Vienna

Vienna!

In the Vienna underground and guess what?  We each have our metro ticket safely tucked in our very own pocket!

Our first evening in the city we went to "phil".  As the lower case styling suggests, it was the hippest café/bar/bookstore I have been in perhaps...ever.

Barry, Benoît, our french friend, and I sampling some Austrian beer at phil's.  The girls had some decadent mugs of hot chocolate at the table just to the right.

We met our Austrian friends at Stephenplatz where Stephansdom, or St. Stephen's Cathedral, stands.  Here is a photo of the interior where Mozart's wedding and his funeral took place.  It is also said that Beethoven realized how deaf he truly was after watching birds flying out of the St. Stephen's bell tower without hearing the bells that had caused their flight.

A street scene just off of Stephenplatz.

Vienna's City Hall

Here is Vienna's Imperial Palace, The Hofburg, which was the seat of the Hapsburg Empire from the 13th century until 1918. 

Part of Vienna's Monument Against War and Fascism created by the Austrian sculptor, Alfred Hrdlicka reminding us of the atrocities committed by the Nazis in this country.  This memorial stands in the centre of Albertinaplatz, on the spot where two hundred people lost their lives when a shelter in which they were hiding collapsed during a World War Two bombardment.  In the background is St. Augustin Church.

This is what I ordered when we were out for lunch with our Austrian friends;  "krautflekerl", or cabbage and noodles, which they assured me was a very typical Austrian meal.  When I ordered it, however, I was very surprised to see the server make a face which was very clearly saying "yuck".  You could understand while I became a tad concerned about what I had chosen off the menu.  I turned to one of our friends and she assured me that she really loved this dish.  The server then told me, "Well, you'll either hate it or love it."  When the server returned to pick up my empty plate, I told her that I had really liked my meal she responded, "Well, of course you did!  You never had an Austrian grandmother forcing you to eat it all the time!"   

My Austrian friend, Lisbeth, whom I met in Avignon at the university and now lives in France, says the only thing she misses about Austria is "topfenstrudel" a sweet cheese pastry.  So naturally, I had to try it along with some vanilla sauce and a coffee.

The Schonbrunn Palace, the former imperial summer residence 

Having some fun in front of the summer palace.

It was chilly at the summer palace in December!

The grounds in front of the Belvedere Museum, once a baroque palace, which houses the largest collection of Austrian art.

The entryway of the Belvedere Museum.

Barry in an upper room of the Belvedere.

The Belvedere's most famous painting is "Kiss" by Gustav Klimt.  We weren't allowed to take any photos of the actual painting, but here the girls are posing in front of a replica.

I also visited the KunstHausWien Museum which features the work of Austrian artist and architect, Friedensreich Hundertwasser.  The museum was designed by him.  I knew nothing of him or his art before my visit, so his style was all new to me.  I wasn't allowed to take photos, but below are photos of a few postcards I bought featuring his work.  

"Blue Blues" 

"Park"

On the look out for band-aids, we happened upon the oldest pharmacy I've ever been in, the "Apotheke zum heiligen Geist", that dates back to 1551.

Last stop on this trip's itinerary was New Years in Budapest...

The Paris Crunch in Prague and Other Minor Transportation Woes

The only hiccups we had during our more than two-week trip into Eastern Europe revolved around modes of transportation.  For instance, on December 24th while taking the subway in Prague to get to where we were to catch our bus to Český Krumlov, Grace and I had a run-in with the Grinch of Prague's Metro Station. Never heard of him?  Well, he's dressed all in blue, frowns really well and takes Christmas money from children.

The unwelcome run-in all started when the four of us, laden down with all of our luggage, got separated by what our family refers to as "The Paris Crunch".   This term, as the name suggests, originated in Paris six years ago when the girls witnessed their grandmother, Joan, getting trapped by doors giving access to this city's metro system.  It has since come to refer to any type of doors anywhere in an underground transport system closing in an unexpected and most inconvenient fashion.  Due to the high volume of commuters coming off of the Prague metro car we were desperately trying to board, only 50% of our family members and luggage made it on before the doors slammed shut.  Consequently, Grace and I were left standing behind on the platform, while Barry stared at us through the window trying to communicate using his own special version of sign language as the metro sped away.  Not surprisingly, something was lost in my translation of Barry's sign language and high jinks ensued with each half of the family not doing quite what the other half expected.

Grace and I weren't too concerned as we just caught the next metro train and travelled to the station where we were expecting Lily and Barry to be waiting for us.

They weren't there.

