Vienna, Austria

So long Prague......
see all photos »

Humpty Dumpty took a great fall this morning when we ditched the heavy sausages for at least twenty eggs. Left Prague for a beautiful drive through sunflower fields and distant mountains. This was the first Real sunny day as the weather warmed as we approached Austria. We left the highway for a spell to rumble through a few small towns. Lots of gawkers, however we did meet up with a fellow Honda driver and his son at a gas stop. He was Czech and spoke no English, but we were able to share our hand signaled compliments of the bikes. One of the towns was called Brno (how is this supposed to be pronounced?), and although we could only see it from the road, the entire town appeared to be made up of hundreds of high-rise projects. Even from the perspective of two city boys, this was alarming. The approach to Vienna was tree lined and very green, with a skyline looming up behind it. While it’s not a huge city, it was quite visible from a distance. We parked our bikes right in front of the hotel, mostly because they wouldn’t allow us to dirty up their nice garage.

I'm not sure who Alex is waiving to hear.
see all photos »

Once in the hotel room we changed into cooler clothes (read, not as warm). It was in the mid 80s, and we had barely been out of the lower 70’s since our arrival in Europe. It was Sunday, so our choices were a bar or a museum. We chose the latter and headed in the direction of the Museum Quartier where we were told we would find plenty of options. There were grand buildings in every direction each bearing the name of another Museum donor. We opted for the Kunsthistorisches Museum or the Museum of Fine Arts. We really had no idea what to expect, but pleasantly surprised by the world class collection of Greek and Egyptian antiquities, Dutch and Italian Renaissance paintings, and much else. After about an hour and half of art, we continued through Heldenplatz and Volksgarten on our way past Parliament and ultimately ending up at Rathaus Park. Rathaus is City Hall, and today the city was celebrating the Vienna Film Festival which included foods of the world, live music, and great people watching. Of course Alex was hungry again, so we circled the square and came up with Iranian food for Alex and American-looking food for Jon. Jon likes to experiment. We sat in the shade and listened to a high school Israeli concert band while Alex ate his Iranian food. This was a true multi-cultural event. Once we had enough of their blatting, we walked along the blue-Danube which wasn’t very blue, ending up in Stadt Park which was pretty normal for a park except for the statues spread about depicting Austrian classical musicians. We rounded out the night with a late dinner at an authentic Austrian bistro that the concierge represented as a “local eatery.” The food was good, the waiter very friendly, but we couldn’t get over his “authentic” Austrian garb. No idea what those knicker overalls are called – but you get the idea.