Travelogue - Vienna

June 26, 2006

Where do I begin.....ta da da da da dum di da… :) Honestly, Vienna is pure romance and I love that city! We had the most wonderful 5 days and as nasty as it sounds, I’m really glad Y&B couldn’t make it coz it just wouldn’t have been the same. I feel really terrible about it, but I cannot tell a lie – heartfelt thanks to Bideesha though for spurring us to the trip – it’s unlikely that we’d have gone in June if it hadn’t been for her original plan that we eventually hijacked.

Anyway, we left the house at a quarter past three in the morning to get to Stanstead in time for our flight which was a total nuisance, but the coach ride took just about an hour (instead of the promised 75 min) and we got there well in time only to be 100th at the check in! still, we managed to get seats together and arrived in Salzburg without any untoward incidents and then we set the tone of the holiday (i.e. totally indulgent) by taking a cab to our first hotel J. Hee hee – just gushed a bit more about Vienna to Sarolta who just came by. Where was I – oh yeah Salzburg. Ok, so we checked in and then headed out to the town centre – and yes, it’s a very small town, so checking out the town centre didn’t take very long – they had a huge screen put up for the football as well, which was cool and where we, well, I had planned to go after the show. Incidentally, the hotel gave us a list of popular restaurants as well J. Oh – at the square near the screen, or well, somewhere around it, there was this huge fountain, and get this, next to it was an upside down helicopter!! No – I don’t know what it was doing there or how it got there, but there it was J.

Salzburg is essential a Mozart groupies dream come true and well, quite frankly, it’s only claim to fame. It’s got bazillion horse drawn carriages carting tourists around, loads of shops selling Mozart memoribillia and moutains in the background. Our first stop was the fortress on the hill which was quite cool, and with a lovely view of the town. We had lunch there as well, sitting next to the edge admiring the view and eating an indifferent meal – reminded me of Café Naaz J on all counts. My salad wasn’t actually all that bad – it was supposed to be with feta and bacon, and well, if they hadn’t gone so totally overboard with the feta (I’m not exaggerating when I say I had about a kilo of the blasted cheese on my plate) and or been so extremely generous with the dressing so as to have a jhol at the end, it was pretty good J, especially compared to the skinny, lank and sorry looking frankfurters Aashish got – at least the horseradish was able to redeem some of it’s otherwise extremely lacklustre environs).

The fortress is pretty neat, and we did go through most of it and I even bought some funky pendants for myself at the castle shop – one is a curvy sword and the other a vicious helmet from a suit of armour – very cool! The other intersting thing here was the marionette musuem. Never really gave them any thought before this and well, thought they were always rather silly… but think again. Here, it’s a fine art, and the marionettes are exquisite – the attention to detail is amazing – they had displays showing just the hands of the marionettes and the level of design was impressive – rings on the fingers, sytlized cufflinks – the works! While we were there, decided to get tickets for the marionette theater for Saturday night when we’d be back in Salzburg. I have to say, I was quite excited by this time coz I’d never seen anything like this, plus it was at the Mirabel gardens, which is the main attraction in terms of places to see apart from the fortress, which was an added bonus.

Well, we meandered around the fortress for a bit, had icecream, meandered some more before deciding to head back to the hotel for a little R&R J. Of course, somehow, along the way, we were accosted by another ice-cream shop and I wound up with a huge cone with 3 large scoops of chocolate, and I felt just so sick after that!!! But it was so hot that I let my eyes lead the way J. Of course, the heat helped melt the ice cream really quick and leak through the cone and somehow wind up inside my shoe!! Went back to the hotel, but it was just too warm to sleep – though I think Aasish did manage a power nap J. Showered and prettied ourselves for the Mozart dinner concert. The venue it was at i.e. St. Peter’s had a lovely quirky restaurant and we were really excited thinking it would be there, but sadly it was upstairs in rather a nondescript room which was packed to the gills with Americans!! Quite disappointing really – well the ambience that is – the muscical performance was lovely and surprisingly, so was the dinner.

Actually, that was rather a nice surprise – usually, most of these events have very indifferent food, but this one was really good. We started off with a cream of lemon soup, which had me gagging at the menu and rolling my eyes, but I have to admit, it was rather good! Just a hint of lemon and quite interesting and refreshing. That was followed by a main course of very tender and juicy chicken served with lovely grilled vegetables and potatoes – very tasty especially considering that it was only a silly chicken and finally a honey parfait with strawberries – I know, sounds most bizzare and here I was all ready to give it a skip, but just tasted it for the record, and lo and behold, it was all gone before you knew it!! JJ. Had stepped into the loo before dessert, and suddenly I felt like I was in Disneyland!! There were only American’s in there right from North Dakota and Virigina with their various twangs and one of the voices was gushing about how this was the best meal she’d ever had – don’t get out much do they…. J

