Christmas in Austria & Rothenburg

Salzburg


This is a traditional "Good Luck Pig." It has nothing to do with the Chinese "Year of the Pig."


The Christmas Market on Christmas Eve Day, Salzburg


St Peter's Abby cemetery




Look closely, can you see the von Trapps?


Veinna

Christmas Eve with Santa


The Austrian Parliament



My hat is better!


Tammy, Elizabeth, Catherine, Al, & Mike at the Sacher Hotel


Inside the Australian pub!


The city center


The Rathaus at night


100 Hunterwasserhaus

The crappy stairs at 100 Hunterwasserhaus

Heuriger food.....YUM!!!!

Sunrise from our Vienna hotel window

Last view of Austria

Rothenburg

The Night Watch tour guide...I wouldn't mess with him!

Outer wall

Entrance

Going to the village center

The Rathaus...guess which part was destroyed in WWII (It's the white part)

City street

Going to the Criminal Muuseum

The pasteries....

Christmas in Austria....and Rothenburg

This Christmas we went on a guided tour of Austria with our friends Al and Catherine who live in Belgium. The tour itself was sponsored by the MWR (Morale, Welfare, and Recreation) department out of SHAPE (Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe) which is the NATO base in Belgium where our friends work. At first the tour didn’t have enough people booked by the deadline, but someone, somewhere made the trip “happen.” So as it turned out, there were only 21 people, including the driver and his family, on the full size tour bus. Everyone had two seats to themselves, which made the longer travel days much more bearable.

Mike and I headed out to our friends’ house late in the afternoon so we would be able to rise early and go to the trip pickup point on SHAPE. After a great evening with our friends we went to bed early so we could be ready for our 5:30 am pick up. The MWR people were fantastic as they had hot drinks, snacks, and even a little Christmas bag of treats waiting for us. The bus arrived right on time and we each staked out our two seats. Mike and I had to laugh as the first two hours of the trip pretty much covered the same highway that we had just driven the night before.

The first day on the bus was a long one, but it gave us time to visit with the other travelers, watch movies, read, and for the lucky few, even sleep. The driving schedule was set up so that we stopped about every two and a half hours. The bus has a tiny restroom aboard, but it’s always better to use the toilet in the rest stops. Of course the jokes and bad puns started flying early and pretty much continued for the entire week’s trip. Many of the jokes revolved around songs that mentioned the name “Vienna” and foods such as “Vienna Sausages and Vienna Fingers” (a crème filled cookie). The songs included “Vienna Calling” by Falco (an Austrian artist who’s US hit was “Rock Me Amadeus.”) Then the song “Vienna” by Ultravox, which has the line “It means nothing to me. Oh, Vienna.” That line was repeated and sung almost on the hour. The biggest joke was a line from “Men in Black” where Kay introduces Jay to the “worm guys” who are in the break-room making coffee. Kay asks, “What are we drinking today boys?” and one of the worm guys answers, “Viennese cinnamon.” So it was a goal to go to Vienna, eat Vienna sausages and Vienna fingers while drinking Viennese cinnamon coffee and singing “It means nothing to me, Oh Vienna.” The best pun came from Tammy a few days into the trip. She had overheard us going over our “Vienna style food” list and offered up “Vienna-ger.” Get it? “Vinegar…Vienna-ger.” That had us rolling in the aisles.

A heavy fog stated to set in by the afternoon so as we got closer to the Alps and Austria we really couldn’t see anything worth viewing. The sun set around 4:30 so it was dark by the time we arrived in Salzburg. After breakfast the next day we drove down to the old city center of Salzburg for a tour and a visit to the many Christmas markets sprinkled throughout the area. There is a hill right in the center of town that had a funicular railway that took visitors to the top so they could visit the old fortress and monastery. The fog was so thick that it was almost impossible to see the walls of the fortress that were less than a 3rd of a mile up in elevation. Unfortunately our tour did not take us up there as we only had a few hours to visit the city.

As it was Christmas Eve day we got to hear church bells, lots and lots of church bells. In addition, the city’s glockenspiel played “Silent Night” on the hour. It was quite funny as our guide would begin to speak and then more bells from a different church would begin to ring. It was almost deafening at some locations. A very interesting part of the tour was through St. Peter’s Abbey cemetery and catacombs. Unfortunately the catacombs were closed due to the holiday. On an interesting side note, when the film makers of “The Sound of Music” went to the convent that Maria von Trapp had been studying at to possibly film there, they were told to “get lost.” While looking elsewhere they found the cemetery at St. Peter’s. When they inquired about filming there, they were promptly told to “get lost”. However, in the movie when the family is hiding from the Nazis in a graveyard, it is an exact replica of the cemetery at St. Peter’s in Salzburg.

