Vienna

We had a last breakfast in Budapest, French cheese and croissants with a cappuccino.  I know it's not France but I can't say no to the French breakfasts I guess.  We got back to the hotel at 9:58 for our 10 am check out time.  I kept saying, no one notices if you are a few minutes late.  Well, as we stepped out of the door at 10:08, the cleaning crew were standing there looking quite impatient.  I guess sometimes they do notice.

We had a train for noon to Vienna.  We took a Bolt to the station.  The driver vaguely waved at a tunnel and said, go in there to find the trains.  Ok.  That tunnel was hella sketchy!  It as definitely a 'buy drugs' tunnel if not an actual 'get murdered' tunnel.  We made it half way through the tunnel and half way up a deserted staircase before I said, this doesn't seem right.  

Murder Tunnel

We backtracked to the safety of the square with the bus terminal up top.  Again, mom planted herself on a bench with her book while I did some recon.  There is a SECOND, way less 'danger danger' tunnel just to the left of the first tunnel.  This other tunnel had lights and people and escalators/elevators, arrival boards etc. You know, a train station.  No Mad Max Underground vibes in this tunnel.

Stay Alive and take a train tunnel

We found our platform, and then our car and then our seats.  We were not together but close enough to talk if needed.  I love a train.  I love the view and watching a foreign country roll by.  But Vienna countryside looks a lot like lower mainland country side.  Except through a dirtier  window.  Free cappuccino though! 

We arrived without incident.  Except when we got off the train, my new SIM card was not working.  I managed to scrape together enough wifi to order a Bolt but it was not easy. I didn't know where to wait and as soon as I left the building the wifi cut out.  Eventually, we managed to get our car and to the hotel.  The SIM kicked in later that evening.  

We have a one bedroom apartment.  It is so big that I  only just discovered a second bathroom the next day!

While nothing went wrong, I was just so tired by the time we got to Vienna.  I am still not on local time.  I keep waking up around 3 am.  When we got to the hotel, we ate our train snacks that we didn't eat on the train since we weren't sitting together.  I did not sleep well the night before so I lay down for a nap around 6.  I woke up around 2 am. Well, that's not going to help with the jet lag.  I am not following any of my 'how to overcome jet lag' rules.  I am also realizing I don't know if it is jet lag or jet leg. I'll just mix both in and annoy someone/everyone at least half of the time.  

The next morning, after I had read, Wordled, and snoozed until a decent hour to get up, we headed out early to breakfast.  Yogurt, fruit and a croissant, mom had a sandwich of some sort.  Then we wandered.  We had a free walking tour for 11 am.  We walked through some garden that was attached to some important building.  A cluster of Lipizzaner horses with riders were just standing around, as they do, I suppose, in Vienna anyway.  We were slowly making out way to the meeting place, by the Abertina Gallery and the tourist office. 

Important Building?  Every building here looks important

Mozart

Goethe

We have had perfect weather so far, Budapest was cool in the mornings and sunny in the afternoons, never getting above the low 20s.  But today, as we were wandering it started to sprinkle.  We had lots of time so we went back to the hotel to get our rain jacket (me) and umbrella (mom).  Good thing we did.  By the time we got back to the meeting spot, it was a bit of a downpour!

The tour was for the old city centre.  I'm not going to even try to remember all of the important buildings and statues but here are some pictures. 

Archaeological dig in the middle of the city.   Down to Roman times.  The first vineyard in the country *2000 years old

This tower is from medieval times during the plague

The lowest section is the riff raff,  you know, dying of the plague

The next section is the king, with an impressive Habsburg jaw,  asking the gods to spare the riff raff (or maybe just the Hapsburgs)

And the top two tiers are the heavens, lousy with cherubs, and the gods in gold on top.

There was a lot of Habsburg palace. It was everywhere.  Honestly, I stopped taking pictures of all of the wings and baroque/renaissance era additions.  It was impressive, just not very photogenic in its massive and sprawling nature.

St. Stephen's with a George Clooney coffee pod ad on the side.

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Hmm, it's the next day and I have to remember yesterday!  