The music was between the courses and all in all it wasn’t too bad, but a nicer venue and round tables would have helped. After dinner, we strolled to the square to catch the tail end of the match before heading back to our hotel. It was too hot to sleep, so I spent rather a useless night tossing and turning! The next morning, decided to skip breakfast – not surprising since it was about then that I was falling asleep!! J but headed out to pick up our car and head towards Vienna. The car rental was further away from our hotel than I had anticipated so it was a relief to finally climb in and turn on the a/c. of course, then it was the stressful bit about getting used to the left hand drive with the gear on the wrong side and whatnot! Still we managed to get onto the autobahn without too much drama, and after a while, I settled in and it was a breeze. J so much so, that I was actually pulled up for speeding – I didn’t even realised it, but Aashish pointed out that there was this cop car and they wave this paddle out of the window which apparently is a signal for you to slow down and get to the side J. Well, did so and we trailed the cop car for a bit and I was wondering if we were ever going to stop… and in the meantime, another car that had apparently been flagged down joined us and there we were like naughty schoolchildren being upbraided by the teacher JJ. After checking my license and confirming tourist status, I had to pay a fine of 30 euros – hmmm, I’d much rather have had them deduct points on my license ;-o and cheerfully told that the speed limit in Austria was 130 kmph (ok, so I might have gone a tad over board at 170-180 kmph :P).

We were in Vienna in less than 3 hours, and much to our consternation, we discovered the bloody road signs were a la Salzburg, with Gothic style script and barely discernable signs (even occasionally no signs!! Well, none that we could see…), aaaargh!! But Mr. Velkar proved himself a star and I don’t know how he managed to do it, but not only did he make out what the silly signs said, but we got to our hotel in the heart of downtown without a single false turn and on our first try!! Most impressive if I do say so myself. (I have one of the waltzes pinging around in my head as I’m writing this J most distracting). 2.487592834 points to our man. Anyway, we got there and checked in and under instruction from the hotel, parked at the Museum Quarter (hereafter to be referred to as MQ) carpark without any incident. Our room was only going to be ready at 2 pm, so we stepped out to investigate the immediate surroundings and grab a bit for lunch. The MQ as the name suggests (surprise surprise) is where all the museums are J. Vienna is really quite the mecca for musem addicts (among other things) and our hotel was superly positioned just behind the MQ with the Museum of Natural History, Fine Art, the Leopold, and blah blah blah…

The central square in the MQ is ringed by café’s and littered with these huge red thingies….that look like oversize building blocks from a kids toy set. Just set in ring formations – there basically for people to lounge on J - you can lie down in them or just well, drape yourself all over them – and since they’re so big, a bunch of you can sit together on a single block. Kinda cool once you get over the initial sight. We choose to go up the stairs and relax at one of the café’s there as the breeze was a bit more obvious at that altitdue (yes, it was bloody hot!!) and I had rather an interesting salad with fried cheese JJ - very good actually while Aashish opted for a beer and bagel. After lunch, we checked into our room – which was street facing…. And made a tactical error of not asking for another room – I mean during the day the noise of the traffic was fine… but at night.. and especially since the MQ is the hub of nightlife as well!! But that’s another story…

After changing into more summery clothes we headed out to explore the city. First on our list was the Naschmarkt which is basically a street market selling fruit, vegetables, meats and fish, and flanked by restaurants on one side, of course, all with open air seating (one assumes that the restaurants get most of their produce from next door). But before I get into the Naschmarkt bit, walking down, you were struck by lightning…. Lol – sorry, was feeling a bit silly… struck by the beauty of the buildings – every second building was worth stopping to gaze at in awe – it’s architectural one of the most incredibly beautiful cities I’ve ever seen. Anyway, coming back to the Naschmarkt – we entered it at the restaurant side and well, were rather disconcerted, but found the right end soon enough…. And what a treat J Ba & Farsheed would have loved it from their different perspectives, and so would Mimi – all the stuff just displayed there – huge langoustines, prawns, all sorts of fish (quite a few toothy ones as well), hunks of meat, pre-packaged and fresh, mounds of spices, olives, frutis, cheeses, dips, olive oils, wines…… it’s really incredible and just so much fun to meander through… guess we should have done lunch there, but hey…. C’est la vie.

