual office building. She showed us the apartment, then we settled in and got ready to go out for dinner.

For dinner I picked Plachutta Restaurant out of the Rick Steves book becuase he said it had really nice traditional Viennese cuisine. Gavin and I tried out Tafelspitz, which is basically a soup/broth with a big slice of beef some veggies and a large bone complete with marrow, all cooked together until the beef is completely soft and tender. I wasn't brave enough to try the marrow, which Tyler likened to "meat jello," but the rest of the dish was tasty. Our Tafelspitz was served with a bowl that appeared to contain applesauce. Olive was excited to have some applesauce, and put a big spoonful into her mouth. Imagine her surprised when it was not applesauce, but horseradish sauce... I also had some delicious Carpe Diem brand kombucha - I have never seen kombucha served at a restaurant before, but this brand is popular here, probably because it doesn't actually taste like kombucha; it was very sweet, not acidic. The extremely quick and efficient service at Plachutta was a welcome change from the generally über slow service at virtually every restaurant or bar we visited in Budapest and Prague.

After dinner we walked down Kärtner Strasse, a wide, pedestrian-only shopping street to Stephansplatz, where the beautiful St. Stephen's Cathedral towers above the plaza and horse carriages (complete with poop sacks hanging from the horses' behinds to collect any "droppings") wait to carry tourists through the streets of Old Town. Close to Stephansplatz we got to hear the caliber of street musicians in the classical music capital of the world. :) There was an amazing little quartet playing, a bass, cello, violin and hammered dulcimer. I had never heard of nor seen the hammered dulcimer before (I had to look it up online to see what it is. :) ), but it seems to be popular in street/restaurant bands here. Suddenly, it started raining and the prepared-for-anything quartet quickly covered the hammered dulcimer with a tarp and stood under umbrellas with their precious stringed instruments. We all quickly stepped under a tree, since none of us had umbrellas. Gavin's family decided they wanted to go back to the apartment, so they caught the nearby U-Bahn. Gavin and I went to a nearly souvenier shop and bought a cheap umbrella to share and continued our walk. The umbrella was so small we had to have our arms around each to both be under it. We walked to a little outdoor cafe called Cafe Europa and had dessert and warming chai lattes under the heaters in their outdoor umbrella-covered area. Then, snuggled under the umbrella to stay warm and dry, we headed back to the apartment to end our first night in Vienna.

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Super supper at U Supa

Me and my windblown hair in the rose garden on top of Petrin Hill. :)

Today we headed across the Charles Bridge again, this time to Petrin Hill, the hill beside Castle Hill. We took a short funicular ride to the top, where we were rewarded with a lovely park and garden area. Part of it had a lovely rose garden with every color of beautiful roses in bloom. Also on top of Petrin Hill is Petrin Tower, a miniature Eiffel Tower 1/5 the size of the original, but due to its placement on the hill, the top of it is actually just as high as the original Eiffel Tower. We climbed the 300 steps (exactly, Gavin counted. :) ) to the top level for a 360 degree view of the city. It was pretty windy, so we could feel the top of the tower swaying slightly in the wind.

The beautiful view of Prague from the mini Eiffel Tower. You can see the Charles Bridge and Old Town Square across the river.

After a bit more wandering around the park, we headed back down towards the Vltava River to have lunch at a fresh fish restaurant on the river bank. Then we went back across the Charles Bridge, heading back toward the apartment so Gavin's family could rest. On the way, we stopped at the Ungely courtyard again, heading back to the art shop to buy the painting we had liked, having not seen any other paintings we liked better in our wandering through Prague. Once we dropped off Gavin's family at the apartment, we wandered through the Jewish Quarter of Prague. Unfortunately, all the sites were closed for the day, but we got to see the outside of the beautiful synagogues and got a tiny glimpse of the Old Jewish Cemetery, a tiny little space that from 1439-1787 was the only place Jews were allowed to bury their dead. Each tombstone marks 7-8 graves piled on top of one another. The graves settled over time, and the tombstones ended up in a crooked jumble. We weren't able to get a good view since it was closed, but we were able to see the tops of a few tombstones peeking out from over the fence around the cemetery.

Olive and I in the park on Petrin Hill.

