6 Days in the Czech Republic and Vienna!

Cesky Krumlov, Czech Republic

It was a long walk from train station to old town dragging our suitcases over cobblestone streets and stone block sidewalks.  I think we need suitcases with wheels from a Razor.  We did a walking tour of the downtown area, where the tour guide mainly talked about the best beers and where to find them in town.  Beer is Big is the Czech Republic!

This town is quite small, as it occupies a peninsula of a meandering river, and it is a major tourist stop.  Under normal summer conditions it is packed with tourists, but being September and in the time of Covid, there are a manageable number or tourists, mostly European.  So few Americans have been here that our pension host hadn’t spoken English much in past two years, so it was easier to talk with her in German. The town was calm and easy to navigate.  Oddly, there were a large number of candy stores with garish candies and no customers.  Perhaps the absent Chinese are the target audience?  The town and the castle survived wars and the 40 year communist era of bland reconstruction projects. After the communist era ended, people bought and restored the houses, making for a charming city. 

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Baroque Theater: This is one of the oldest surviving Baroque theaters in the world.  Nearly all the others burned down since they were all made of wood, and candles were used for lighting, and smoke and pyrotechnics were a typical part of the performance.  This was a really interesting tour, including under the stage where we saw trap doors and other mechanisms for quickly changing sets and raising the footlights.  No photography allowed so I poached some images from the internet.

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Connections to Vienna are difficult due to the low tourist traffic.  We took a bus to a train to a bus to a train to a taxi to get to our place in Vienna.

Vienna, Austria

Again, we started with a walking tour of the old town. Like most European cities, there are marvelous large palaces and cathedrals. The Hapsburgs ruled large parts of Europe from here for roughly 600 years.  Christians repelled the Turks here over the ages.  The Opera House and Schoenbrunn Palace were awesome.  St Stephen’s Cathedral is impressively large.  At Schoenbrunn Palace, we saw the room where Mozart had his first performance for the queen at the age of six.  The Imperial Treasury holds important crowns jewels and many other religious and royal artifacts.  Of course we had to have Wienerschnitzel (Vienna Cutlet) while in Vienna (twice) and some Sachertorte, a particular type of chocolate cake originating in Vienna.

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A sign on the building adjacent to our AirBnB described a family that was taken by the Nazi’s.  Ironically the building itself was destroyed in bombings later in the war, and rebuilt shortly after the war.

We rented e-bikes and took a ride in the Wachau Valley through small towns, vineyards and apple and apricot trees (reportedly there are 100,000 apricot trees in this valley).  The Melk Abbey is impressively large with commanding views of the Danube, a large ancient library, Catholic relics and goldleaf-covered Gothic Chapel.

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On the way to Budapest, we missed our connection, since I thought we were looking for a bus when in fact it was a train.  Oh the joys of travel.  Two hours later and $100 poorer, we were on our way.

As we crossed the boarder to Hungary from Austria, the masking rules changed.  Hungary has no mask rules on the train, so several masks came off as we crossed the border.  In Austria nearly everyone masked indoors and several restaurants checked our CDC vaccination card before seating/serving us.

Next up, Hungary with a side helping of Slovenia.