After lolling about there for a while and exploring it from tip to toe, we decided to head towards the State Opera House, only to get closer to find all the roads sealed off. of course, being in tourist mode we had no idea of the current news, so we like the other tourists decided to just hang about for a bit and see what was happenning – security was really tight, and the main roads had all been sealed off with police and various other armed service personnel patrolling them and controlling the pedestrian traffic, and there were choppers in the air going back and forth as well, and soon enough, we were rewarded with the advance of this huge cavalcade of outriders and cars…and voila – with the American flag! Hmmmm – could it be our very own Bubba?? Or is it Dubya ;-o. we did find out later that evening on the news that it was indeed the great Texan himself touring Europe. Still, we managed to catch a break in the barricades, and made our way to the lane behind the Opera (which incidentally is a gorgeous building – seriously impressive because of it’s sheer size and proportion, and of course, it’s absolutely beautiful architecture….) to the world famous in Austria, Hotel Sacher JJ, the home of the legendary Sacher torte. Apparently, the creator of the Sacher torte was XX Sacher, a minor apprentice at the palace, who stepped in when the head chef fell sick to come up with a creation to alleviate the boredom of the King who wanted to be amused by a new dessert JJ. The hotel, like all good Viennese buildings is bloody lovely!! And extremely la-di-dah.. We chose to sit outside enjoying the sight of the Opera and the Albertina (which is part of the Royal Hofburg Palace), while reading up on the fortunes of the Sacher family and their legacy. Aashish indulged with a stupendous cold coffee and a small Sacher torte (steeped in alcohol!) while I decided to be adventurous and opted for the Sacher parfait with stewed strawberrries (yes, I was rather impressed by how the Austrians turn out their parfaits plus it was perfect weather for something cooling). And I wasn’t disappointed – the parfait and stewed strawberries were exquisite!! Definitely the right choice… think the torte is a bit overrated – everyone around us only ordered the silly torte with various beverages, and I suppose that is to be expected, but man oh man… the other stuff on the menu is certianly worth exploring and if any of you reading this ever do visit – please make it a point to skip the torte and try the parfait or something else!! JJ

This of course, was now well past tea time J and we eventually took a rather circitous route back since the roads to the Hofburg Palace and surroundings were still blocked. We wound our way back through the xxxx which reminded me so much of Prague. Basically these long avenues, only for pedestrians, flanked by fancy and quirky shops on either side and littered with tourists, café’s and street musicians JJ. Perfect. It’s just the best place to simply hang out and watch the world go by.. the only downside is that it’s highly touristy, so the world that you see go by is mostly the tourist bits J. Of course, the xxx leads to the Stepensdom which is the oldest church – we didn’t’ go in coz well, we were a bit knackered by then, and it was being renovated, but we strolled towards the Kohlmarkt (the traditional old coal market, thusly the name) which is now a fancy upmarket shopping street. Of course, the end of that road was shut too, so we had to backtrack – since our plan was to head back to the Naschmarkt for dinner… by the time we got there, we were ready to surrender, and after some deliberation (I felt like fish and prawn and there was a tempting chinese restaurant J), decided to go for a traditional Viennese meal of schinzel for Aashish while I sampled their version of liver with potatoes – both were rather good, but very filling (think we were both still partly marinated in Sacher J) and neither of us could clean our plate – a most unusual occurance!! Somehow, we managed to crawl back to our hotel and collapse for the night… except, the street was really so bloody noisy and since it was rather hot (of course, none of these hotels have airconditioning or fans!!) so you had to have the windown open. Talk about a rock and a hard place. Anyway, the night went by… too slowly if you ask me and next morning, I was determined to change rooms, so before breakfast went and put in my two bits and reception and got us moved to a room at the back of the hotel.

After breakfast, we set of on our adventure to explore east of Vienna.

June 30, 2006

Hmmm – seem to have gotten distracted J had a team building session on Tuesday after which we went to the park to play softball (fundamentally baseball, but underarm J) which was good fun, wrapped up with drinks at the pub, which was even more fun JJ. Drank half a bottle of wine on a mostly empty stomach (although, we did have snacks during the game and beer & wine of course – has some rather good cherries, but was trying to be good and stayed away from the crisps and fried sausages!) and was quite happy by the time I got home. But coming back to the drinks – found out a lot more about a couple of colleagues, and oh yeah – get this – the pub where we were The Aldbury is in Mayfair and rather posh – was a Bently and a Rolls that picked up patrons!! Guy (my boss partner) of course had to make remarks like ‘I’m going to be a little longer… can you just go around the park once more and then come back for me..’ silly git! J.. but I digress – there was a TV crew or what looked like a TV crew on the other side, and eventually they came around to our group and apparently they have the world’s most expensive soup – for a £108!!! Charlie was the first of our lot to try it, and he was crushed to discover it wasn’t brain (don’t ask me why, but he seems to have this yen to eat brain, but I’ll be buggered if I can understand why you’d want to see it in a soup!), but just mushroooms. Anyway, once I heard the price, I just had to get into the action as well – I mean how can you not partake of the world’s most expensive soup?? So I did, and well it’s a good thing we didn’t have to pay for it – not impressed at all. Tasted like chicken soup – a thicker version of the chinese interpretation with the chicken feet – not nice at all!! Silly Charlie!