We also saw Mozart’s birth house, which wasn’t really that special. While he may have been born in Salzburg, he really made a name for himself in Vienna. We finished up the morning with a little Christmas market shopping and drinking gluehwein, which is a hot spiced red wine. According to our guide the Austrian version is a little more notorious than the German gluehwein. “One glass makes you feel good, two glasses makes it so that you don’t care, and after three you can’t walk.” It seemed like a challenge to me, but alas I only managed to drink two cups before it was time to leave for Vienna.

Everyone really enjoyed our stay in Salzburg and my biggest complaint for the entire trip was that we simply didn’t get enough time in the city. It’s on my “list” of places to return to, I just don’t know if we’ll be able to get back there.

The drive to Vienna was quite pleasant. We stopped at a nice roadside resort and restaurant for lunch, but the fog was so bad that it was impossible to enjoy the view of the lake below us or the hills across from our location. We arrived in Vienna earlier than scheduled, which allowed us to take a “night tour” along the city ring. It’s a very beautiful city made even more beautiful with the many strings of white Christmas lights strung throughout the city streets and buildings.

Our hotel was located right off the main ring road and right next to a beautiful gothic style church. Our room was a bit small, but functional. The hotel was over 100 years old and was decorated in deep reds, dark woods, and very Victorian-ish style furnishings. The only exception was the European beds in the room. The Germans and the Austrians seem to favor a very low bed frame that has only a single mattress with no box spring. The height of the mattress is around knee level, which can make rolling out of bed a completely new experience. The bed frames are a small wooden box which holds a twin size mattress. In a double room two “boxes” are pushed together and sometimes a large single flat sheet is used as the bottom sheet. It can be very surprising to roll to the middle of what you assume is a double bed, only to jam your knee on the wooden frame between the actual mattresses. In other hotels, as this one, each bed had its own linen and duvet. There are no “top sheets” as the duvet has a covering that is changed (I hope) after each guest. The pillows are usually a very large square filled with feathers. Unfortunately, the pillows on this trip seemed a few geese short. Our room also had a “schrank” or “wardrobe” for our clothes, a small TV, and tiny “sitting area” which was in direct competition for suitcase space.

After resting a bit we freshened up and headed to the dinning room for out “gourmet Christmas dinner.” In Europe it is the tradition to celebrate with a large meal on Christmas Eve rather than Christmas day as we do in North America. We sat at a table with out friend’s Al and Catherine and met another couple from our trip. After reading the translation of the “special” Christmas menu my heart began to sink. I was really looking forward to diving into some hearty Austrian roasts and such, but the menu was very “continental.” Which is the nice was of saying it was “foo-foo food.” And, while I tend to be very adventurous when it comes to eating, I wasn’t reassured by the evening’s offerings. I even began jonesing for the bag of beef jerky that we had up in the room and figured that Mike and I would be making a meal of it after “dinner.”

The starter was some kind of pate (which is foo-foo for “it’s made of liver”) whipped into a mousse with a special “crude ham.” Now, I like ham, but I wasn’t sure about the “crude” type. The “ham” was a prosciutto style, which while eatable, was a bit dry and lacked any real flavor. I didn’t try any of the pate-mouse as it is liver and I don’t eat liver simply because I know what a liver does and I’d rather eat a fuel filter than put liver in my mouth. I also know that when it comes to food, that it’s “mind over matter.” Well, I mind and it matters! Next course was the soup. Ah yes, I believe it was called “chestnut foam soup” with another fancy name for the semmel dumpling accompanying it. The dumplings are common in “Germanic” cooking and resemble a round ball made of cream of wheat which is then covered in gravy. Of course we started making fun of the soup name long before it was served. Can you imagine some poor chef who had to put his lips into every bowl of soup and make motor boat noised until the soup “foamed” up? Then after a dozen or so bowls, he would look up, moustache dripping with soup and declare, “For this I went to Cordon Bleu?” This had the six of us cracking up and the others in the group looking over. My guess is that they were jealous of all the fun that we were having. Oh, the soup was actually quite nice. It was a cream soup, blended with some chestnuts I imagine and went well with the cream of wheat ball.

The salad was uneventful compared to the other courses. Then the main course arrived and I was again sorely disappointed. We received a few tiny slices of goose breast that was stuffed with pate…you can just re-read my rant about pate/liver again if you wish. I scraped the liver paste aside and finished off the so-so goose meat. The sad part is that I was looking forward to the goose and it was a letdown, whereas the soup that we had made fun of was really good. During this meal I saw “Santa” walk by the dining room window twice and then we started joking that he was really a burglar who was staking the joint. Well, Santa did come in and gave us all a treat of the local Mozart chocolates. The dessert was nice, but not what any of us expected for an Austrian meal. It was a vanilla tort that had cake for a crust rather than the usual “pie like” crust. We were also served Christmas cookies along with our coffee, but based on their hardness they were the cookies left over from last Christmas. This observation set us all off into another fit of giggles and general silliness.

