If you have com for a visit from Kaitlyn's blog, thanks for stopping by! Like Kaitlyn I'm currently on holiday so my little blog of happiness has temporarily become a travel blog. Hope you enjoy and stay for when normal service resumes documenting the small things that happen in a normal day which make me smile. For the moment it can safely be assumed that the glorious sights of Europe are making me smile on a daily basis!
For regular readers, read on to find out how doing 4 loads of washing made my day - no really, I'm serious.
Friday, July 6, 2012
Scenes from the train
Today was a travel day as we bid farewell to Vienna and headed to Prague.
Last night we were treated to a wonderful sunset, so gorgeous but it heralded a hot night and we weren't the brightest of travellers this morning. Still the 5 hour train trip gave plenty of time for napping as well as looking at the scenery.
The most beautiful section was as the train travelled up through the Bohemian Forest. This is a heavily wooded low set of mountains that form the boarder between the Czech Republic and Austria and Germany. The forest is beautiful, with many small rivers flowing by the train tracks. Dotted throughout were gorgeous cottages that seem to be holiday houses, we saw people swimming, hanging in hammocks, hiking, biking etc. It is apparently a very popular summer holiday destination and certainly our train was full of people with camping and hiking gear (although slabs of beer seem to be important for hiking judging from what we saw).
I was quite amazed at how stark the difference between Austria and the Czech Republic is. Austrian farmers seem to favour smallish strip plantings of different crops. We saw gorgeous rows of sunflowers next to wheat ripe and ready for harvest. The Czech Republic in contrast seems to have massive fields of single crops, I wonder if that is a remnant of the Communist era when things like crops would ave been mandated by the state. A definite communist remnant is the ugly grey concrete box like apartment and factory buildings, often crumbling that you see next to the train stations.
But there are beautiful buildings too. We got into Prague fairly late and tired, so have just had a walk around our local neighborhood. While the massive amount of graffiti comes as somewhat of a shock after squeaky clean Vienna, just up the street is a gorgeous church and you can see how beautiful the buildings must have been.
Tonight we are doing the boring stuff, washing clothes (after the heat of Vienna we are VERY grateful to have a washing machine), eating a nice homely meal and hopefully getting a good night's sleep. Tomorrow we will explore!
P.S. Anyone missing my normal non-travel, general happiness posts, I've written a guest blog over on Kaitlyn's blog "She Smiled The Widest Smile". Enjoy!
Last night we were treated to a wonderful sunset, so gorgeous but it heralded a hot night and we weren't the brightest of travellers this morning. Still the 5 hour train trip gave plenty of time for napping as well as looking at the scenery.
The most beautiful section was as the train travelled up through the Bohemian Forest. This is a heavily wooded low set of mountains that form the boarder between the Czech Republic and Austria and Germany. The forest is beautiful, with many small rivers flowing by the train tracks. Dotted throughout were gorgeous cottages that seem to be holiday houses, we saw people swimming, hanging in hammocks, hiking, biking etc. It is apparently a very popular summer holiday destination and certainly our train was full of people with camping and hiking gear (although slabs of beer seem to be important for hiking judging from what we saw).
I was quite amazed at how stark the difference between Austria and the Czech Republic is. Austrian farmers seem to favour smallish strip plantings of different crops. We saw gorgeous rows of sunflowers next to wheat ripe and ready for harvest. The Czech Republic in contrast seems to have massive fields of single crops, I wonder if that is a remnant of the Communist era when things like crops would ave been mandated by the state. A definite communist remnant is the ugly grey concrete box like apartment and factory buildings, often crumbling that you see next to the train stations.
But there are beautiful buildings too. We got into Prague fairly late and tired, so have just had a walk around our local neighborhood. While the massive amount of graffiti comes as somewhat of a shock after squeaky clean Vienna, just up the street is a gorgeous church and you can see how beautiful the buildings must have been.
Tonight we are doing the boring stuff, washing clothes (after the heat of Vienna we are VERY grateful to have a washing machine), eating a nice homely meal and hopefully getting a good night's sleep. Tomorrow we will explore!
P.S. Anyone missing my normal non-travel, general happiness posts, I've written a guest blog over on Kaitlyn's blog "She Smiled The Widest Smile". Enjoy!