Instead, there was a Man in Blue and he was asking us for our tickets. The good news, as I explained to him, was we had full-on legit tickets.  The bad news was they were in my husband's pocket and neither Barry nor his pocket was anywhere in sight.   (Yes, there is a moral to this story!  Several, in fact.)

Unfortunately, the Grumpy Metro Man didn't seem the least bit interested in my story.  I tried again, elaborating on my excuse for being ticketless and pointing at our luggage as to the reason we managed to get separated and ensured him my husband and our fully-paid-for tickets were moments away.  I still failed to engage him in my story-telling.  In fact, he seemed more intent on wanting to escort Grace, me and our bags off the platform which would greatly decrease the chances of us meeting up with our travelling companions and positively ruin our only chance at a bus to Český for days to come.  Grace and I were not having fun.

My quick thinking thirteen-year-old daughter then succeeded where I had been failing with my ramblings. She got right to the point and she got Metro Man to listen.

"We could give you money," she said.

I noticed his eyebrows rise, but I turned to Grace and told her, "Grace, I don't have any Czech money on me."

But Grace was already opening up her wallet containing her and Lily's Christmas money.  Seeing her Euros, our Man in Blue's mood really seemed to lift and he readily took her collection of bills.  Grace and I felt pretty crummy about this, but I really got him.  As he walked off with my daughters' Christmas money from their grandparents, I wished him "Merry Christmas" very sarcastically.

Of course, I don't even need to tell you that as soon the Grinch of Prague's Metro made his way further underground with his stash, Barry and Lily popped out of a metro car.

The most important thing was we were all together again and actually made our bus to Český Krumlov, with a mere minute and a half to spare!


Getting back out of Český Krumlov proved to have a few surprises in store for us as well.  Without a car, this is not the most convenient town to travel to and from, yet Barry had managed to book us a private shuttle ride to Vienna, normally a three-hour ride, leaving at 10 am on the morning of December, 26th.  Our pick-up had just been confirmed the night before, so we were a bit in shock when just before 8 am we received an email informing us, due to technical difficulties, our ride had been cancelled!

Not making it to Vienna that day wasn't the best for us as we were meeting friends from France and had arranged to spend some time with an Austrian friend that I had met 6 years ago while taking courses at the University of Avignon.  She would only be in Vienna for that evening and a few hours the next morning.  Barry sprung into action and asked for some help from our pension house manager, Charley.  He came through for us quickly, almost too quickly, as he knocked on our door a mere few minutes later and told us he had found us another private shuttle that would be here to pick us up in 20 minutes!  Lily was still asleep, Grace was in the shower, (she'll have you know that the most trying part of this day was she didn't have time to put conditioner on her hair), and our bags weren't ready.  However, we kicked it into high gear and were ready on the dot for our driver.

Speaking of "high gear", at one point our Czech driver was driving 177km on the autoroute coming into Vienna.  Gulp.  I was so thankful that the conditions were bright and dry and that we arrived at our Vienna apartment safe and sound and in ample time to make both our rendezvous.  Not surprisingly, our travel time came in well under three hours.


Our last little transportation surprise came when we attempted to board our train from Vienna to Budapest with our French friends.  Usually if it is a tad crowded getting onto the train, it just takes a few minutes for people to get their luggage put away and you can make your way to a seat.

Not this time!  We made it onto the train with a crowd and there we all stood.  We were actually lucky just to find a ten square foot patch to pile our luggage and move around a tad.  Some of the more unfortunate passengers were stuck in the middle of aisles.  It still made for a long three-hour voyage, however.

I think those making the most of the situation were the travellers who had installed themselves in the restaurant car right beside us, who kept the drinks ordered and made the cramped quarters into an opportunity for a jovial, musical sing-a-long.

 I have gotten ahead of myself, though.  Next post, I'll go back and show you some of Vienna.

La galette des rois

Here are a few images of what we've been walking by this week in our nearby bakery windows:

All these cakes, or "galettes" are to celebrate the Epiphany that happens here in France the first Sunday after New Years.  It is to recognize the day that the three kings, Melchior from Europe, Gaspar (or Caspar) from Asia and Balthazar from Africa, arrived in Bethlehem to see baby Jesus. Consequently, these cakes are called "les galettes des rois".

As you'll notice in these photos, there are two main types of cakes to choose from in our town.  The first is the traditionally Southern France doughnut shaped cake with candied fruit on top.  The second is a flaky pastry cake filled with an almond, butter, eggs and sugar filling called "la frangipane" that hails from the north of the country. As none of these options had chocolate as an ingredient, Lily wasn't too bothered about which one we brought home, but the remaining three family members were hands-down for the flaky pastry option.

