Gave my bike a quick oil and fitted the cyclometer kindly provided by Kelloggs (free with 3 boxes of cereal). Then went for a quick bike ride from the campsite with the majestic Danube on one side and the forest of the other. Just my kind of cycling – flat and with lovely views.
A quick visit to the town for supplies before we leave Austria and then a long session at the Internet café. At last, I have managed to get the blog site up and going. Just a few more entries to finish off tomorrow morning.
Friday, 5 October 2007
Wednesday 3rd October 2008
Back to full speed today, so off early to Vienna for a day at the museums. We started at the combined Imperial Apartments / Sisi Museum / Silver Collection. Admission included an excellent audio guide that meant that everyone walked around with the guide clamped to their ears. This had the advantage that it kept the noise down but bad in that it created logjams in the corridors especially where there were long audio descriptions. People also seemed to be totally unaware that they were totally blocking the way.
In the early years the royal families considered that porcelain was inferior and they used only silver or gold plates. It was quite impressive to see huge sets of silver and gold dinner services together with totally OTT table decorations by the hundred. When they moved over to porcelain, they did so in style and these dinner services were also very impressive. The Sisi museum showed how Elizabeth (1837-1898), wife of Emperor Franz Joseph lived and how she was transformed into a legend after her assassination. A very young bride, she felt suffocated by life at the palace and eventually developed her own, much more independent, life by travelling throughout Europe and beyond whenever possible. She was very beautiful and went to great lengths to keep her beauty as she aged. After she reached forty, she refused to have her portrait painted and covered her face to avoid being seen by the public. She obviously had problems! She was assassinated by an Italian anarchist who was actually intending to kill someone else – she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The imperial apartments were also very interesting with many, obligatory paintings of past monarchs, battles etc.
A necessary and very good lunch was had at the Café Rathaus on the edge of the Jewish Quarter. Then it was back to the huge Palace complex for the Ephesus Museum. It was excellent to see all those pieces that were missing when we went to Ephesus in Turkey. Unfortunately, this museum was also combined with two other museums. The Ancient Musical Instruments Museum was quite interesting and had recordings of some instruments that could be played on the audio guide, but it was far bigger than we realised. The Collection of Arms and Armoury however was too much. I can only stand a certain amount of arms and armoury – a very small amount. After four rooms, we had both had enough and made for the exit.
Arriving back at Klosterneuburg we were both totally shattered. Why is it that I can happily walk for 10 miles through the countryside and not feel tired at the end of it whilst the combination of standing around and walking in museums (or shopping) kills my feet?
In the early years the royal families considered that porcelain was inferior and they used only silver or gold plates. It was quite impressive to see huge sets of silver and gold dinner services together with totally OTT table decorations by the hundred. When they moved over to porcelain, they did so in style and these dinner services were also very impressive. The Sisi museum showed how Elizabeth (1837-1898), wife of Emperor Franz Joseph lived and how she was transformed into a legend after her assassination. A very young bride, she felt suffocated by life at the palace and eventually developed her own, much more independent, life by travelling throughout Europe and beyond whenever possible. She was very beautiful and went to great lengths to keep her beauty as she aged. After she reached forty, she refused to have her portrait painted and covered her face to avoid being seen by the public. She obviously had problems! She was assassinated by an Italian anarchist who was actually intending to kill someone else – she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The imperial apartments were also very interesting with many, obligatory paintings of past monarchs, battles etc.
A necessary and very good lunch was had at the Café Rathaus on the edge of the Jewish Quarter. Then it was back to the huge Palace complex for the Ephesus Museum. It was excellent to see all those pieces that were missing when we went to Ephesus in Turkey. Unfortunately, this museum was also combined with two other museums. The Ancient Musical Instruments Museum was quite interesting and had recordings of some instruments that could be played on the audio guide, but it was far bigger than we realised. The Collection of Arms and Armoury however was too much. I can only stand a certain amount of arms and armoury – a very small amount. After four rooms, we had both had enough and made for the exit.
Arriving back at Klosterneuburg we were both totally shattered. Why is it that I can happily walk for 10 miles through the countryside and not feel tired at the end of it whilst the combination of standing around and walking in museums (or shopping) kills my feet?
The pictures are:-
Athena outside the Parliament building in Vienna
Fancy armour in the Vienna museum
Fashionable armour - used for formal and social ocassions (!) and reflected the current dress fashions - yes, it was for a man and it has a griffin head
Now this one is definately for a man and one who is trying to boast!
Tuesday 2nd October 2007
An unwelcome visit from a Mexican.
