Our original plan was to avoid Austria, but how can you skip Vienna when your right beside it? Lucky for us the "Tour de Austria" was finishing up its final stage while we were there. Following these guys whizz by, you almost get dizzy! Vienna is full of culture and history but the thought of visiting another church wasn't getting us too excited so instead we opted for the not-so-famous "Sewer Tour" deep below the city of Vienna. The rainwater from the streets, along with the...ummm "waste" from the homes mixes together and funnels its way through a series of tunnels which are one of the most sophosticated sewer systems in the world. It sounds gross and it is gross, but the complexity of the tunnel system is truly amazing. And yes, many brown floaters cross your path....
Following the tour we took in a movie called "The Third Man" made in 1947, staring Orson Welles. The movie takes place in post war Vienna, with many scenes shot within the sewer system where our tour took place. Later in the evenings we took in the free film festival at the Parliament square where thousands of locals gather to drink and watch an outdoor movie on a huge screen. Once again we were a bit under dressed, but after a couple of beers, everyone is the same.
We found Sunday in Vienna to be very strange as almost everything was closed, the city got very quiet. We couldn't get groceries so settled on some giant smokies from the hot dog stand, tough life I know. To escape the rather quiet city we took a bus up a hill outside the city and treked down the big hill overlooking the entire area through forests and vineyards, back into the city. We loved Vienna for it's great public transit but Watch Out! In Vienna they have transit police (young boys - mid 20's) checking tickets wearing street clothes. Fine for free-riding is 100 Euro cash on the spot, if you cant pay, you get off and walk to the nearest ATM with the officer. Tough love eh?
Next on the hit list was Bratislava, Slovakia. The country also uses the Euro, BUT prices here compared to Austria are cheap cheap cheap. We went to the most famous (for good reason) pub in town, ate 2 mains of potato dumplings with sour cream and goat cheese along with a couple of pints of beer for 8 Euro. Slept like a baby after that meal.
 |
We took part in a 2 hour walking tour of the city with a very charismatic tour guide full of knowledge. The history of this area of the world with WWII, Czechoslovakia, Soviet Occupation, Iron Curtain, Czech/Slovak separation, etc is fascinating making North America seem quite boring in comparison. As part of Czechoslovakia, under guidance from Prague, they built a bridge across the river within Bratislava. The great idea was to put a big "UFO" (complete with two green aliens sitting on it) on top of the bridge because they thought it would look cool. The Bratislava people thought this was absurd, but Prague held the power and so the UFO was built. It was events like this that led Slovakia to separate and form its own country.
COLIN
No comments:
Post a Comment