But think I was talking about getting to know colleagues a bit more – well, almost at the end of the bottle, Stephen who is only the hottest guy we have – and well, generally one of the hottest guys I’ve seen around C&W!!! mentioned (and very much as a bye the bye) that he was also getting married this summer (also, coz Tim just did last week, and Charlie’s on his way in August – and I kid you not, but his wife is also called Charlie J) which was totally shocking coz he’s a great looking dude with all the girls (once divorced and that too from a Swede bombshell) so understandbly, the news spread like wildfire and everyone was just so shocked!! The much married of course wondering why on earth he’d be that stupid JJ and the singles gushing to cover up what I thought was the death of all their fantasies of hoooking the man, but changed my mind when I was realiable informed that the girls were gnashing their teeth under the guise of the gushes, bemoaning the fact that no one had still asked them… and I have to say, Sam’s smile did look a tad strained J. Oh – in case you’re wondering, the girls here are the PA’s or Team Square as they are known as…

Since I’ve moved on from Vienna, why don’t I just wrap up last night as well – went for Oscar Peterson – he must be a hundred!! And it’s a most incredible atmosphere to go to a concert by a legend. Most of the crowd looked like they were in the need of urgent medical assitance J and I was seriously worried about the effects on the altitude up where we were on some of them. When Oscar came on, the applause was deafening – I have never heard a welcome anything like it!! And with good reason – I found myself caught up when I finally got a glimpse of this bent, old man shuffling across the stage leaning heavily on his walking stick for support heading for the piano. It was truly an incredibly awesome sight! Once he was seated, and his fingers were let loose – no doubt that they’re in perfect working order – such fluidity and speed and dexterity! Superb! He was accompanied by drums, bass and a guitar and while some of the music isn’t my cup of tea, quite a few were truly enjoyable and I especially liked the Backyard Blues and another stirring ballad he’d written for his wife. When the lights came on a lot of people didn’t realise it was the interval and left…. We were confused ourselves, but then thankfully there was an annoucement saying that Oscar Peterson was coming back, and he did, to another round of thunderous applause, but I guess the age finally does tell, coz he repeated two of the numbers from the first half (according to Aashish he also played the Backyard Blues twice in the first set, but I didn’t notice), which sort of took the crowd aback, but then finished of with a rousing and thumping finale, and well, all was forgiven and the crowd just surged to their feet to pay homage to this master, yours truly included, as he was assisted off the stage – what an incredible performance and at that age!! Bravo!! Siiigh – the atmosphere was just so amazing – I’m glad I was there to see it even if all the music wasn’t exactly my scene. Don’t think I’ll ever come across that level of emotion and reverence and at that kind of a scale!

Back to Vienna, and of course, I have no idea where I left off!! letl me go back and check… don’t go away. Right, we were heading East towards Bratislava J. One of the books we’d borrowed on Vienna talked about these various Scholsses (they’re just littering the landscape and most of htem seemed to be used as pitstops – offering information and toilet facilites and a café!!) and a particular restaurant specialising in traditional Viennese fish dishes and a particular favourite of the locals. Of course, it’s right on the banks of the Danube. We got to the first scholss where we were informed that all of the surrounding areas were a reserve, and that the restaurant we were seeking was just down the road J but we were warned about the mosquitoes! We drove down a narrow road to get there, and it was just poetic!

The resturant has an indoors as well, but it was just too beautiful a day…. Since we got there fairly early, we just shared a bench with a local catching up on his newspaper and devouring his sandwich lucnh and watched life on the danube go by – large behemoth barges gliding past – possibly carrying sand?. Anyway, decided to explore a bit and went down this little path on the side of the river, and came across a picturesque bench amidst a clump of greenery which seemed to good an opportunity to pass up for a perfect photo and I was nominated to pose… which I did. Only to discover, that I had distrubed a lair of mosquitoes!! And while I was struggling to look pretty while not inhaling any mosquitoes, Mr. Velkar managed not to take a photo but a couple of second movie!!! Aaaaargggh!! Got out of there asap, only to have these buggers follow us!! Thought we’d never get rid of thm, but it certainly put paid to my plans to take a little nap after lunch! Thankfully, as we walked further away, they did drop off bit by bit till we were left was just a clutch on the backs of our shirts and we managed to brush them all off before heading in for lunch.

