After traveling with a car for a week it was nice to just sit back on a train and watch the country side go by, that is, until I fell into a deep sleep 5 minutes into the ride. Vienna, Austria is where I woke up.
Vienna is the definition of classical with huge boulevards lined with very classical, well Viennese, architecture. It's actually pretty difficult to take pictures because there's just so much of it. Where to point the camera - that's a good thing! I can see why so many classical composers were inspired by and in this great city. I can picture crazy Mozart walking these streets with his brain so full of music. The public washroom is literally awash with classical music! OK a bit tacky but whatever!... The Blue Danube by Johan Strauss...(look it up...you know the tune...) Public washrooms will just never be the same now...
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| Spanish riding school |
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| Typical architecture |
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| Pedestrian street in Vienna |
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| Vienna Parliament |
We met up with our now regular travel companion Chris again, who had just been in Poland and Hungary while we were in southern Croatia. We wandered our way along the Danube for Dy's birthday. There was a festival going on and all kinds of live music on either side of the canal, so we thought we'd sit and have a drink or three...
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| Danube in the evening |
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| Chris and I in obvious deep discussion |
Hands down our favorite spot was probably the Sigmund Freud Park within the downtown. It was simply a nice park in front of a huge church (sporting a potato chip ad on it) with very comfy, and free to use loungers spread all over the place. (Which is exactly where I'm blogging from right now.)
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| Sigmund Freud park |
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| Dy, chilling in the park |
On a side note:
I just got a nice email from the car company we rented from in Cape Town, South Africa. Apparently the police have this nice service where they take a picture of your car for you then email to you as a nice keepsake! How considerate! They want me to pay 200 Rand for this picture though ($20 CDN). Oh well we'll see. I hope I wasn't speeding when they took the picture!
Day trip to Bratislava, Slovakia.
Chris, Dy and I took a day trip over to Bratislava, Slovakia from Vienna. It's actually so close that you can get there by bus within an hour. Bratislava is a nice city with a castle on a hill and an old city center. Although it's the capital of Slovakia it's not very big, so a day trip is really all you need. We had planned to do a walking tour of the city, so Chris did all the research and led us to "the meeting point" which was up up up the hill at the entrance to the castle. We waited well over a half hour after the tour was to begin, but alas, no guide showed up. By the looks of us at that point we didn't really care. We were just as happy to wander aimlessly on our own and have a drink and a bite to eat.
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| Castle in Bratislava |
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| Square in the center of Bratislava |
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| So it would seem that my Dad is playing in some sort of young David Bowie tribute act or something, and is playing in Bratislava in June! Lol! |
Once again we have now said Auf Wiedersehen to Chris as he's moving on to Prague and we're headed in another direction. I think this time we will only cross paths back in Canada... I think?!?...
