Category: austria

In our quest to investigate every “Versailles of” we decided to visit the Versailles of Austria Schonbrunn palace. This one came close to matching Versailles in size and splendor.

Schonbrunn palace was the summer residence of the Hapsburg dynasty, and was used for 170 years until the fall of the Hapsburgs in 1918. The Hapsburgs as a dynasty were not slouches ruling Austria, and varying other parts of Europe for over 600 years.

The palace has over 1200 rooms and a gigantic garden. Our tour today was limited to 25 rooms that were the sleeping quarters and work space of King Franz Joseph who was King of Austria for 70 years, as well as the main public rooms of the palace.

As you walk up to the palace we were struck by the amount of commercial activity taking place in front of the palace on the grounds. There were many food and souvenir stands, and even carnival rides. It felt more like a fair grounds than the entrance to a great palace. Ton was a little taken aback, but I thought it was kind of fun. The grounds are free to visit and they are immense and I imagine that on nice days and summer they are buzzing with tourists and locals alike.

The palace itself was beautiful and as ostentatious as you would expect for a place that was meant to compete with Versailles. The working rooms were meant by Franz Joseph to be modest, but modest for an Emperor is quite different than modest for most people.

The main ball room was spectacular, but not as spectacular as the hall of mirrors in Versailles. But it came a close second.

It took us about two hours to go thru all 25 rooms. We had planned on spending some time in the gardens, but while they are immense and pretty they did not grab our attention. We sat on a bench for 15 or 20 minutes taking it in and then decided to head back to the center.

By the time we returned to the center of the city it was nearly 2pm and we were ready for a late lunch. We headed to a place that was recommended yesterday. It is supposed to be a bit of a hidden gem. To keep up with our Vienna experience we ordered two of the dishes Vienna is famous for Schnitzel and Goulash. The food was fine. So far our verdict on Austrian food is… fine. We have yet to have anything that has wowed us.

One thing Vienna does spectacularly is the streets. They are built for walking, and pedestrians are definitely king here. There are multiple wide boulevards lined with interesting shops to wander down and almost no vehicle traffic. Of the large cities we have visited in Europe I think Vienna is the best for just strolling around.

On one of the streets we came across St. Peters Church and popped inside to check it out. It was ornate and beautiful. Ton really liked it and spent 30 minutes exploring. I spent a lot of that time sitting in a chair and taking in the place, it is built to overwhelm the senses and it succeeds. It also features concerts in the evening, and it looks like it would be a great place to take in some of the music that Vienna is famous for.

After St. Peters we decided to head back to François for the evening. I think the problem with Vienna is going to be managing what to see, as the options for concerts, museums, and just walking the streets are so diverse and tempting that it would take weeks to do the city justice.

Vienna is really the beginning of our planned trip. Everything up to now was fun but it was positioning to get us to the heart of trip.

Ton has visited this area before on tours, and as we have been traveling the last few years she has kept saying I need to see Vienna and Budapest. Last night we were having a discussion about how to do our visit to Vienna. In the end it seemed very complex so we decided to begin the visit by doing a walking tour of the city and see what it inspired in us.

We arrived downtown a couple of hours before our tour was due to begin so we visited the Nacht Market. The Nacht Market is a permanent market that has been in place for 150 years or so in the median of a major road.

We gave it a pass thru with an eye towards finding a coffee shop. Ton said there was a special pastry we needed to try called a Sacher Torte, since I never need encouragement to try a piece of cake I was all in. Nowhere in the market grabbed us, but just up the street we saw a place. We also ordered the special coffee of Vienna called Melange. They were both good, but neither struck as special, the Melange was a mild form of Latte with coffee instead of espresso, and the Sacher Torte was well… chocolate cake a little on the dry side. We were wondering if we had picked a bad place, but on the tour later the guide who was a native of Vienna, but had lived in France for 28 years gave the exact review of the cake I just gave including the little dry part. He said it was good marketing by the Sacher Cafe. So we felt vindicated.

The walking tour was very well done and the guide was exceptionally knowledgeable and just opinionated enough to give it authenticity. We enjoyed it a great deal.

The tour hit all of the highlights of the center of the city, but he pointed out several museums that he highly recommended. My first impressions of the city had been that it was a typical European city, but the further we walked the more I realized that it was indeed special.

The tour ended with some recommendations for places to visit away from the center of the city and some restaurants and coffee shops to try. By the end I was sold on a longer stop for Vienna.

We took a quick dive into St. Stephens to check out the interior but it was really crowded so the stop was quick. At the end we took a slow stroll down one of the main streets to the Opera House where we caught a subway back to the campground.

It’s going to be a short one today. Our intent today was to stop near Linz Austria which was about 2 and a half hours from Regensburg. There was only one campsite in Linz and when we arrived about 12:30 it had a sign that registration was closed until 5pm. The barrier was down, but there was a place to punch in a code and a phone number. I tried to call the phone number but no one answered. After about 15 minutes of wandering around we decided to press on to Vienna.