For dinner we all headed back to U Supa near the Old Town Square. We sat in the garden area for a nice, atmospheric dinner. I was excited that the gypsy jazz band from last night was here again, and this time they came out into the garden to play. I must have looked like I was enjoying myself, because the violinist came right over to me and asked me to request a song. The first thing that came into my head was Por Una Cabeza (the tango from the movie Scent of a Woman :) ), so the band played that for me. While they were playing, I realized I should have requested some Dvorak since I was in his home country, so then I requested Dvorak's Humoresque, one of my favorite orchestral pieces. The violinist knew it pretty well, but the band was a little clueless, but attempted to fake it anyway. (A for effort... :) ) Before our meal, the hostess wandered around the restaurant offering shots of a "traditional Czech aperatif." I had refused it last night, but I was curious and tried it tonight. It was actually pretty tasty - it smelled and tasted like apple pie spices and felt very warm going down, like scotch. Everybody tried a sip, but I was the only one who actually liked it. :) Our meal was delicious, probably one of our best in Prague, and the atmosphere couldn't have been better with the lovely music in the beautiful outdoor garden. I think Prague is one of the most "atmospheric" cities we have visited, a perfect place for walking slowly, wandering aimlessly, enjoying a beautiful night.

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Craning our cheapskate necks. :)

Today we decided to head across the Vltava River to see the Prague Castle. We walked across the lovely (though tourist-packed) Charles Bridge. On the Old Town side of the bridge is a beautiful bridge tower with Gothic gates, and all along the bridge are statues gazing down on the tourists, musicians playing for tips and a dozen artists drawing caricatures and portraits. After crossing the bridge, we headed over to Little Quarter Square to see the Church of St. Nicholas. We were all to cheap to pay to go all the way inside, so we stepped just inside the door and "craned our cheapskate necks" (quote from Rick Steves. :) ) to see the inside of church.

Gothic Gate entrance to the Charles Bridge.

The statue-lined, tourist-packed Charles Bridge. :)

The Little Quarter entrance from the Charles Bridge.

From Little Quarter Square, we headed up to the Prague Castle, climbing a couple hundred stairs to the castle at the top of a hill. Inside the castle walls were beautifully manicured lawns, lovely views over the city and the incredible St. Vitus cathedral. The Prague Castle is not so much just a castle with living quarters, but a few city blocks inside a wall including a cathedral, a monastary, a palace and more.

The view of Prague (Church of St. Nicholas is the green dome) from the Prague Castle ramparts.

Olive on the ramparts of Prague Castle.

The incredible St. Vitus Cathedral.

After Prague Castle, we headed back down to Little Quarter Square for lunch. We had lunch at Malostranska Beseda Restaurant in the shady outdoor tables. Then we headed back across the Charles Bridge to New Town to go shopping at Wenceslas Square - everything had been closed when we stopped there last night. After shopping, we headed back to our apartment, stopping at Havelská market to pick up some more fresh berries.

Prague is really nice in that all the main sights (Old Town, New Town, Little Quarter, Palace Quarter and Jewish Quarter) are within easy walking distance. Once we arrived at the apartment, we never once stepped on the public transportation. Everything seems to be within a couple mile radius, and all the walks are lovely with beautiful facades, lovely cobblestone streets and little traffic. It is a perfect town for strolling. :)

In the evening we headed out for drinks and snacks. We stopped at a restaurant called U Supa that had a beautiful outdoor garden area and live gypsy jazz! I absolutely LOVE gypsy jazz, and these guys were really good! We sipped port, lounged in the garden and tapped our toes to the strains of gypsy jazz. What a lovely way to end our Prague night...