Vienna is beautiful and FULL of gorgeous, grand buildings.  There are so many of them, one gets a bit blase about them.  We learned on our walking tour that the city centre used to have a wall.  The Empress Maria Theresa (don't fact check this...) decided the wall was no longer of any use so it was taken down and a 'ring road' was built around the city.  This happened around mid-late 19th century. So there was tons of new space and I'm guessing tons of money.  So, the buildings on Ring Road are all from the same era and are GRAND!  Plus the Habsburgs, the royal family, had more palace to build.  Every building is big and ornate and impossible to get a good photo of.  I have no idea what any of them are except for the Opera house.  

Anyway, back to wherever I was... let me check the photos. 

Church built by sailors bring salt from Salzberg.  At the end of Salz St.

And that was the end of the walking tour.  Mom and I took our guide's recommendation for a coffee house for a late lunch.  Not photo worthy.  

Back to the hotel for a short rest before we headed off to the Opera.  Not in the Vienna Opera House unfortunately.  We were at the Volksoper, the People's Opera House.  Great Opera but fairly basic venue. 

I have seen Carmen twice in my life but with the German dialog, I really had no idea what was going on.  Plus, they made some interesting artistic choices with the stage settings.  As they Opera progressed, it became smaller and smaller.  And the chorus transformed into 'audience members' sitting in an elaborate set of box seats which took up more and more of the stage.  The lead, Carmen became more and more aware of her 'role' in a play and started interacting with the fake audience as well as the occasional knowing look at the real audience.  And, she was wearing a black jump suit while everyone else was in period costume.  All very bizarre, but interesting visually.  Carmen's voice was superb however so that was the real point, of course. 

No pictures of the event but here is the stage pre-show.  And the real box seats which they recreated on stage in Acts 3 & 4.  

Bolt ride home and to bed by 11.  Since I stayed up so late, I actually slept until after 5 am today.  Is the jet leg tide turning?  Let's hope so.  Although it is 7 pm right now and I could totally go to bed. 

On that note, I will end this post because today was jam packed!  

A selection of used beer steins in a shop window.

More Budapest

After our first day where we slept too much, we came up with a bit more of a plan.  Mom had heard from a friend that one has to go to New York Cafe while in Budapest.  It was on our hop on/hop off tour and I noticed the huge line.  It is known as the most beautiful Cafe in the world.  When in Budapest, do as the other tourists in Budapest do.  So, in hopes of not standing in line all day, and having woken up before 4 am the day before, we decided to be in line for the 8 am opening.  

I woke up at 7:15!.  Get up!!  We made it out the door by 7:35.  The Cafe is just up the road, about 10 or so blocks.  We were in line by 7:50.  First seating - very good idea.  When we left the line was horrendous.  But I am getting ahead of myself. 

New York Cafe is indeed very beautiful.  

We shared the 'French Buffet for two' which came with trays of baked goods, meats, butter & jam, coffees of our choice and fresh squeezed orange juice.  It blew the food budget for the day, but totally worth it! 

After that, we had one goal.  Use our hop on/hop off to get to Margaret Island, which is in the middle of the river.  And stop in some places of interest on the Buda side of Budapest.  

To my very uninformed brain, Pest, the side we are staying on, seems to be the 'modern' part of the city.  It's flat and has the business and government stuff over here.  Buda is older, hilly and has the big ticket tourist stuff like castles and, well, more castles.  And one kick-ass view of the iconic Parliament buildings.

First stop, Castle Gardens.  Very civilized hilliness here, I think we managed to find both an escalator and an elevator!  

Some random pictures of the river as we crossed.  

Just a river transit stop.  It'll be a couple of minutes...

Once we were up in the 'castle' area, it is a while little city up there.  Roads and shops and restaurants, and of course, castles.  Or maybe just one, it seemed to go on forever.  Very lovely art scattered here and there.

They've got a real thing for lions here, especially  lions triumphantly standing on snakes

The views of Pest are incredible

This is the most amazing sculpture of a hunting party. 
I wish I could give you a million pictures of the details of all of the characters

Paprika and creepy dolls are everywhere

We couldn't figure out how to get back down to river level.  We finally found the funicular but it was $30!! and they did not have a one-way option (we only wanted to get down, not back up) so we just kept walking along the castle grounds. 

a very confidence-building sign to the staircase down

Finally, we were back at river level and there was the beautiful Parliament building, the one on every postcard, t-shirt and cloth bag, right there as big as life.  