A new trend we are noticing this trip is a sharp reduction in the hours that the reception is open at campground. Campgrounds are now moving towards an expectation that you will make a reservation on line, and receive all of the information you need to access the campground by email, there is not necessarily someone there to meet you and check you in. We are not great planners, and are not happy about this trend as it does not match our spontaneous planning or our computer skills. When we arrived in Vienna at 3:30 there was someone in reception, but when I went back to ask someone a question at 4:15 the office was closed. This reception is only open from 8 to 4. Late arrivals are on their own.

There are no pictures today as the photographer was uninspired, and I think I will sign off as I am tired from my unexpected 6 hour drive including an hour in Vienna’s rush hour.

The trip is winding down. From now on we will be more focused on our progress towards Amsterdam than what cool place we can go see. This is the part of the trip that I don’t like as the feel for the days changes completely. Now we are focused on contacting the storage, finding a place to wash François, mouse proofing François (something new), washing everything we are going to leave behind and all of the other mundane things that go with leaving Europe behind. The rhythm of the travel changes as we pick our places to spend the night based on the proximity to the freeway, instead of its proximity to somewhere interesting.

Having said all of that we don’t need to rush to Amsterdam and will be able to take the trip in short bounds following the A3 Autobahn thru Germany. The weather forecast for today was rain all day, and I really like this campground, and our lakefront spot so I convinced Ton that we should just have a day of rest before setting out.

Since we had time Ton wanted to knock out some laundry. So once again we got to wrestle with an European dryer, this time a German made one, once again without going into the details the results were unsatisfactory and frustrating. One day when I am really bored I am going to do some research on European dryers and why they seem to be designed to leave the clothes damp after spending 90 minutes running.

We are staying in an exceptional campground. It is not the kind of place we usually go to as it is gigantic with around 400 spots. But because the season is almost over there are only around 15 people here. Because of that we are parked 15 feet from the edge of the lake. The facilities are modern and clean, and the wifi is as fast as at home. Like in Switzerland it comes with a pass that allows us to use all of the bus and train facilities in the state. We loved this in Switzerland and were happy to find it here also.

While Villach does not have a reputation of being a tourist town we decided to go into the city center today to check things out. Truth is we probably would not have done that if we had to pay for the bus.

The bus drive into town was very quick because it did not have to stop at any of the 10 bus stops after it picked us up. Villach was very heavily bombed during WWII and about 85% of the buildings in the town were destroyed. Because of this the majority of the buildings are built in a modern style so the feel is not that different to a like sized city in the US.

The town had two churches that were listed as places to see. One was about 100 yards from the bus station so we started there. We then walked to the other church which was about 1/2 a mile away on the main street of town. It was a pleasant walk, and the main street is pedestrian only which allows for window shopping and a nice relaxing stroll.

After about an hour we had seen what we had come to see in Villach. The local brewery called Villach Brewery was located next to the first church we had stopped at and it had a beer hall on site so we decided that would be our lunch stop.

The beer was good and luckily we decided to split our goulash as the portion was immense and more than enough for two. After we finished our lunch we had an hour to kill before the next bus back to the campground which we spent doing grocery tourism. Ton confirmed that prices were higher in Austria than Slovenia and we did not find anything interesting to buy.

In defense of Villach Austrians don’t come here for culture, they come here for access to the outdoors. From Villach you have lakes, rivers, and mountains to play on and in. You fish in the summer, and you ski in the winter. Villach is a place to stay to do those things. It reminds me of Bend Oregon in that way.

Today was a day for taking care of François. We have now owned him for 6 years and put about 65,000 kilometers on him, and spent over 300 nights sleeping in him. He has been a good truck. There are a few small things that needed to be fixed and there was a Knaus dealer just across the border in Villach Austria. So our plan for today was to show up there and see if we could get some work done.

We did some shopping in a the two Slovenian groceries near our aire before leaving as Ton did some research and found that grocery prices were 30% lower in Slovenian than Austria. After stuffing the refrigerator full, she reckons we have enough food to get us to the Netherlands, though I know we will still visit some groceries before the trip is over just for fun. We also topped off the gas tank, and filled our propane. The diesel price was the lowest we have seen in quite a while €1.49 per liter.

The drive over to Villach was less than an hour on good freeways, and included an 8 kilometer (5 mile) tunnel. We arrived at the dealer about 10:30 and went in and asked if they could help with any of our problems. A couple would involve ordering parts and would take a few days to solve, but they agreed to look at a couple of the other issues. All of these issues are very minor, and almost fall into maintenance rather than repair. They asked us to come back at 1 pm after lunch and they would take care of us.

