Europe - Day 22
Our final day in Europe: not too shabby. We again took the liberty of sleeping a little late this morning since we didn't have any train to catch or anything. Unfortunately the weather was just as yucky today as yesterday - cloudy and rainy. We started off our day by taking the metro to Stephensplatz (hehe, everything ends in -platz here). It was another big Gothic ABC but it was pretty dingy and black - looks like it hasn't ever been cleaned.
From there we walked over to Mozarthaus - the apartment where Mozart lived for 3 years in Vienna, which has been converted into a museum. It was really cool - the audioguide was actually very informative as to smaller details about Mozart's life which I'd never learned. It also talked about his musical career and what parts of it occurred while he was in that apartment. The apartment itself was pretty bare - no furniture of Mozart's survived, but their were period furnishings and reproductions. There were lots of document and manuscript reproductions which was cool, but it'd be cooler if they had some originals. We found a Freemason's sash with the same imagine of Hashem's name in a triangle, as we had seen in the Nice shul and in Louis XIV's private chapel in Versailles, and it's interesting enough to merit further research. It was a really interesting visit though, and I had hoped to see Mozart's house in Vienna.
That actually took us a while so by the time we were done it was lunchtime already. We returned to the Jewish area in the 2nd district and went back to the butcher's shop on advice from a Jew we met yesterday. We got some incredible lamb shawarma w/ salad and chips - it was a packed pita and was easily the best shawarma on the trip.
We finished up and went back to Karlsplatz and basically just started walking around the ring street. We saw the State Opera house, which was much bigger than La Scala. We wanted to go to the Albertina gallery because we saw a sign that they had a Monet and Picasso exhibit and J really wanted to see the Picasso. Unfortunately when we went there they said they only had 1 exhibit open and that the Monet/Picasso one started in September. Oh well.
Instead we basically just kept walking around the ring. The Viennese-style buildings were pretty different from most of the styles we've seen - though it resembled Paris a lot. Things looked a lot more blocky, a lot more formal, especially the older buildings and palaces. We saw the Hapsburg Imperial palace, the Museums Quartier (which was cool - 2 of the opposing museums were mirror images of each other). We also saw Parliament, which was really fancy (and clean, as opposed to most of the other buildings) with gold and all (and more quadrigas!), and Rathaus (i.e. City Hall, which we originally thought was a church because of its Gothic style - and we have not seen a Gothic non-church till now).
Across from Rathausplatz was a park which we walked through and just so happened to stumble upon a see-saw randomly in the park. Of course, being mature, grown adults we had to, uh, investigate the torque of the device. It was so ridiculously fun, it was amazing. J was much heavier so I was in the air pretty much most of the time. It was great acting like little kids in the middle of Vienna. When we left the park we found ourselves back in front of the Hapsburg palace. We were pretty tired from walking around so we took the trolley around the ring for a bit as a mini-tour of the city center.
We got off at a metro stop and headed on out to see Schönbrunn palace. I have to say, this thing is definitely the Viennese equivalent of Versailles. It's smaller - maybe 3/4 the size. The palace itself is a good size and really yellow - but we didn't go in. We didn't make the same mistake in Versailles and pay to go into the gardens. The gardens were pretty big - nowhere nearly as big as the Versailles gardens - maybe about the size of just the Grand Canal - but it was really nice and there was also a fairly steep hill with a big set of arches at the top.
The coolest part of the gardens though by far had to be the hedge maze/labyrinth. Yes, a real hedge maze. The hedges were a little short to be intimidating - J thought he could see over them - but it actually turned out to be a pretty tricky maze. Every dead end had a zodiac symbol at the end of it. It was really fun and took us a while to find our way out. There was also a spiral hedge maze thingy and another one with interesting devices - including a musical "dance-glockenspiel," some stepping stones which squirted water at you and a mathematical number game for feet. It was great, cheap entertainment.
After the wacky labyrinth we climbed the hill in the gardens and got a fantastic view of the palace & gardens and a wonderful panorama of Vienna. I'd say that marked the end of our sightseeing in Europe, and it was a very fitting end to culminate with a nice panorama of the city and just take in everything.
