Asia/Europe Travels 2008: Kuala Lumpur Thailand Laos Vietnam Germany Austria Prague (Czech Republic)
Poland Vilnius (Lithuania) Riga (Latvia) Berlin London (UK) Amsterdam (Holland) Dublin (Ireland) Hamburg

Austria

Friday 10th - Munich to Salzburg

After our morning in Munich we proceeded to train it all the way to Salzburg. We took the tram to the stop nearest our hostel and we checked in. After a pizza for dinner at the hostel we watched the nightly viewing of Sound of Music I guess so that we could recognise places from the movie easier the following day. It was actually really good fun watching what is essentially a kids movie with a large group of people and it was impossible to contain ourselves when the actors broke into song at really inappropriate times. I also tasted my first Mozart ball. Now these have to be tried to be believed. I think they are made from marzipan and chocolate layers, a dangerous combination at best.

Saturday 11th

It was our first full day in Austria. I awoke feeling quite awful so stayed in bed for the first few hours before heading into town to wander around. The churches and cathedrals were amazing, and it being Sunday, the markets were alive with stalls and music. I sampled the local cheeses, homemade ice creams, and some weird liver paddy type stuff. I even saw a brass band play, and the tuba was one of the ones that wraps around your body - a sousaphone I think. I had an early afternoon however coming back to write up some of the journal. From what I saw Salzburg is a place you could easily spend a week and still not see it all. There was just so much to do. I would have loved to have seen the salt mines, or go on the sound of music tour, but it was all far too expensive so I settled with walking around the town and seeing the castle.

Sunday 12th

Our second day in Austria was as good as the first. I took my time getting into gear in the morning then decided to check out the castle. At 7 Euros it is not cheap, however well worth it, and you can easily spend a few hours walking around. There are also cafes looking out over the town, a puppet museum, and heaps of other historical info on the castles role during various eras.

We then jumped on a tram to the station and trained it to Vienna. Checking in at out hotel, at about 10pm we were very tired, and the guy at the counter was making life difficult by trying to put us in different rooms and generally being rude which didn't help things. But soon we managed to get us all in the one room thanks to Siobhan and it was all good. I even managed to get my wireless internet working by changing one of the wireless card values. I think that must have been the problem with my wireless in the past.

Vienna was quite an amazing city. From the moment we jumped of the train we were immersed in a rich display of historical buildings, many of which were many centuries old, and had been restored after the devastating war. We visited the main cathedral in town, and decided to take a lift to the top to see the view. The city looked quite stunning from here, and I realised it was going to take a good couple of days to see the whole city.

Tuesday 14th - Vienna

We had breakfast and showers and headed out straight away to make use of the 24hour train/tram passes we had. Our first destination was the strange architects various buildings. He had used tiles, curves and general unevenness to torn modern buildings into works of art. I would love to have a house that looked like these someday. Dain, Geoffrey and I then continued to the Sustainable Energy place where they had free hour long internet which Geoffrey used while I looked around and took plenty of photos. I decided that Australia needed a place like this. It compared all sorts of energy saving techniques and materials as well as looking at various energy uses, and generation techniques. Dain and I went briefly to find an ipod docking station thing for my laptop, and peoples mp3 players etc so that we could have music at our next stop, and then we met up with Geoffrey ready to find the others near the markets. After having a tasty lunch, we split up again, deciding to go quickly through the markets for my sake - as I hadn't seen them yet, and then to a gallery. The entrance fee was a bit steep so I just sat outside and wrote what you are reading now as I took in the backdrop of church domes catching the evening sunlight, the faint patter of water from the fountains and a dozen birds calling to each other overhead. Really quite a stunning place to be a nerd. It is actually quite nice just sitting in the one place for once and watching the tourists role by taking photos and chatting in strange languages. It makes a change from the constant sight seeing we have been doing.

Sally and Siobhan returned from the exhibition and we set of to see the famous two Euro opera which for some reason cost four Euros, go figure. But it was totally worth it, even though we were initially squashed standing up on stairs at the back. It was a bit of a case of survival of the fittest, and soon the short people who couldn't see, and others who couldn't stand up any longer left, and we had great views and standing seats for the last half. The opera was Faust (Charles Gounod), and was quite stunning. Some of the highlights included the fact that there was a massive organ on stage, and the singing was something else. So yeah, if you get to Vienna, go see the opera, and if you are doing things on a budget, you can get standing seats, but be sure to get the tickets more than an hour before it starts otherwise you will be standing on the stairs. If you are early you can get standing in front of the rails with subtitle screens (which we ended up with when people left after the first half)

Tomorrow we have some time in Vienna and then we are on the train and off to Prague...