Given our mosquito scare, we opted to sit inside, but once inside, just couldn’t bear the closed in feeling and the heat so picked up our courage and found a table in the middle – and had a glorious lunch! Thankfully, all our followers had disappeared (the few strays were a different lot, and far less tenacious!) and we enjoyed a sumptious and leisurely lunch of salad and while Aashish went for the local favourite – Serbian carp, I settled for a baked pike perch. Both with potatoes and very good, washed down with a cold ice tea. Of course, the loo here plays classical music J. It really was such a wonderful afternoon there just relaxing and enjoying the view of the danube and the gorgeous weather – it was a little cooler than the day before but with bits of cloud – bliss! After lunch we managed to rouse ourselves enough and then spent the rest of the afternoon just driving around the countryside – what’s really amazing – well, not so amazing, just that I hadn’t realised it – is the changing landscape in Austria. It’s only a 3 hour drive from tip to tip, but Salzburg has the mountains, Vienna the magnificent woods, and east of Vienna it’s all utterly flat!! In the words of Spock, ‘Fascinating’ – ok ok, so I’m a nerd – tie me up and send me away!

We stopped at a couple of other scholsses on the way, but rather disappointingly, they don’t have any spendifiours displays of decadent living – just nicely maintained gardens and an empty building, so we decided to give up after that… did almost wind up in Bratislava though – and made an attempt to get to a fortress on a hill, but then crossed over to the other side of the Danube and made our way back to Vienna. A most relaxing, but interesting outing which we’d never have done if we hadn’t a car! Although, you really don’t, actually shouldn’t have a car in Vienna!! But now we can say we’ve actually seen quite a bit of Austria.

Got home in time to freshen up and get all pretty for our concert at the Hoffburg J and had a delicious nimbu paani - or as they called it homemade lemonade with ginger J at a café at the MQ where I also partook of a delicious tiramisu pastry to keep up my strength. Got there in time to admire the building of the national library before getting swallowed by the tour groups – thankfully not a single american group – all French & Italian. The hall where the performance was, was more than a tad impressive! It was huge with painted ceilings and chandeliers and of course, a huge marble staircase winding it’s way up leading to it! Quite the setting for the Hoffburg orchestra. Can’t remember if I’ve mentioned, each of these palaces have their own orchestra which is separate from the Vienna philarmonic! Incredible!! As for the performance JJJJJ - it was mostly Strauss who is one of my favourite composers and some bits of Mozart (no surprises there!), but the best bit was the humour of the orchestra – who’d have thunk it! But they were being really silly in bits which just added to the whole charm of the performace, and I was really hard put not to get up and start waltzing around the room! The percussion dude was the funny man with the conductor paying straight man and they had several interesting exchanges where he’d play the wrong notes and get a reprimand from the conductor, to the point of actually being shown a yellow card J. Then there was the spectacular bit of silliness where an anvil was brought out and the percussion was by way of hammer…. And somewhere in the midst of this fracas, the percussionist grabbed a book from the conductors easel to declare it a girlie magazine which he kept waving about and then you had the string section all getting up to catch an eyeful of the centrefold!! Complete farce, but really rather funny and of course, all this time, the most wonderful strains of classical music are being executed! It was just hilarious and a touch surreal, but I enjoyed myself to bits! Of course, with the hammer in his hand there were several threatening swipes at the conductor, and the last bit of tomfoolery was when they got to the Vienna Woods piece – at least that’s what I think it was, coz it’s the only one I remember having gunshots – and our man (the percussionist) pulls out a huge double bore and fires if off in the air after aiming for the conductor! JJ. Total bhasad. The final piece was a march with the audience clapping and stomping and I’m thrilled to pieces to say that they also played the Blue Danube which wasn’t on the program! I got quite carried away with the camera and unfortunately, we ran out of space so I couldn’t record them very much in action – just got a little bit. And oh – they also had 6 singers – tenor, baritone, soprano, etc. come in gorgeously dressed and do their bits too. A superb evening, and for me one of the highlights of the trip! So much so, that I am now the proud owner of a recording of the nights performance (sadly minus the hammers!) of the Hoffburg orchestra.