By the time we had finished with Schönbrunn palace, our feet were tired and we needed to sit and eat. Before we did that though we went to the Jewish area and did some shopping for our all-nighter in the airport tonight. We picked up drinks and snacks from the kosher supermarket, Kosherland, breakfast (another punschkrapfen and an ischler) from the bakery and deli sandwiches from the butcher.
Only after all that did we go to Simcha's for dinner. I have a mixed review of the place - the food was pretty good but the service was not so great. First, the food: they brought us some salads and bread (no other restaurant has given us salads) as part of the sit-down fee. They had an interesting Bucharian bread, liposchka, which was like a laffa but the outer rim was very thick. They had a lot of Bucharian things on the menu (the only Viennese thing was schnitzel and we had that last night already) so we decided to be adventurous and try a Bucharian dish called plov - it was basically meat (flanken), carrots and rice (seasoned with curry and cumin) - it was really, really tasty but most of the meat was just fat. In addition to splitting that, we also got some skewers of other stuff - I got baby chicken (very well spiced with paprika and pepper) and lamb ribs (very tasty but most of it was also just fat). All in all, I'd say it was a very tasty meal.
The problem was on the check, they charged us for a double order of plov when we clearly said we only wanted to split a single order - the waiter had not explained he was giving us a double order, and then he tried to use the "but you ate it!" excuse - of course we ate it, we thought you gave us a single order! We called over the manager and I spoke to him in Hebrew and explained to him what happened. He called over the waiter and yelled at him and said it was the third time he made a mistake of not explaining today. I felt bad, I didn't want to get the guy in trouble, we just didn't want to have to pay for what we didn't know we were ordering. The manager finally relented and took off the price of the 2nd order, so we paid and promptly left. This was already the 2nd time in Vienna there was a big miscommunication between us and the waiter - yesterday we asked for 2 lamb kebabs and the guy brought us 2 lamb shish and 2 kebab shish - we got that straightened out, but the fact that now it happened twice left a bad taste in our mouths (only figuratively though).
After dinner, we went back to the hotel and napped a bit, then packed up, checked out and headed for the City Airport Train - a fast train that looks like a jet inside. Now we are camping out till our flight to Paris at 6am. We just had our last beer in Europe - Ottakringer Helles, an Austrian beer - it was too bubbly for me, but okay.
Now begins the long wait until we return home - and we are very ready to go back home now after our long adventures in Europe.
From there we walked over to Mozarthaus - the apartment where Mozart lived for 3 years in Vienna, which has been converted into a museum. It was really cool - the audioguide was actually very informative as to smaller details about Mozart's life which I'd never learned. It also talked about his musical career and what parts of it occurred while he was in that apartment. The apartment itself was pretty bare - no furniture of Mozart's survived, but their were period furnishings and reproductions. There were lots of document and manuscript reproductions which was cool, but it'd be cooler if they had some originals. We found a Freemason's sash with the same imagine of Hashem's name in a triangle, as we had seen in the Nice shul and in Louis XIV's private chapel in Versailles, and it's interesting enough to merit further research. It was a really interesting visit though, and I had hoped to see Mozart's house in Vienna.
That actually took us a while so by the time we were done it was lunchtime already. We returned to the Jewish area in the 2nd district and went back to the butcher's shop on advice from a Jew we met yesterday. We got some incredible lamb shawarma w/ salad and chips - it was a packed pita and was easily the best shawarma on the trip.
We finished up and went back to Karlsplatz and basically just started walking around the ring street. We saw the State Opera house, which was much bigger than La Scala. We wanted to go to the Albertina gallery because we saw a sign that they had a Monet and Picasso exhibit and J really wanted to see the Picasso. Unfortunately when we went there they said they only had 1 exhibit open and that the Monet/Picasso one started in September. Oh well.
Instead we basically just kept walking around the ring. The Viennese-style buildings were pretty different from most of the styles we've seen - though it resembled Paris a lot. Things looked a lot more blocky, a lot more formal, especially the older buildings and palaces. We saw the Hapsburg Imperial palace, the Museums Quartier (which was cool - 2 of the opposing museums were mirror images of each other). We also saw Parliament, which was really fancy (and clean, as opposed to most of the other buildings) with gold and all (and more quadrigas!), and Rathaus (i.e. City Hall, which we originally thought was a church because of its Gothic style - and we have not seen a Gothic non-church till now).