The RV dealer was located in an area with some stores, so we spent about an hour window shopping in several stores. But after being so happy with the price of fuel in Slovenia, the first Austrian gas station had diesel at €1.47, two cents cheaper than we paid in Slovenia. We then had a romantic lunch in the parking lot of the RV dealer before reporting in for our 1 pm appointment. They spent about 90 minutes taking care of a couple of the issues and allowed me to observe what they were doing so I could take care of it myself in the future.

We had picked out a giant campground on a lake near Villach. It took about 20 minutes to get there from the dealer. The check in process was enhanced by a charming front desk person. She said they were pretty quiet so she assigned us a waterfront spot. As you can see from the pictures we are right on the lakes edge. Sunset is coming earlier and earlier, and today it was around 6pm. By the time we got settled in, it was nearly sunset. We went for a walk just before the sun went down, but Ton got some really nice photos. This place is one of the best campgrounds we have stayed in and tomorrow we will have the pictures to prove it.

We had decided we were going into Salzburg today no matter the weather. The weather was bad as it rained nearly all day and it was pretty cool. Looking on the good side it never rained hard, just kind of drizzled all day.

Salzburg besides being a pretty city is known for two things, Mozart and the “Sound of Music.” Everywhere you go as a tourist you are offered opportunities to experience both of them. We of course joined in, focusing mostly on Mozart.

During the peak of Salzburg’s wealth from the salt mines that gave its name it belonged to the Vatican as an independent city. As a result it has a great many churches for a city of its size. We walked around and took in the exterior of most of them, but didn’t bother to go inside any of them. We often debate paying the admission fees when they are in place for the churches. It is obvious that the maintenance costs for these great buildings must be extraordinary, but we have been in so many now that we usually don’t bother going in when it costs money.

The highlight of the day was lunch. Ton had told me that she missed German dumplings so I had picked out a restaurant that was famous (on Trip Advisor!) for its huge bread dumplings. When we arrived they seated us at a table for 8 and said they would be seating another group with us. Luckily for us they were two lovely couples, and a very well behaved dog. I was confused at first because some of their conversation was in German, and then they would switch to proper British accented English. It turns out the older of the two couples were an English-Austrian couple, and the other couple was their daughter who had grown up in England but married a German and lived in Munich. So we had the best of all worlds as they could coach us thru the food and the beer. We had a great time talking to them and helping celebrate the fathers birthday. The food was good, the beer was good, and the company was great. The perfect formula for a memorable meal.

During the conversation they learned Ton was from Thailand, and they laughed and said their dog was originally from Thailand. They had gone on vacation there and the dog was a street dog that hung around the apartment they were using as their base. Over the couple of weeks they were visiting they fell in love with the dog and figured out how to bring her home with them. Her name is now Lucky (actually the German equivalent of lucky that I’ve already forgot.) Ton was tickled to meet another Thai at our lunch, even if she couldn’t talk.

As we were walking around we saw several works of art that we really enjoyed. They varied from the very serious and moving to whimsical and cute.

We had spent our entire day on the rich side of the river so after lunch we crossed over to the working class side of the river. Historically the ruling class lived on one side of the river, and the workers lived on the other side of the Salzach River. So the side with all of the monuments feels quiet and touristy, and the working class side now feels modern and bustling.

Our last stop was the gardens that surround the town hall. It was a little late in the year, but there were still some flowers looking a little worst for wear.

Our last stop was the Gnome Gardens. Their were originally 21 Gnomes carved out of stone and placed in the gardens in the 1600’s. In the early 1800’s they were sold off to individuals. The city has been trying to reacquire them and at this point has managed to regain 18.

Today was another long driving day in bad weather. All together we covered nearly 400km’s (around 250 miles). The trip was all on the autobahn. The only issue today was it rained pretty much all day, sometimes heavily. Despite that we arrived at the Stellplatz (RV park) in Salzburg about 2:00.

We are about 15 to 20 minutes by bus from the center of Salzburg. The debate we had when we arrived was whether to head downtown today or wait for tomorrow. That debate was ended by a sudden downpour that told us to wait for tomorrow. About an hour later the rain let up and we decided to head out to a mall we saw driving in.

What we thought was a mall was a bunch of wholesale stores for different fashion labels. We quickly realized it was not for retail customers, but for buyers. On the way back we noticed two other large building that also contained wholesale shops for clothes. So I guess our non-descript Stellplatz is in the center of the fashion design center for Austria.

We walked back to the Stellplatz, and enjoyed watching the arrivals of a bunch of our fellow RV’ers. It is always fun to watch people arriving and parking their RV’s for the night. Even though it is late September and the weather is pretty poor by 5 o’clock the Stellplatz was full, and people were improvising overflow parking.

Tomorrow we are heading into Salzburg for the day rain or shine. Ton is really looking forward to comparing Austrian potato dumplings with their German cousins!