Thursday, July 5, 2012
Cake, schnitzel and jewels - a more successful day in Vienna
The storms last night went for hours and although we again woke to sun filled blue skies, today was very warm/hot rather than blistering, a lovely change.
You may remember that one of S's aims for this trip was to eat as much cake as possible, well this morning we worked on that with a visit to Gerstners, just off the Graben. It was founded in 1847 and I figure anywhere that has lasted more than 160 years must be doing something right. We had doboschtorte and haustorte. Both were made of layers of extremely thin sponge sandwiched together with flavoured cream and both disappeared with indecent speed.
Suitably fueled, the plan had been to visit the Klimt galleries at the Belevedere Museum, but with that U-bahn line closed we didn't want to risk an uncertain amount of walking with S's knee still not good. So we headed back to the Museum Quarter. It was then that we discovered that the Kunsthistorisches Museum is in the middle of the museum complex, not on the edge as we had thought and that the Hofburg palace with its mazes of museums is right next door!
With S being very careful of his knee we decided that we would play it safe and only do one of the museums, so we did the treasury, otherwise known as the Schatzkammer. The Schatzkammer contains the Imperial Crown jewels of the Hapsburg and Holy Roman empires. It was again interesting to compare to the British crown jewels we had just recently seen. These are in general much older, made before cutting gems to have facets was invented. As a result they were not quite as sparkly but boy were they ornate!
The museum also has a lot of ceremonial clothing. Seeing garments that are almost twice the age of our country is so impressive and I loved that many of the rooms featured paintings of the various kings and emperors wearing the actual garments or crowns. I couldn't believe some of the amazing embroidery using thousands of tiny pearls, I can't imagine what those garments were worth when they were made.
From there it was time for some knee rest, so we headed into the palace gardens and found a shady park bench from which to watch the world go by for a little while.
Given that it had now been a few hours since we had eaten vast quantities of cake, we felt we had better get some more food into us. I was keen to find some better schnitzel so had done more research and found us a place off the tourist track, but close to our apartment to try, Beim Czaak. My terrible German got a workout but we ended up with very delicious wiener schnitzel, accompanied by some lovely potatoes simply boiled and dressed in oil and parsley and a fresh garden salad. It was the perfect (if huge) meal - although S is still disappointed that he hasn't had a schnitzel bigger than his head.
While today is significantly cooler than our other days in Vienna, the heat was building and being stuffed full of food, there was nothing left to do but head off for an afternoon nap. Those schnitzel had a seriously soporific effect because we slept for ages!
Clearly we were not going to be in need of a big dinner, so we decided to go for a wander up the street. The warm summer evening had the local bars and cafes bursting with people, but we just stopped into the local street market for some bread and cheese which we will eat while we pack, because tomorrow we head to Prague.
You may remember that one of S's aims for this trip was to eat as much cake as possible, well this morning we worked on that with a visit to Gerstners, just off the Graben. It was founded in 1847 and I figure anywhere that has lasted more than 160 years must be doing something right. We had doboschtorte and haustorte. Both were made of layers of extremely thin sponge sandwiched together with flavoured cream and both disappeared with indecent speed.
Suitably fueled, the plan had been to visit the Klimt galleries at the Belevedere Museum, but with that U-bahn line closed we didn't want to risk an uncertain amount of walking with S's knee still not good. So we headed back to the Museum Quarter. It was then that we discovered that the Kunsthistorisches Museum is in the middle of the museum complex, not on the edge as we had thought and that the Hofburg palace with its mazes of museums is right next door!
With S being very careful of his knee we decided that we would play it safe and only do one of the museums, so we did the treasury, otherwise known as the Schatzkammer. The Schatzkammer contains the Imperial Crown jewels of the Hapsburg and Holy Roman empires. It was again interesting to compare to the British crown jewels we had just recently seen. These are in general much older, made before cutting gems to have facets was invented. As a result they were not quite as sparkly but boy were they ornate!
The museum also has a lot of ceremonial clothing. Seeing garments that are almost twice the age of our country is so impressive and I loved that many of the rooms featured paintings of the various kings and emperors wearing the actual garments or crowns. I couldn't believe some of the amazing embroidery using thousands of tiny pearls, I can't imagine what those garments were worth when they were made.
From there it was time for some knee rest, so we headed into the palace gardens and found a shady park bench from which to watch the world go by for a little while.