We stepped out of the concert hall to a drizzle and made it back to the MQ where we planned to have a later supper – except Aashish was feeling sick coz he hadn’t eaten in so long, and well, moods rapidly went downhill and I was this close to doing him bodily harm! Anyway, found a café that was still serving – although the service was really slow and Aashish kept bitching and moaning and wanting to leave… and then it came down in buckets!! I mean there was the thunder and lightning when we left the concert, but the rain was piddly, but now it was great big, fat drops, à la aamchi mumbai and quite spectacular. We were seated outside of course, but under these large umbrellas, which kept the water off our heads but the spray was all around and everything else was wet – just perfect! J. Thankfully, Mr. Velkar’s mood improved substantially once the food arrived – we’d ordered schwarma, but this came with rice – rather unusual, but very tasty, and the timing was great, coz the rain eventually stopped after 45 min. by which time we were also done with dinner and a most romantic surrounding (of course, I was still in a fairly combative mood and wanting to boff Velu J, but hey, I can still appreciate the ambience and hope to trade him in for a better tempered, younger model ;-o). Needless to say, that night, I was out like a light! Had a good night’s sleep and was more than ready for exploring the Hoffburg and the rest of the city. Although, not all that much was left by then!
Oh! Almost forgot to mention – in the gardens between the museums leading to the Hoffburg, you have these young men and women attired in traditional frock coats selling tickets for some classical performance or the other, and one of these guys after pitching to us unsuccessfully asked where we were from and on hearing India, wanted to know if he could ask us a favour – swap some Indian coinage for euros coz he collects coins J - he was just so sweet, but sadly, we didn’t have any Indian money L and had to leave with a promise of next time. Friday morning we set out for the Hoffburg and started off with the palace’s Silver collection – unbelievable! I was a bit well, less enthusiastic about a silver collection (anyone who knows me knows that I actually had all my wedding silver pawned off!) but once in there – oh my! Silver is actually a misnomer, coz it contained – well, actually not- my mistake. I thought of silver as in the metal only, while here it’s for all the dining service… so we saw the opulence and extravagent lifestyle of the Habsburgs in living colour! What’s amazing is that a lot of the actual silver was melted down for use during the war against the turks – and this is just the remanents! Talk about style!! These guys really knew how to live, and it’s so reflective of the power that they had. It’s very, VERY impressive to see the collection and well, honestly, it was the best thing in the entire palace visit! The private apartments at the HOffburg aren’t very opulent coz it was mostly a working castle, and the Schonbrunn, which was their summer palace (started of as a hunting lodge – yeah, right!!) is a lot more sumptious. But I have to say, I was most intruigued by Elisabeth’s personal training room – this lady was a fitness freak – talk about being ahead of your times! And had some strange contraptions installed in her training room including some rings – I’m just so curious to know what her exercise regime was!

To give you a little bit of background, a lot of what’s impressive is courtesy Empress Marie Theresa (one of her daughters is Marie Antoinette of cake and not bread fame…) who was the political force while her husband preferred his natural history pursuits. Her son Franz Josef was also fairly simple and lived a hard working spartan life and Elisabeth his wife was the Lady Di of her time…. Although unlike the latter, she shunned any publicity, but was a passionate poetry writer, very, very beautiful and much misunderstood. She hated the confines that royal life brought and well, the nation seems pretty much obessed with her, or Sissi as she is fondly known as, and in the manner of all classic tragedies, she was assassinated by an Italian anarchist whose real target failed to show up and it was being stabbed by a nail file that did her in… poor Franz Josef was said to have been devastated and told one of aides ‘You will never know how much I loved that woman’ … siiiiighhhh…. Of course, their first born died at age 2, and their only son Rudolph shot himself at age 30, I think along with his mistress at their hunting lodge at Mayerling. Quite the story. J incidentally, the Schonbrunn was based on the palace of Versailles, but coz they ran out of money, economies had to be made and it’s on a smaller scale J

After all that, we decided to have a light lunch at a typical Viennese coffee house, which is greatly reminiscent of the good old Irani restaurants J. Found one close to where we had to go for our waltzing lessons (just off the Hoffburg in any case!) and were completely charmed by the wooden décor, plush but tired looking upholstered benches, chandeliers from the celings and then completed with forlorn looking cake stands in the middle of the room with a few rather depressed looking bits of strudel and suchlike. J I had a rather filling crepe with ice cream and chocolate sauce while Aashish went for the silly sausages – oh – it was here that the horseradish was outstanding – not at the fortress like I’d said before… swaaary! We also had an early dinner planned as we had procured tickets for an opera that evening – only coz I wanted to see the inside of the Opera house and the tour was only on during the following day when we were heading back to Salzburg.

The waltzing lessons were interesting JJ. Our instructor was most enthusiastic, and we started off pretty well, with Aashish the star, but then we got into these turn bits and it all went to hell in a handbasket from there J. Poor Aashish got so stressed, he was sweating and looking most persecuted and our instructor refused to let go of him and insisted he should do the second hour as well! Lol!! It was sort of funny, but I took pity on him and let him try and recover from this – you could actually see the wheels in his brain turning trying to remember and getting stressed about stepping on my feet and god only knows what else J. The second hour, I did a couple of spins around the room (this time a different younger instructor) and my oh my! When we eventually came to a stop, I almost fell over!! The whole room was still crazily spinning all aroudn me and I was clutching on to this poor chaps arm so tightly (and still weaving a bit myself!) that I must have cut of his circulation for a bit – no wonder he was looking worried JJ. Made another few attemps, but I must now regretfully inform you that I have to confine myself to doing continous Viennese waltzes in my head alone as vertigo is overpowering! How they managed in the good old days to keep going for several sets, forget an entire song is beyond me! Waaaah!!! But, I do now know why it was such a scandalous dance when it was invented… you really have to stand chest to chest, thigh to thigh, with your feet between each others – quite shocking J! Spent the rest of my time practising the cha cha cha and the rhumba with a few spalshes of the waltz J before our time was up. When we were leaving the adjoining studio had a bunch of older couples are working on the swing – you’ve got to love this place!!