 

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Beautiful, pristine Prague

After a non-restful night's sleep in the cubicle/train car, we arrived in Prague at around 6am. We had rented a nice apartment in Old Town that was really close to all the major sights, lots of cafes and restaurants, etc. We found the apartment on Waytostay.com, and this company served as the "intermediary" between us and the managers of the apartment. Unfortunately, Way to Stay made a poor intermediary. They refused to give us the contact info of the manager until the day we arrived, so we asked them to arrange for a train station pickup. WaytoStay confirmed that someone would be waiting for us. We waited and waited... We waited so long that the stores in the train station started opening (two hours later), and we bought a sim card for our international phone, then we were able to contact the property manager, who had no idea that we needed a pickup... The manager, too, had been trying to get WaytoStay to give them our contact information, but they refused. Long story short, we don't recommend reserving anything with WaytoStay.com

We discovered something great about our iPads that will help us SO much when we travel; our iPads are unlocked and can take a SIM card from another country. (iPhones and most US cell phones are locked to keep you from putting a foreign SIM card in them, that way you have to pay ridiculous international roaming rates) We bought an iPad SIM card with 1.5GB of data for only $15! We can use this for getting maps if we get lost, train schedules, checking emails, looking up addresses for our hotels... All the things we take for granted when we travel in the US become much more difficult when we are abroad without contant internet access...

Since we now had our iPad for maps, we were able to get the email with the address of the apartment (not provided until the morning we arrived) and find our way to the place by downloading maps and using the Metro. We arrived at the apartment, but we were unable to check in because it was too early. We left our suitcases at the apartment and headed over to Old Town Square, only a couple blocks away. As we walked through the cobblestone streets of Old Town, we were amazed at how clean the city is! The beautiful, colorful and artisticly designed facades all appear to be freshly painted and are incredibly pristine. Despite that this area is very busy and touristy, not a single piece of trash littered the sidewalks. We have never been in such an impeccable city. (This part of the city, anyway. A local told us that outside of this touristy area, Prague is like any other large city.)

Old Town Square is the heart of Old Town. The whole square is surrounded by beautiful, colorful facades, and also the Baroque-style Church of St. Nicholas, the Gothic-style Tyn Church and the Old Town Hall. Branching off from Old Town Square like a spider web are tourist-crowded streets of shopping and restaurants. The Old Town Hall is the home of the famous astronimical clock. When the clock chimes the hour, the side of the building fills with tourists watching the clock and pickpockets watching the tourists' wallets... Evidently there are so many pickpockets in this area that the Rick Steves book marked them on the map!

Beautiful Old Town Square.

A huge crowd gather by the Old Town Hall to watch the astronomical clock chime. (not the plain clock face facing the camera, the gold one on the wall. :) )

After watching the clock chime, we headed past the Tyn church down a tiny little alley to the Ungelt courtyward for lunch. Olive and I were craving Indian food, so we and Gavin had lunch at an Indian restaurant in the courtyard, while Ron and the rest had a beer at a pizzeria nearby. I didn't have high expectations for Indian food in Prague, but the saag paneer was actually really good! A pleasant surprise, and a nice break from the meat-plus-starch Eastern European diet. Just as we were leaving the restaurant, it suddenly started pouring rain. We ran across the courtyard and into a little art gallery/shop to keep out of the rain. We saw a watercolor painting of the astronomical clock that we liked, but we decided not to buy it right away - we thought we might find some cheaper or better art on the street, since this was the first place we stopped.

We then went back to the square and took one of the busy shopping streets called Melantrichova toward the Havelská market. The Havelská market basically looks like a farmer's market with several lovely produce stands, but about half the stands are selling keychains, postcards and other assorted tourist junk. I bought a mouth-watering pint of assorted fresh berries.

By the time were done at the market, we were able to go check in to the apartment. What a gorgeous place! It was on the top floor, and the top of the building had a huge brass dome; the network of support pillars for this dome came down into the dining room and surrounded the dining room table. Gavin and my bedroom was small, but had two skylights and a built in backlit wall which I termed the "disco wall;" with the remote control we could make it flash different colors, strobe, slowly fade between colors, etc. A fun little addition. We were all desperately in need of some rest after the overnight train and clean laundry after our week in Budapest, so we started a load and took a little nap.

When we got up later, everyone else was still feeling like relaxing in the apartment, so Gavin and I went out by ourselves. We headed out of Old Town and into New Town to see Wenceslas Square. Wenceslas Square and the streets surrounding it are essentially a huge, outdoor shopping mall. We searched for a coat for Gavin; he didn't bring one on this trip and the weather here was cooler than expected, but as we arrived all the stores were just starting to close. We admired the gardens and the National Museum dominating the end of the square, and then headed back to Old Town for dinner.