Given that it had now been a few hours since we had eaten vast quantities of cake, we felt we had better get some more food into us. I was keen to find some better schnitzel so had done more research and found us a place off the tourist track, but close to our apartment to try, Beim Czaak. My terrible German got a workout but we ended up with very delicious wiener schnitzel, accompanied by some lovely potatoes simply boiled and dressed in oil and parsley and a fresh garden salad. It was the perfect (if huge) meal - although S is still disappointed that he hasn't had a schnitzel bigger than his head.
While today is significantly cooler than our other days in Vienna, the heat was building and being stuffed full of food, there was nothing left to do but head off for an afternoon nap. Those schnitzel had a seriously soporific effect because we slept for ages!
Clearly we were not going to be in need of a big dinner, so we decided to go for a wander up the street. The warm summer evening had the local bars and cafes bursting with people, but we just stopped into the local street market for some bread and cheese which we will eat while we pack, because tomorrow we head to Prague.
Wednesday, July 4, 2012
Closed for renovation
Another very hot day dawned this morning, a top in the high 30's was forecast and the minute we awoke we could feel the heat building.
First up we went to visit my grandfather. Before you get outraged that it took us 2 days to visit him, he died the year before I was born, so we figured visiting his grave could wait a few days. I've never been there so it was really lovely being able to go and visit this final resting place. The cemetery is such a peaceful space with glorious shady trees, perfect on this hot day.
The cemetery shares a wall with Schonbrun Palace, so the obvious next stop was a visit to the palace. We took the grand tour - no photos sorry - through a gorgeous array of rooms. It was interesting to compare it to Buckingham Palace. Schnobrun felt much more like a place where people actually lived and worked. Aside from the grand ballroom, rooms were relatively small and though gilt featured heavily, the decoration seemed much more restrained. The only disappointment was the much heralded Million Room was covered over as it is being renovated.
S's knee is playing up and it was crazily hot so we didn't walk the gardens, rather we stopped for a drink and some torte.
The only thing to do on these hot afternoons is have a rest, which is exactly what we did.
Our plan for tonight was to head out for some schnitzel. Googling had identified a few likely suspects for great places to have it, but an Internet search revealed our first choice was closed for renovation, so we headed off to number two on the list. After a tram ride and a reasonable walk (being careful of S's knee), we arrived at our destination, which was - yes you have guessed it - closed. This seems to be the story of our Vienna experience.
We wandered a bit, found a restaurant with wiener schnitzel on the menu and ordered it. It wasn't a super giant one (although they were big enough) and came with a traditional side of potato salad. The schnitzel was good, definitely better than your standard Aussie one, but couldn't compete with my Mum's. Plus we still had room for cake, which as I understand it should be impossible with a proper Viennese schnitzel.
We headed into town, found a cafe and shared a piece of Cardinal cake which really was delicious.
As we headed home, the temperature dropped and the sky lit up with lightening. It is raining now and much cooler than it has been for days. Fingers crossed it will lead to a good night's sleep and tomorrow will be a day without renovations.
First up we went to visit my grandfather. Before you get outraged that it took us 2 days to visit him, he died the year before I was born, so we figured visiting his grave could wait a few days. I've never been there so it was really lovely being able to go and visit this final resting place. The cemetery is such a peaceful space with glorious shady trees, perfect on this hot day.
The cemetery shares a wall with Schonbrun Palace, so the obvious next stop was a visit to the palace. We took the grand tour - no photos sorry - through a gorgeous array of rooms. It was interesting to compare it to Buckingham Palace. Schnobrun felt much more like a place where people actually lived and worked. Aside from the grand ballroom, rooms were relatively small and though gilt featured heavily, the decoration seemed much more restrained. The only disappointment was the much heralded Million Room was covered over as it is being renovated.
S's knee is playing up and it was crazily hot so we didn't walk the gardens, rather we stopped for a drink and some torte.
The only thing to do on these hot afternoons is have a rest, which is exactly what we did.
Our plan for tonight was to head out for some schnitzel. Googling had identified a few likely suspects for great places to have it, but an Internet search revealed our first choice was closed for renovation, so we headed off to number two on the list. After a tram ride and a reasonable walk (being careful of S's knee), we arrived at our destination, which was - yes you have guessed it - closed. This seems to be the story of our Vienna experience.