Everything was going so well, until the early hours of this morning! I had felt a little delicate yesterday but thought little of it. In the middle of the night my body decided to rid itself of something that I had eaten. I spent some time sat on the chemical toilet in our very small bathroom. It was the full deal – shivers, cold sweat, nausea and diarrhoea. Montezuma's Revenge had hit! Being a man, I felt very sorry for myself and required much tender loving care from my ever-loving and very patient wife.
By the afternoon I was feeling much better and was able to walk into Klosterneuburg with Jane to collect more supplies. Having survived that experience, I was also able to visit the nearby hotel with a café that had WiFi Internet access. It was great to be able to get up to date with emails and use an English keyboard – the Czech keyboards are somewhat confusing, especially when all of the y's come out as z's.
No photographs today – probably a good idea under the circumstances.
Everything was going so well, until the early hours of this morning! I had felt a little delicate yesterday but thought little of it. In the middle of the night my body decided to rid itself of something that I had eaten. I spent some time sat on the chemical toilet in our very small bathroom. It was the full deal – shivers, cold sweat, nausea and diarrhoea. Montezuma's Revenge had hit! Being a man, I felt very sorry for myself and required much tender loving care from my ever-loving and very patient wife.
By the afternoon I was feeling much better and was able to walk into Klosterneuburg with Jane to collect more supplies. Having survived that experience, I was also able to visit the nearby hotel with a café that had WiFi Internet access. It was great to be able to get up to date with emails and use an English keyboard – the Czech keyboards are somewhat confusing, especially when all of the y's come out as z's.
No photographs today – probably a good idea under the circumstances.
Monday 1st October 2007
Used our Vienna Card to travel into Vienna and spent the day walking around the city in lovely weather. Fantastic architecture and not at all crowded, until you get to the major sights where there are thousands of tourists from all over the world. It always amazes me that most tourists only ever go to the major sights and don't take the time to wander around the streets. Highlights have to be Saint Ruprecht's (Rupert's) church (the oldest in Vienna), a very unusual giant clock showing different royal people every hour (see photo) and the architecture of the Imperial Palace and the Parliament.
Sunday 30th September 2007
A day when nothing goes to plan, thankfully!
We decided to pop into the town centre of Klosterneuburg before doing something else. Walked up to the Stift (Abbey) and, after looking around the church, noticed that some musicians were gathering outside. Followed them into the church hoping that they were going to give a performance. Unfortunately, it turned out that they were playing during a service and we got caught up in it. We managed to extricate ourselves part-way through the service after spending quite some time listening to incomprehensible German. The only bit that we did recognize was The Lord's Prayer but only by the intonation!
We then walked round the outside of the Abbey – a massive complex of buildings beautifully and richly decorated with statues and gold. Then on to a large square a short distance from the Abbey where we found a number of stalls and a large Stadtkapelle (town brass band) preparing to play. After investigation, we found out that it was the 50th anniversary of the formation of the Stadtkapelle Klosterneuburg. It was a small group of these musicians that we saw in the church. We sat in the square, listening to another Stadkapelle from Bad Ischl, eating Bratwurst and drinking Sturm, a partly fermented wine. The thought of partly fermented wine is not very attractive but despite that it is cloudy with yeast, it is very pleasant.
It turned out that there were about 20 different bands at the celebration and each one marched along the street and were greeted by the Stadtkapelle Klosterneuburg. The greeting involved the local band playing a snatch of music, and then the two mace holders (who lead the bands) waving maces around in front of each other. The mace holders then had a brief conversation and this was followed by an exchange of presents and drinking of schnapps. You may imagine that with more than 20 bands, this took some time but every band was dressed differently, mostly in traditional dress, so it was a very colourful spectacle. The two leaders and the mace holder from Klosterneuburg drank a schnapps with every band and, although they looked a little flushed, they were still standing at the end, able to make speeches and, in the case of the mace holder, able to lead the band. I was very impressed. If I had drunk that much schnapps, I would have been a gibbering wreck.
We thought that was the end but then a competition was held with every band marching again and performing a choreographed number at the end with judges buzzing around them. At the end of this there was a performance by the Russian Brass Orchestra in Austria (based in Vienna), who played a variety of classical music.
A thoroughly enjoyable day! Such serendipity is one of the delights of travelling.
The photograph shows the Klosterneuburg greeting committee with yet another schnapps!
Saturday 29th September 2007
It was time to say goodbye to Trebon with its hedgehog, ducks, swans, nuthatches, fish ponds and, of course, its brewery. It was also time to leave the Czech Republic with two mysteries that we didn't solve. In the whole of the time that we were in the Czech Republic, we didn't see a butchers and all the meat in supermarkets was frozen. Did we just happen to avoid the streets with butchers shops, do they buy meat from the farm, is all of their meat frozen? Another similar mystery was where do the people of Trebon buy their fish? The only non-frozen fish that we saw was smoked mackerel – a sea fish and we are a long way from the sea. The local economy is tightly linked to the 500 fish ponds in the area but we couldn't find anywhere to buy the fish.