We sat there for a while, enjoyed the view and let our knees catch up with our ambitions.  Next stop, Margaret Island!  Back onto the hop on/hop off bus to get off at the end of Margaret Bridge.  The entrance to the island is half-way across.  More flooded Danube photos.  It is a very photogenic river, even as it spills over its banks. 

Margaret Island

As it turned out, that is as close as we got.  The island was closed due to flooding. So, we just kept across and consoled ourselves with some ice cream (mom) and a pistachio slice (me) when we got to the other side.

Now what?  We had planned to spend the rest of the day on the island. We had even brought out bathing suits to visit the 'baths'.    Wander, that is always the answer to what to do when travelling. 

We wandered on over to the other side of the Parliament buildings.  

Margaret Bridge detail

The building is only important if there is a lion in front of it

A little walk back to the main drag to hop back on and go home.  It was a full day of walking.  I wanted to do some laundry (free laundry in our hotel/hostel!) and we had smuggled some sandwiches from breakfast, plus we had some bits and bobs of cheese and yogurt and snacks so we just stayed in for dinner.  Early to bed as we still adjust to the jet lag.  

The next day, our goal was to go to the Grand Market.  It is close to us, and the hop on/hop off (which we don't technically have today but we never got scanned on the  first day so I think we could have gotten away with it) has cancelled that bit of the route due to flooding (which seems bogus to me since the road isn't flooded, but maybe they take the low road, seems fishy to me but it's fine) so we walked.  Was that sentence even readable.  I'm sure you'll figure it out.  We walked to the Grand Market.  

It opened at 10 am since it is Sunday.  We got there right after 10.  I know because all of the church bells were ringing.  Almost everything was closed.  There were a few centre stalls open.  I bought some fancy chestnut honey.  But it was a bit of a bust.  I don't know if I even took any photos.  Ah, I took a picture of cheese because the descriptions (names?) amused me.  Bear Attractor Cheese, Cheese Matured on a Bed of Hay, Cheese Matured on a Flower Bed. 

So, we went to the 'glass whale'. This is a glass structure that was built to somehow attach several old brick buildings.  It is right behind the Market and right on the river.  The only sign of life was in the outdoor cafes on the water side.  Otherwise, another bust.  

Then we crossed the Liberty Bridge.  I have to say, they have some pretty bridges here.  

We didn't really know what was on the other side.  Turned out a beautiful old bath house.  We went in but we did not bathe.  The buildings here are so gorgeous.  No one skimped on the decor back in the day. 

Ceiling

Lobby

A bit of floor detail

Right across the street from the baths is a hill with a Church cut into the rock.  I convinced Mom to walk up the the next level with a stature and the Church entrance.  As it turned out, the church was closed for Sunday Service but the door was not quite closed and there was signing coming out of that slightly open door.  What's a girl to do?  Break in, of course.

I got as far as this hallway before I knew I was about to crash mass so I turned around.  Mom has wisely stayed outside.  Maybe the catholic in her or maybe the desire to not get arrested in a foreign country?  

There were trails heading up.  Mom planted herself on a bench with her book and I headed up for a better view with fewer people.  

Back across the bridge where we found a Bridges of Budapest Museum tucked in one of the two toll houses, the only two still standing after the war.  It was just one room with a bit of history of the building of and then destruction of and then the rebuilding of the bridges of Budapest.  WW2 was not kind to the bridges of Budapest.

Since the church bells were now ringing noon and services were over, we gave the market another try.  There were more stalls open but we only bought some honey, and we did that during the first visit. 

We found a very touristy street with shops and restaurants.  Mom finally got her goulash that she has been wanting since we got here.  Followed with some ice cream as we made our way home.

Back to our room for a nap (mom) and some blog updates (me).  I had made a reservation in a 'michelin recommended' restaurant called Tati (Farm to Table).  Umm, YUM!.  We had some very fine Hungarian red wine.  I had the lamb, Mom had the chicken paprikash.  I think only so she got to say paprikash, or maybe that was me in my best 'When Harry met Sally' reinterpretation.

And that was our last full day in Budapest, at least until we return for our flight home in a few weeks.  

For your WHMS memory book.