VIENNA!

We returned last night from our spur-of-the-moment trip to the city of Vienna. One of the things about living in Europe is that it is so darn easy to do stuff like this. Last week the travel agent showed us a good deal to go to “Wien,” as they call their chilly city in central Europe, and so we left the beach for 4 days and three nights in 2 star tourist hotel.
I was surprised how comfortable, yet overwhelming this city was. At one point, I looked around me after a few hours of one over-the-top thing after another, not knowing where I was or what I was looking at, and I realized I had maxed out my sense of reality. There were before me Roman ruins in a courtyard of unbelievable opulence, after an incredible lunch in a wonderful café. Little did I know that just ahead were the Mozart ticket sellers in costume, the violin players in the courtyard that housed one of several city museums, and through this courtyard was a street leading to a huge boulevard of even more huge and opulent buildings, and then on to the huge complex of the Museumsquartier.
We hit museum night Saturday, where the museums stayed open till 1 AM for one low price. We finally wore ourselves out that day and had to take it easy the next. We actually only got to 4 museums. But we did fill two 128 MB film cards as we managed to see the main points of the city on foot and by sight seeing bus. We were able to find and ogle over the theater and market districts, buy books, CDs, duvets and spreads (and extra suit cases to return them to Italy), walk the streets for hours just looking at the Baroque and Art Deco treasures, and eat snacks and drink coffee at wonderful cafes. Our meals were as typical as we could find-wiener schnitzel, goulash, soups, stroganoffs, rich desserts, etc. I am not a beer drinker, but I liked the light German beers a lot.
Tomorrow, churches and museums. We will be doing the same kind of trip to Amsterdam in December, so stay tuned for Dutch treasures!