Vienna - Thursday, Friday and Saturday (Tulbingerkogel, Belvedere)

Thursday 21 June  2018

Bo and Peter have a second house in 'the country' and have invited me and a friend of Bo's to visit in the afternoon.  I still need to find out how to spell the friend's name, as it is Polish. (Will update this later.)  Both Bo and she are from Poland actually.  We spoke mainly a mixture of Polish (well, not me ;-)), German and English, as Bo has just started to learn English and her friend (Halina is her name, I know now)  doesn't speak German, because she used to live in Canada.  What a mixture of cultures and backgrounds!  

It was a very hot day, 31 degrees, so we had a late lunch in the shaded sun room at the back of the house and later moved on to the pond-cum-swimming pool in the back of the enormous yard.  Only part of it is cultivated, but very beautiful. Only Bo went for a swim, because for the first time I hadn't packed my swimsuit as I have never used it before on my travels....

At the end of the afternoon Peter and Bo took us both back again to Vienna where the four of us visited a few art galleries, mainly paintings.  I must admit that I didn't stay long, as I don't much care for modern art.  I don't like paintings or other artwork that I have to 'understand'. ;-)  So, I walked home and had an early night after a very pleasant day.

I took pictures of the building where I am staying on my walk back to the apartment.  It's the bottom floor with the bay window in the centre, just above the arched door.

Friday 22 June 2018

My mornings are usually spent at home and towards the afternoon I will have made up my mind about what I want to do that day, as nothing requires me to stay away for a full day.  So different from other exchanges, where a lot of the entertainment is to be found in other towns or villages.

As the temperature had plummeted to a very cool 17 degrees it was a good afternoon for a walk.  The Belvedere Palace and gardens are just around the corner, so I decided to go and have a look.  The walk itself however takes nearly half an hour, because the entry is a the far end of the palace grounds.  Once within the walls you walk down to the other end and back up to the entry side again.  At first I wasn't very impressed with the gardens, because the top end was poorly maintained with tiny bushes of box and lots of weed. 

At the top end there is one part of the palace and the gardens are dotted with the usual statues of course.

Walking on the gardens improve with fountains, more statues, trees planted symmetrically and borders filled with flowers:

The palace itself is a museum, but I wasn't in the mood, although I am mildly interested in works by Gustav Klimt.  Perhaps some other time... I had come for an afternoon of walking. Next to the palace grounds are the botanical gardens which I visited as well.  They impressed me more and here I walked criss-cross through the gardens.  Also, because there was a multi-cache created in the gardens for which I had to find 6 or 7 answers.  In the end, even though I had all the answers, I couldn't find the cache, because the compass was very jumpy and had me all over the place.  Besides, it was getting rather overcast and rain was threatening, so I walked home again.

Botanischer Garten Wien 2011 (cache)

Water plants, all planted in their individual little ponds

A few years ago I had joined an organisation for women travelling on their own: Women Welcome Women World Wide (5Ws for short).  The idea is to meet other women, which is in particular very interesting when they are from different cultures, and sometimes you can request accommodation.  It's a pleasant and safe way to travel on your own.  Here in Vienna I have made contact with two members, and one of them, Irmgard, I met on Friday night for coffee and dinner.

Irmgard is Viennese and therefore knows all about the city.  She took me to two special places.  The first one, Vollpension, is a restaurant run by older women.  The story goes that a few women wanted to fill their time differently and started baking, using their old-fashioned recipes.  Oma's recipes.  (Oma means grandmother in both Dutch and German)  Now it is a kind of coffee shop decorated with a mixture of old-fashioned furniture and other decorations, like you have just entered oma's living room.

The outside is just as welcoming as the inside

From here we walked to the restaurant where we were going to have dinner.  The restaurant is different again from others as it uses mainly its own produce or produce from well-known local sources.  It also has its own herb garden where you can sit and relax:

There are beehives as well and I was told by Irmgard that bees are becoming very important in the city and a lot of people now learn bee-keeping and have their own hives in the penthouse gardens in many of the buildings. 

And thus our dinner we had at restaurant Heuer am Karlsplatz.  The restaurant has a limited menu, but it changes on a weekly basis.  There is something to say for that.

Irmgard and I spent a lot of time talking about our travels (like-minded people!) and backgrounds and chatted the night away.  It was nearly half past 10 when I walked home.

Irmgard and I

Saturday 23 June 2018

As it was still rather cold and windy I didn't feel the urge to go out and spent the day indoors.

At 7pm (I nearly forgot the time, as I am not used to it still being so light at that time of the day) I walked to Naschmarkt where I was to meet yet another 5W member: Janice.

Naschmarkt could somewhat be compared to Eat Street in Brisbane.  It is one long double row of restaurants and delicatessen shops with food from all over the world.  On Saturdays there is also a produce/farmers market right at the end of it.  We walked up and down a few times to make our choice and ended up at a Vietnamese restaurant this time.  The food was delicious although we talked so much we nearly forgot to eat at times...

At about 10pm (that late???) we wanted to finish off the night with coffee and cake so we walked to the nearby Cafe Museum where I had my first taste of Sacher torte.  It might look like our mudcake, but it is not half as rich and tastes so much better...

The museum is very stylish and has a rather old-fashioned interior, but very befitting for a city like Vienna.  

It was nearly midnight before we took leave with a hopeful: Will we meet again somewhere sometime?

Janice and I at the Cafe Museum