Meandered around a bit after that to get back to my walking feet and decided to go back to the hotel to put away our rucksack and purchases – well mine really (was also carrying my dancing shoes you see…)

and then headed for dinner to this palce called Spsxxx just near the opera where apparently a lot of the performers come eat as well and it’s authentic Viennese cooking. Can’t say I’m a huge fan of Viennese cooking though – it’s really heavy food! Anyway, the restaurant had seating outside, but nothing under the umbrellas was free and the inside was pretty funky so we opted to eat indoors, but by the window. The walls were fixed with shiny, dark green, rather lucious tiles with stained glass overhead lamps and wooden tables and chairs. Kinda cool – and our waiter was this big, flamboyant pony tailed chap (who we suspect is Hungarian, but hey – what the hell do we know?!) who was most helpful and at the end of the meal inquired after us and admonished me with a booming and accusatory ‘What is this? What is ths??’ pointed to the leftover potatoes on my plate that I absolutley could not finish!! Had a wonderful salad followed by pork loin served with cranberries and pear accompanied by what they called fried potatoes but which were actually croquettes, while Aashish went for the beef topped with friend onions (and boy, were these proper, coated friend onions and heaps of it!) and fried potatoes! The restaurant actually in it’s main menu has a separate menu for dogs J called Woof!

I was by now stuffed to the gills, but excited about seeing the inside of that magnificent Opera House… and walked in to be impressed. It was rather dimly lit thouh, but the staircase was grand and the paintings on the cielings and chandeliers just awesome. All the rooms on the first floor offered more of the same, and there was a terrace where you could hang out with your drinks overlooking the main Operastrasse again with a most impressive ceiling. Sadly, that’s where the dream ended! The inside of the opera – well, actually the auditorium is abyssmal!! It’s really small and cramped and very art deco – most unattractive! The boxes are really cramped as well, and I was ready to weep!! So unexpected from the exterior and the lobby bits leading into it. Dommage!!! Watapity, watapity – I mean it didn’t even come close to apro Royal Albert or the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden!! Or for that matter, even the Prague Opera House which was delicous! Waaaah!! Well, we left soon after coz anyway we had seats that were with no view (well, they were really cheap!) and the music was no great shakes – but I did get to see the orchestra from a different perspective coz we directly overlooked them – and it was sort of funny coz the brass section had nothing to do for quite a while and the younger guy was focused with rapt attention to what was happening on stage while the older guys were just looking bored and relaxing. Of course, you had the minor percussion fellow who kept picking his nose and looking incredible bored J while the major percussionist with the big drums kept sniffing his drums every few minutes – well, at least that’s what it looked like to me! J Aashish insists he was tuning them after every boff, but I think he had something on them! JJ

The next day was back to Salzburg this time with Velu at the wheel and no speeding tickets J, but of course, via the Schonbrunn. It really is most impresive – I have been using that word rather a lot haven’t I? the entrance side is really the rear end if you will, with the gardens and well, everything else on the other side of the palace. Did the palace tour where I lost Aashish and took some photos which you weren’t supposed to take (well, unsurprisingly they are a little blurry… all that stress of getting caught!), before wondering what and waiting for a bit and hoping Aashish would eventually come out at the same spot. Well, eventually he did, and we made our way through the gardens to the Neptune fountain which is gorgeous – they are setting up for a major concert later in July to be conducted by none other than Placido Domingo for the 250th year Mozart celebrations – and what a setting!! That promsies to be one hell of a show. Of course, the Schonbrunn also has their own orchestra and they do performances daily, but sadly we’d have to give it a skip… our goal was to get to the Gloriette and have lunch in the pavilion there – you get a view of the entire city from their coz it’s at a height and well, just getting there looking like a major challenge! It was quite daunting, but we eventually made it to the top and promptly plonked ourselves at the café outdoors and composed ourselves J (unlike Mozart sadly, we weren’t able to compose anything else!! Hee hee!). since we were at the back, we didn’t have a view of the city, but were instead surrounding by lush greenery which was as lovely. Right near us was a handpump and it was qutite an interesting feature as well, it’s a far cry from the roads of Kolkata J, but this one was a little different coz you had to push the handle down and keep it down for the water to come, and a few people who tried pumping eventually gave it up for broken. There was also this rather intriguing crow (very large chappie) who kept dropping in with stuff and washing it in the water left over by the pump… fascinating fellow! After a light meal of salad topped by a chocolate confection with strawberries, we hauled ourselves off our behinds and headed back for the car. Would have liked to visit the zoo at Schonbrunn as well, but alas, we really didn’t have the time, so onwards and upwards to Salzburg it was.