Here's our galette.  And, we sort of ate it for lunch... only it.  Please note though, we all had a super healthy dinner tonight.

I read that this day was originally a pagan festival when the Romans celebrated Saturnalia, their festival of the winter solstice.  It was during this celebration that the Romans would bake a bean, "une fève", in a cake and the slave that found it was allowed to be king for the day.

The French still talk about the fève to be found inside, but today it's a little figurine of one of the Wise Men and whoever finds the mini-king in their slice gets to wear the crown and be queen or king for the day.

Here's the little guy who popped out of Grace's piece of galette.

Dum-da-da-dum!!  Introducing Queen Grace for the day.

I think I'll tuck Grace's little king away and take him back home just in case I actually try to bake a home-made version of this frangipane filled galette back in my British Columbia kitchen in 2018!

A Pre-Christmas Visit to Prague

For many of our remembered moments, it is very clear why they made it into the long-term memory. However, I find it curious why some inconsequential moments, among the immense throng, somehow get embedded in the "better hang on to this one for the rest of your life" file.  

For example, for some reason, I remember the first time I thought that I would like to visit the city of Prague.  It was in the early nineties, probably right around the time that Czechoslovakia divided into two states: the Czech Republic and Slovakia, and I was sitting in my small living room in Pond Inlet, Nunavut where I was beginning my teaching career.  It was at a time when only really with-it adults had heard whisperings of a "world wide web" ( I was not one of them.  In fact, when I heard one of my colleagues, Gayle, in Pond Inlet being asked what her professional goal was for that year and she responded, "Learning more about the www.", I thought how bizarre it was that she was interested in the "World Wide Wrestling" Federation!).   So needless to say,  I was reading about this foreign city, a world away from Canada's high arctic, old-school style; in a magazine.  The article was comparing Prague with the Paris of the seventies and was encouraging people to get to see it before it was too late.

I am not sure what time-frame this magazine had in mind, but almost twenty-five years later I finally visited Prague.  While I have no firsthand experience to compare the Prague of the nineties with its present day version, we found the Prague of 2016 to be beautiful and well worth the effort to see it.

Here we've just arrived at the Prague Castle grounds, all 7 football fields of it, with St. Vitus Cathedral in the background. 

Construction of this Gothic cathedral began in 1344 and is where centuries of Bohemian monarchs have been coronated and buried.

And, more of the castle grounds.

On our two visits to the castle complex, the girls ordered potato gnocchi with cabbage and pork from this particular vendor at least 5 times.  The last time was later in the evening, and they were thrilled when he gave them quite the heaping portion!

Christmas markets in Prague had the added bonus of animals to feed and pet.

We stumbled across a number of Christmas markets of varying sizes throughout the city.

The girls could have hung out by the river with the swans for much longer, but I was getting wimpy in the cold and had to get walking again.  Our plan was to cross the historic Charles Bridge you see in the background designed by Petr Parléř, who also was responsible for the plans of the St. Vitus Cathedral.  He made quite the mark on his city!  Incidentally, this river is the Vltava which also flows through Český Krumlov.  

On the Charles Bridge that people have been crossing since 1402.  I read that this bridge's lasting power comes from a secret ingredient that was mixed into the mortar...egg yolk!

A blacksmith at work appears to be a Prague Christmas market tradition 

Barry and Lily posing like they mean business with some armour.

Lily feeling some joy as we are about to enter Prague's Old Town Square for the first time.

And on our left, we came upon Prague's famous astronomical clock, first assembled in 1410 with the assistance of the astronomer and mathematician Jan Sindel.  In the Middle Ages. it was considered one of the Wonders of the World.  You can read more about this clock here.   At noon the next day, we crowded in front of it with at least another 200 people to watch its show that you can see below.

If you are having difficulty viewing the video try this link.

Next on the agenda was to climb up the tower at the Old Town Hall and see the sights from high above the clock.

A bird's eye view of the square and the Jan Hus Memorial

The Church of Our Lady Before Tyn, dating back to the mid-14th century, towering above its neighbouring buildings.

We also climbed the Petrin Tower up on, you guessed it, Petrin Hill for more spectacular views of the city.

We returned to the Prague castle grounds one evening to attend a classical music Christmas concert in St. George's Basilica, founded in 920.  It was lovely and peaceful inside, but not very insulated from Prague's December chill!  Below is a short sample of what we heard that evening.

If you are having troubles viewing the video try this link.

And, I will leave you with the view looking back at St. Vitus cathedral from the square where St. George's Basilica stands