Wenceslas Square at night. Lovely gardens and the National Museum at the end of the square.

I wanted to try a "traditional Czech pub," so we went to the Rick Steves-recommended Restaurace u Pinkasu for more meat plus starch. :) Gavin tried out a Pilsner beer; the Czechs invented this particular type of beer, and it is pretty popular here. I ordered beef in creamy gravy with a hint of sweet cranberry, served with soft break dumplings, and Gavin had a pig-in-a-blanket looking dish with a soft and smooth puree of spicy meat inside, both very tasty.

After dinner we wandered around through the delightfully-lit Old Town, a very romantic feeling city after dark when there are fewer tourists... We stopped for dessert at a little cafe that serves only crepes, coffee and ice cream. I had a delicious strawberry crepe and Gavin had an insanely huge tiramisu sundae. Then we went back to the apartment, strolling hand in hand through the romantic Prague night.

Gavin and his ridiculous tirimisu sundae. :)

Old Town Square at night. The astronomical clock is on the left, Tyn church is on the right at the other end of the square.

Last chance for langos...

This morning we drove over to Agi's mother's house again so we could return both our and Agi's rental cars at the airport before we left on a train for Prague. Agi suggested we stop at her mother's cafe for coffee and breakfast, a cute little neighborhood cafe that looked more like a house than a cafe. Agi had animated conversations with some of the customers, who had known her since she was a little girl. Agi's mom served us some eggs an Hungarian style bacon, which is literally a quarter inch thick slice of pure fat, not a hint of actual meat in sight. Agi informed us that is how everybody likes it in Hungary. If this had been served to me in a restaurant, I wouldn't have touched it, but since it was served by Agi's mother I felt it would be rude not to eat it. I disguised the texture by taking tiny little pieces and wrapping it with a large bite of bread. :)

After breakfast, we dropped off Agi's rental car but couldn't return ours; we discovered that someone had taken the car emergency kit up to the hotel room instead of leaving it in the car... (and we were 45 minutes away from the hotel) We decided to keep the car for the day and have Shaun return it for us later.

Next, we had to go to Agi's sister's house to pick up another car, and Agi decided to have a coffee there, too. Perhaps in Hungary one never just stops over to run an errand, one always has to have coffee upon arriving at someone's house. Either that, or Agi just loves coffee. :) Helga gave me a couple beautiful necklaces, one for me and one for Olive, that she had made out of glass. (Mine has royal blue in it! My favorite color!)

Once we had the two cars (enough to carry all eight of us), we went back to the hotel to pick up the rest of the family. We followed Agi up Gellert Hill, so named for a monk who was rolled down it in a barrel wiht nails driven through it. (Rick Steves described it as "tenderized to death." Lovely.) Up at the top were, of course, beautiful views of the city and the Danube, as well as a lot of little souvenier carts. Olive and I both bought cute sun hats. :)

All of us in front of the Liberation Monument, or as the local call it, "The Great Bottle Opener." :)

The view of Budapest from Gellert Hill.

Olive and I in our cute new sun hats. :)

After that, we went back to Great Market Hall for lunch, as I wanted to have lángos one last time before leaving Budapest. I had a regular pizza one and bought a sweet one with nutella for everyone to share, though I think I actually prefer the "savory" lángos to the sweet.

Next, Agi took us to another (much better) part of Vaci Utca. We had thought we had seen the whole street, but we missed the main part of it with lotes of restaurants, shopping and ice cream. We didn't have too much time, so we grabbed some ice cream and then headed for the train station.

To save a bit of money and time, we had decided to take an overnight train to Prague. We planned to buy the sleeping cars, which were small bedrooms, but those were unfortunately full... Instead, we had to do a "couchette," which is a small room the size of a cubicle with SIX bunk beds. We had to fit the six of us and all of our luggage in this tiny space! Thus packed in like little sardines, the clickety clack of the wheels on the tracks lulled us to sleep.

I play an elaborate game of Tetris to fit in all of us and our luggage. The bottom seat is bunk 1, bunk 2 unfolds at about waist height, and top bunk is where those metal shelves are over my head. There was no room for the ladder, so Gavin and I had to perform various gymnastics maneuvers to get into our bunks. :)