The weather is much improved today and we could have done that walk, but we have taken the decision so we will move on.
Stopped at the Austrian Rosenburg castle (see photo) for lunch and a quick walk around the outside and then on to Vienna.
The site that we chose (Donau Park Camping, Klosterneuburg) is outside Vienna but has very good access to the city by rail. Because of this it is very popular and has somewhat less space for each pitch. However the site has good facilities and the location is excellent.
Thursday, 4 October 2007
Friday 28th September 2007
So much for good omens – woke up to rain. We have decided to move on tomorrow, so the valley of the watermills will have to wait until our next visit to the Czech Republic. I didn't manage to cycle anywhere either and this is an excellent area for cycling. All in all, another visit will have to be made.
The weather improved slightly so walked into Trebon for a final look around. In the château-style castle, we found a 'Man and his Landscape' museum that was very interesting. A number of small audio-visual presentations were available in English and much of the text was also translated. We learnt a lot about the town, fish ponds and the flora and fauna. This helpfully confirmed that we had seen Great White Egrets yesterday. The Trebon area is the only part of the Czech Republic where the Egrets stop on their Spring and Autumn migration route to and from a lake in Austria.
I needed to pay homage to my favourite Czech brewery before we left, so we visited the brewery tap, just inside the brewery entrance – a very pleasant and popular bar. Whilst drinking my beer, I discovered that Regent produced a yeast beer, only in draught. I therefore needed to try some and attempted to order it. Unfortunately, my Czech is non-existent and my sign language let me down. I ended up with another .5l of the same and Jane got .3l of the dark beer. Still, it was good to try the draught dark beer! Towards the end of this drink, another couple joined us at the table. They were Czech cyclists and she was a designer cyclist – very trim and very smart (= expensive) outfit. Very conveniently, he was drinking the yeast beer so, after finishing my second drink, I was able to point to his beer to explain that I wanted some. This lead to a conversation with our Czech companions – in English, of course. After some time, we were asked what we did as jobs, leading to explanations of redundancy etc. When I mentioned the words quarry, aggregate and asphalt, there was a positive reaction from the gentleman. This was rather surprising as he didn't speak English and I thought that translation through his friend was going to be difficult. In all the years that I worked at Foster Yeoman, I never met anyone socially who was in the same business. It turned out that this guy was a director of the Czech subsidiary of Eurovia, responsible for the central area of the country. An interesting discussion followed, although I didn't ask him whether he had a job for me! The couple insisted on paying the our bill despite our protests, which was very generous. Having said that, our bill for the equivalent of 4 pints of beer was 90kc (less than £3) – somewhat cheaper that it would have been in England.
The weather improved slightly so walked into Trebon for a final look around. In the château-style castle, we found a 'Man and his Landscape' museum that was very interesting. A number of small audio-visual presentations were available in English and much of the text was also translated. We learnt a lot about the town, fish ponds and the flora and fauna. This helpfully confirmed that we had seen Great White Egrets yesterday. The Trebon area is the only part of the Czech Republic where the Egrets stop on their Spring and Autumn migration route to and from a lake in Austria.
I needed to pay homage to my favourite Czech brewery before we left, so we visited the brewery tap, just inside the brewery entrance – a very pleasant and popular bar. Whilst drinking my beer, I discovered that Regent produced a yeast beer, only in draught. I therefore needed to try some and attempted to order it. Unfortunately, my Czech is non-existent and my sign language let me down. I ended up with another .5l of the same and Jane got .3l of the dark beer. Still, it was good to try the draught dark beer! Towards the end of this drink, another couple joined us at the table. They were Czech cyclists and she was a designer cyclist – very trim and very smart (= expensive) outfit. Very conveniently, he was drinking the yeast beer so, after finishing my second drink, I was able to point to his beer to explain that I wanted some. This lead to a conversation with our Czech companions – in English, of course. After some time, we were asked what we did as jobs, leading to explanations of redundancy etc. When I mentioned the words quarry, aggregate and asphalt, there was a positive reaction from the gentleman. This was rather surprising as he didn't speak English and I thought that translation through his friend was going to be difficult. In all the years that I worked at Foster Yeoman, I never met anyone socially who was in the same business. It turned out that this guy was a director of the Czech subsidiary of Eurovia, responsible for the central area of the country. An interesting discussion followed, although I didn't ask him whether he had a job for me! The couple insisted on paying the our bill despite our protests, which was very generous. Having said that, our bill for the equivalent of 4 pints of beer was 90kc (less than £3) – somewhat cheaper that it would have been in England.
Photograph - view over the Trebon moat of the Regent brewery.
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