Across from Rathausplatz was a park which we walked through and just so happened to stumble upon a see-saw randomly in the park. Of course, being mature, grown adults we had to, uh, investigate the torque of the device. It was so ridiculously fun, it was amazing. J was much heavier so I was in the air pretty much most of the time. It was great acting like little kids in the middle of Vienna. When we left the park we found ourselves back in front of the Hapsburg palace. We were pretty tired from walking around so we took the trolley around the ring for a bit as a mini-tour of the city center.
We got off at a metro stop and headed on out to see Schönbrunn palace. I have to say, this thing is definitely the Viennese equivalent of Versailles. It's smaller - maybe 3/4 the size. The palace itself is a good size and really yellow - but we didn't go in. We didn't make the same mistake in Versailles and pay to go into the gardens. The gardens were pretty big - nowhere nearly as big as the Versailles gardens - maybe about the size of just the Grand Canal - but it was really nice and there was also a fairly steep hill with a big set of arches at the top.
The coolest part of the gardens though by far had to be the hedge maze/labyrinth. Yes, a real hedge maze. The hedges were a little short to be intimidating - J thought he could see over them - but it actually turned out to be a pretty tricky maze. Every dead end had a zodiac symbol at the end of it. It was really fun and took us a while to find our way out. There was also a spiral hedge maze thingy and another one with interesting devices - including a musical "dance-glockenspiel," some stepping stones which squirted water at you and a mathematical number game for feet. It was great, cheap entertainment.
After the wacky labyrinth we climbed the hill in the gardens and got a fantastic view of the palace & gardens and a wonderful panorama of Vienna. I'd say that marked the end of our sightseeing in Europe, and it was a very fitting end to culminate with a nice panorama of the city and just take in everything.
By the time we had finished with Schönbrunn palace, our feet were tired and we needed to sit and eat. Before we did that though we went to the Jewish area and did some shopping for our all-nighter in the airport tonight. We picked up drinks and snacks from the kosher supermarket, Kosherland, breakfast (another punschkrapfen and an ischler) from the bakery and deli sandwiches from the butcher.
Only after all that did we go to Simcha's for dinner. I have a mixed review of the place - the food was pretty good but the service was not so great. First, the food: they brought us some salads and bread (no other restaurant has given us salads) as part of the sit-down fee. They had an interesting Bucharian bread, liposchka, which was like a laffa but the outer rim was very thick. They had a lot of Bucharian things on the menu (the only Viennese thing was schnitzel and we had that last night already) so we decided to be adventurous and try a Bucharian dish called plov - it was basically meat (flanken), carrots and rice (seasoned with curry and cumin) - it was really, really tasty but most of the meat was just fat. In addition to splitting that, we also got some skewers of other stuff - I got baby chicken (very well spiced with paprika and pepper) and lamb ribs (very tasty but most of it was also just fat). All in all, I'd say it was a very tasty meal.
The problem was on the check, they charged us for a double order of plov when we clearly said we only wanted to split a single order - the waiter had not explained he was giving us a double order, and then he tried to use the "but you ate it!" excuse - of course we ate it, we thought you gave us a single order! We called over the manager and I spoke to him in Hebrew and explained to him what happened. He called over the waiter and yelled at him and said it was the third time he made a mistake of not explaining today. I felt bad, I didn't want to get the guy in trouble, we just didn't want to have to pay for what we didn't know we were ordering. The manager finally relented and took off the price of the 2nd order, so we paid and promptly left. This was already the 2nd time in Vienna there was a big miscommunication between us and the waiter - yesterday we asked for 2 lamb kebabs and the guy brought us 2 lamb shish and 2 kebab shish - we got that straightened out, but the fact that now it happened twice left a bad taste in our mouths (only figuratively though).
After dinner, we went back to the hotel and napped a bit, then packed up, checked out and headed for the City Airport Train - a fast train that looks like a jet inside. Now we are camping out till our flight to Paris at 6am. We just had our last beer in Europe - Ottakringer Helles, an Austrian beer - it was too bubbly for me, but okay.
Now begins the long wait until we return home - and we are very ready to go back home now after our long adventures in Europe.