We wandered a bit, found a restaurant with wiener schnitzel on the menu and ordered it. It wasn't a super giant one (although they were big enough) and came with a traditional side of potato salad. The schnitzel was good, definitely better than your standard Aussie one, but couldn't compete with my Mum's. Plus we still had room for cake, which as I understand it should be impossible with a proper Viennese schnitzel.
We headed into town, found a cafe and shared a piece of Cardinal cake which really was delicious.
As we headed home, the temperature dropped and the sky lit up with lightening. It is raining now and much cooler than it has been for days. Fingers crossed it will lead to a good night's sleep and tomorrow will be a day without renovations.
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
Feeling hot, hot, hot
It is hot here in Vienna. And not some kind of wimpy European hot, it is Adelaide at Christmas hot. Scorching during the day and not much cooler at night.
We flew in from a grey, drizzly London and it was like getting out of the plane into an Australian summer as the wall of heat hit us. Not surprisingly our apartment does not have aircon and being on the top floor, it is pretty hot so we had an uncomfortable first night.
However we headed out first thing this morning. We stopped at a little cafe for breakfast and S was treated to his first proper coffee - a mocca served as a shot like an expressso, he really enjoyed it.
We decided to go to the Kunsthistorisches Museum, both because we had been told the collection was spectacular and because we were hoping it would have decent air conditioning. The air con was struggling and the museum is partially closed for renovations which meant the amazing treasury of royal and ecclisasical items was not on show. It was very disappointing. However they did have a special platform in place allowing you to get close to the Klimt masterpieces on show that he painted to decorate the ceiling of the main staircase and the painting gallery was wonderful. It isn't every day that you get to walk through rooms filled with paintings by Vemeer, Titian, Rembrant, Rubens, Canaletto and so many more. There were galleries that looked like the pages of my old art text books. I spent a lot of time gasping and racing into rooms as I spotted famous works.
After the museum, we had a refreshing icecream then headed into the centre of the city. We visited St Stephen's Church, although decided not to climb to the roof given the heat and wandered some of the posh shops along the Graben. But it was blistering. There were queues for the water fountains, groups of tourists sitting against walls in the shade and we decided it was time to get away from the heat.
So we headed back to the apartment, doing a little grocery shopping on the way. It is too hot for a cooked meal, so we had a light dinner of fresh bread rolls with cheese, super ripe yummy tomato and black butter. Our friend Floss made the black butter, it is a spread made of apple and is delicious, especially with the cheese. We finished our meal with a bowl of fresh raspberries, blueberries and strawberries.
As it grew darker, I decided we should head out for dessert. The logical choice was of course the Hotel Sacher, for some Sacher Torte. Still being rediculously hot, we ordered iced chocolate to accompany our desserts. We shared a piece of Sacher Torte and some apple strudel. They were both great, however family legend says that our family chocolate cake is the original Sacher torte recipe and if that is true, our is the best.
We wandered the graben for a while, milling with the crowds out now the sun is down (and finding a souvenir store for me), before coming home to find the lift is broken. 7 flights of stairs aren't fun at anytime but given it still has to be 30+ degrees it was a hot way to end what was an unexpected but still good day.
We flew in from a grey, drizzly London and it was like getting out of the plane into an Australian summer as the wall of heat hit us. Not surprisingly our apartment does not have aircon and being on the top floor, it is pretty hot so we had an uncomfortable first night.
However we headed out first thing this morning. We stopped at a little cafe for breakfast and S was treated to his first proper coffee - a mocca served as a shot like an expressso, he really enjoyed it.
We decided to go to the Kunsthistorisches Museum, both because we had been told the collection was spectacular and because we were hoping it would have decent air conditioning. The air con was struggling and the museum is partially closed for renovations which meant the amazing treasury of royal and ecclisasical items was not on show. It was very disappointing. However they did have a special platform in place allowing you to get close to the Klimt masterpieces on show that he painted to decorate the ceiling of the main staircase and the painting gallery was wonderful. It isn't every day that you get to walk through rooms filled with paintings by Vemeer, Titian, Rembrant, Rubens, Canaletto and so many more. There were galleries that looked like the pages of my old art text books. I spent a lot of time gasping and racing into rooms as I spotted famous works.
After the museum, we had a refreshing icecream then headed into the centre of the city. We visited St Stephen's Church, although decided not to climb to the roof given the heat and wandered some of the posh shops along the Graben. But it was blistering. There were queues for the water fountains, groups of tourists sitting against walls in the shade and we decided it was time to get away from the heat.