In Salzburg this time were were at a different hotel, and unfortunately we didn’t have a map with the full directions so spent about half an hour getting lost and going around in cricles and losing our tempers before we finally found it after I insistedin stopping and asking for directions. Happily, the hotel though a little away from the town centre was really lovely. Very woody and quiet, the room nice and large with a huge bathroom with a tub! J. They also had an Italian restaurant where we dined on some most excellent food!! Rather surprising to actually find a good restaurant as part of a hotel especially one a little out of the way! Anyway, we shared a salad and then indulged ourselves in some glorious seafood. I had the grilled scampi accompanied by grilled vegetables – begun, zucchini and potatoes – I don’t know how they grill their stuff, but it’s really so tasty! And of course, the shirmp with their heads intacts – delicious! Aashish had my second choice, which was the scampi risotto with argula leaves – also incredibly tasty J. After that to carry us through the night, we ventured forth with the car yet again, this time to the Mirabel gardens where the Marionette theatre was located. Of course, we missed the Mirabel carpark, but that worked out fine coz we found free parking on the street J - well, at least we didn’t pay for it JJ.

Of course, in keeping with tradition thus far, we had one hell of a time finding the stupid theatre!! Not a single sign in the gardens to say where it was!! But eventually by heading in the direction it was supposed to be in, we got there in the nick of time just before the lights dimmed! The theatre is really, really pretty, small and intimate but with a gorgeous dome decorated with little cherubs and chandeliers – absolutely charming! The performance was Mozart’s The Magic Flute, and while we were too far away to see the details on the marionettes, the performance was quite incredible! And even from where we were (had great seats actually between sections so loads of leg room to stretch!) you could sort of make out the different casts of the figures – I mean the handsome prince did look handsome and silly Papageno did look foolish while the Queen of the Night looked just like a queen of the night should do. There was this one spot in the forest where the magic flute lures all the jungle animals and that was rather hysterical – they even had a giraffe loping in, but the duck was hilarious, especially with a lion, true to form coming in with a flourish and then going off to sleep. They then had the duck groom him, and I swear, the lion marionette looked like he was so blissfully content, before tripping over to doze off again! J. Of course, it’s Americana’s day out as well, and we had an entire class sitting behind us – and I guess as part of the cultural indoctrination, they were all instructed to dress up for the occasion coz all the girls were in dresses – some more weird and wonderful than the others J, and I was asking Aashish how come the boys werent’ dressed, when he gently pointed out that by American standards they were… and what do you know.. they might have been sporting t-shirts and sneakers, but not a pair of shorts in sight and what’s more, no flip flops or sandals! J my my – major makeovers J. After the performance we did toy with the idea of going to the square to catch the tail end of the match, but we were knackered with all our wonderings at the Schonbrunn and well, it was some distace off – too far to have to contemplate walking back to the car, so we just headed back for our cozy little inn. Which reminds me – after we checkd into our room, we came out to discover this dog in the landing, who was excessively frieindly and ready to follow us downstairs, before a stern ‘Aragon’ kept him where he was J. I mention this coz at breakfast the next morning, we observed Aragon coming back from what one supposed was his morning ablutions, but does he just hop off the back of the 4 wheel drive? Oh no – a ramp is laid down, and our lord patters down that J. Incidentally, breakfast was down outside in the patio, surrounded by greenery – very realxing and peaceful and I had some of the best cured ham as well J.

We got to the airport after a couple of small hiccups – well, bascially, we couldn’t find the bloody airport at first, but went around again and voila… success. Parked the car handed over and checked in, only to realise we had over an hour to kill. Went upstairs to their café overlooking the runway – really quite cool, coz you had mountians in the distance and since it’s such a small airport, got to see every detail of the landing and parking. Not that there was a whole lot to see at that time, but it was very nice to just relax and enjoy the weather outdoors. We saw our flight come in and park – there this car that brings an aircraft in to it’s parking spot and the driver jumps out and waves it to a halt and then he dashes off in his car to do the same for the next flight J. Well after that, it was goodbye Vienna, and hello London! Got home knackered but very, very pleased with ourselves and Vienna J - what a fabulous holiday! Of course, the next day was back to the grind and as if to mock us, it was a cold, grey, wet and generally miserable London day! Thankfully, the rest of the week has been slightly better and the world cup and wimbledon are getting along just fine. Think I’ll skip off early today as well coz I want to catch the Germany Argentina game – don’t know who to support!! Aaargh. Then again, maybe I should just stay in the office and watch the match here!! Need to make a few calls now (yep – my first in a couple of hours!) and besides, have nothing left to say! More in my next epistle. Ciao Ciao. Or should I say Auf Weidersen