Finally, we are going to Europe! This
is a trip we have been planning for a little while and we are
excited. Jon was great as he came on the subway right at 1 pm to
drive us to the airport.
The beginning of our Euro trip was not
without drama. We planned to have brunch with Jon but then at the
last minute, my hubby just realized that the departure time was at 4:30pm
instead of 6:30pm. He kept referring to 6:30pm which in fact was
16:30 hour. So we made a mad rush to the airport by 3pm. It was good
that S. spent the time beforehand and printed out our boarding
passes. We were able to get to the head of the express check in time
and all our luggage got checked in an hour before boarding time
without us waiting in line at all.
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| We started a walking tour of Vienna ourselves from the hotel |
It took about an hour and a little bit and we landed in Vienna by 10:30am.
It cost only 4 Euro per person from the Vienna Airport to the hotel, which is a stone throw away from the OBB station.
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| We stayed at the Hotel Kunsthof in Vienna |
His efforts paid off. We stayed at the Hotel Kunsthof which is easily accessible from the airport by pubic transit.
Got to our hotel after 1pm and had a good rest before hitting the town.
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| Public transportation is easy and accessible in Vienna |
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| We admired the many splendid buildings in Vienna, Europe. |
Vienna is a beautiful city with many old buildings. In fact, it felts like the entire city is consisted of old grand, imperial buildings.
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| A Street Quartet performing for a street audience, Vienna |
It has the reputation as the music
capital and as we strolled along the streets and we
came across this old gentleman playing his accordion in the park
entertaining himself and passersby.
There were buskers and armature musicians on the streets.
As we approached the main square, the music of Billy Jean and other Michael Jackson songs played by a young quartet group filled the air and stopped many pedestrians at their track.
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| A Street Performer Entertaining Kids on the street of Vienna |
There were buskers and armature musicians on the streets.
As we approached the main square, the music of Billy Jean and other Michael Jackson songs played by a young quartet group filled the air and stopped many pedestrians at their track.
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| We celebrated S.'s birthday with a carriage ride through Vienna |
Since today was Stan's birthday, I treated us to a horse drawn carriage ride and was given a brief introduction to the grand buildings on the famous Ring Blvd of this city.
The carriage ride cost 7 Euro, very reasonable indeed, and we were dropped off at the Rathaus ( City Hall ).
The Rathaus was packed with hungry people and filled with food stalls serving foods from all the countries you could imagine.
We always pride ourselves as being adventurous in food, trying new and different foods at every opportunity. But the international food stalls here served really yummy exotic gourmet dishes such as St Peter's fish, calamari, Norweign wild salmon, Hungarian dumplings, and many other food which I did know.
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After the feast, we enjoyed a free pubic concert at the Rathaus lawn ,
( there is a free concert every evening during the summer months) along with hundreds of Austrians and other visitors.
It was a Sunday evening and we could not believe that the place was packed with audiences.
In Toronto, such free public concerts would only take place on Friday and Saturday evenings as Sunday is considered a work evening.
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| Enjoying our first breakfast in Vienna, Europe! |
We both look forward to our Eropean holiday for the next few weeks visiting a number of countries on this continent!
R.T.
Vienna, Austria
Aug. 4-5, 2012
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