So we headed back to the apartment, doing a little grocery shopping on the way. It is too hot for a cooked meal, so we had a light dinner of fresh bread rolls with cheese, super ripe yummy tomato and black butter. Our friend Floss made the black butter, it is a spread made of apple and is delicious, especially with the cheese. We finished our meal with a bowl of fresh raspberries, blueberries and strawberries.
As it grew darker, I decided we should head out for dessert. The logical choice was of course the Hotel Sacher, for some Sacher Torte. Still being rediculously hot, we ordered iced chocolate to accompany our desserts. We shared a piece of Sacher Torte and some apple strudel. They were both great, however family legend says that our family chocolate cake is the original Sacher torte recipe and if that is true, our is the best.
We wandered the graben for a while, milling with the crowds out now the sun is down (and finding a souvenir store for me), before coming home to find the lift is broken. 7 flights of stairs aren't fun at anytime but given it still has to be 30+ degrees it was a hot way to end what was an unexpected but still good day.
Sunday, July 1, 2012
A Royal Day Out
Today we had a Royal Day Out. When I asked my friends what to do in London, visit Buckingham Palace was at the top of the list and we were incredibly lucky that our final full day in London coincided with the first open day of the summer season.
Our pass got us into the palace, the Queen's Gallery and the Royal Mews. The Mews were first up. They hold the collection of royal carriages as well as the horses that pull them and house those maintain and drive the carriages. We saw a great range of carriages including instantly recognisable ones such as the gold carriage of state and the glass carriage that has carried royal brides.
Also there was the Australian carriage, the only one to have been built in modern times and therefore the most comfortable with proper suspension and things like heating and airconditioning and automatic windows.
After the Mews we had to wait to get into the gallery, so we headed to a close pub for another fish and chips lunch. It wasn't quite as good as yesterday's - so the tip is get your fish and chips at the Borough Market.
The Queen's Gallery was hosting a special exhibition - all of Leonardo da Vinci's anatomical drawings. They reside in the royal collection, I didn't realise that they hadn't really been published before the 60's. It was brilliant seeing them in real life. Interestingly the fact that he wrote in mirror writing was actually because he was left handed and nothing to do with it being secret research - he had always intended to publish it.
Our final part of the journey was to visit the state rooms of Buckingham Palace. Unfortunatly no photography is allowed, but they are magnificent. From grand gilded staircases, to each colour decorated room, the rooms are designed to impress and they really do.
As it is the year of the Queen's diamond jubilee, there was a special exhibition of diamonds from the royal collection. It included things like Queen Victoria's tiny crown, Queen Alexandra's tiara of verical rows of diamonds, the diamond corination necklace and earings and the diamond diadeum that we are so used to seeing as it is the one the Queen is wearing on all our coins. It was a seriously sparkly room to put it mildly.
The tour finished up with a walk through the magnificent park like grounds of the palace. One thing is for sure, it was a royal day out indeed.
Our visit to London has been just lovely. Mostly the weather has been incredibly kind, showers have been brief and the sun has mostly shone, even if the wind has been a bit cold. But tomorrow we move on, Austria here we come.
Saturday, June 30, 2012
London markets and a bit of modern art
Food called today in London. After a morning hanging out with friends, we headed to the borough markets. Situated right in the middle of London, just next to London Bridge, the Borough Markets are a fantastic mix of fresh fruit, veggies and meat and cooked things ready to eat.
We wandered the stalls till we found the toasted cheese sandwhiches that we had been told were a must. They were brilliant. Packed full of delicious cheese and an onion and spring onion mix. They reminded S of Welsh rarebit and it disappeared in no time at all.
We continued through, tasting all sorts of delicious delights until we came across the fish and chips stand. Fish and chips were my must eat thing in the UK, so we stopped in and I got a piece of cod and chips. They were great. S who doesn't eat fish even didn't mind the cod and we thought the chips were better than Heston's last night! All in all a perfect fish and chips experience.
Absolutely stuffed we headed to the Tate Modern for a bit of culture. It is a very new museum and I enjoyed many of the exhibits but modern art isn't really S's cup of tea.
We visited the markets again on our way back, this time to stock up for dinner that we are cooking our friends. It might sound like a quiet day but it has been just lovely.
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