After the entire event was over we all went to our rooms as it was getting late and we were flat out exhausted. Some people choose to attend Midnight Mass at St. Stevens Cathedral, but I’m sure that you guessed that we were not amongst them. Later that night, promptly at 12:01 I was awoken by the bells of the “cathedral” style church right outside our bedroom window. It was actually really cool to hear the bells and think about what they stood for…then suddenly I had a gut ache. I went to the bathroom, but the ache got worse and worse. Then it became obvious to me that while the bells rang out announcing the celebration of Jesus' birth, I would be praying to him on the “great white.” Without going into detail, let me just assure you that it was a very violent episode that repeated itself four times and when I was done I was just grateful that I hadn’t knocked myself out cold on the toilet seat.

I brushed my teeth and returned to bed, feeling very weak, but much better. As I got comfortable I head Mike ask, “Are you OK?” I assured him that I was, but my body just ached from the muscle spasms. Then I teased him about waiting for me to return to bed before checking on me. He replied that when he’s sick that he’d rather be left alone and while I was sick he was lying in fear thinking, “Oh, great. We ate the same thing, so I’m next.” I’m happy to report that he was not next and it seems that everything just hit my stomach wrong for some reason…or maybe I should have attended mass. Of course puking at a crowded mass wouldn’t have been well received, so I’ll just stay home next year too, just to be safe.

The next morning, Christmas Day, I was ravenous and was very happy to see that the hotel served bacon, sausage, and eggs along with the more traditional offerings of a European breakfast. We met out friends and two more people, Tammy and Elizabeth, who work at the US embassy in Brussels. They were great sports as we made our plans for the day’s events. The original schedule had us taking a tour of the city, but as I mentioned earlier, the Austria tour had been canceled so we lost our tour guide booking and another one could not be found. Who knew that Christmas day tours were so common? The only thing that I had really wanted to do was to check out the “world famous” torte at the Sacher Hotel in downtown Vienna. Al and Mike wanted to find the downtown skating rink as four of us had packed our ice skates in anticipation of a Christmas Day skate.
We headed out along the ring road walking by the most fabulous Rathaus I have ever seen. (A Rathaus is the city hall; it literally translates to “advice house.” But the term “rat” has a nice ring to it don’t cha think?). There was a Christmas market on the grounds in front of the place, but we didn’t want to wait around for all of the vendors to open for business, so we pressed on. The walk itself was very enjoyable and we took some great group photos in front of the Austrian Parliament which was another incredible looking building. In fact, in my humble opinion, Vienna has the most beautiful over all architecture of any of the European cities that I have been too. It is very ornate, clean, bright, and beautiful buildings simply dominate the area inside the ring road.

When we got to the Sacher Hotel there was already a line outside the door to the café. I was bummed as I really wanted to try the torte that had been recommended to me by another friend. Besides, going to Vienna and having that torte is simply a “must do.” It’s even listed in “1,000 Places to See Before You Die.” We all know how I get about those “must do” things when I travel and I usually have a blast doing it, even if it’s really cheesy. So we decided to go a half block to Starbucks so Tammy could purchase a souvenir Vienna mug to add to her collection. A nice travel secret about Starbucks is the clean and FREE bathrooms. Of course the Viennese cinnamon jokes were flying at this point. Can you believe that the rat bastards at Starbucks didn’t even serve Viennese cinnamon? Once the mug was paid for and our bladders “rested” we headed back to the Sacher to discover that there was no line and we could be seated next.

Everyone but Elizabeth ordered the torte and some sort of coffee. She had been to Vienna before and said that she wasn’t impressed much by the torte, so she tried another delicious looking sweet. Looking back I can agree with her summation of the torte. It is a dry heavy cake covered in sumptuous chocolate. In the center of the cake there is a thin layer of an apricot preserve. It was nice, but if I were to go back I would also try another dessert. It was interesting to note that all of our coffees were served with a small glass of water in the true Viennese tradition. The coffee is usually quite strong and a glass of water afterwards really goes down well.

The rest of the day was spent leisurely strolling through the shopping district and participating in window shopping. The area was actually pretty full and a few shops, mostly selling souvenirs, we opened for business. I side street lead us to an Australian pub, yes, AUSTRALIAN….not Austrian. One is an island continent with kangaroos and well, there are no kangaroos in Austria. That provided a good laugh. We passed by St. Stevens Cathedral and headed towards the central park and opera house. Once there we posed for pictures around all of the statues of Mozart and Strauss. While we headed to a pricy hotel for a potty break we noticed that the Iraqi Embassy was located on some prime real estate right next to the park.

Everyone was getting hungry but we really didn’t want another hotel meal so we headed back to the city center in search of a cozier, less formal, and less expensive place to eat. We found an awesome Austrian pub (not Australian) that made a great goulash soup and featured about 100 different kinds of “toasties.” A "toastie” is just a slice of bread with different topping which are then…well I’m sure that you know this…toasted. I chose the “Transylvania,” which was two big slices of a dark rye bread covered with chopped garlic. It was delightful and it also ensured that I had enough garlic in my system to keep the vampires away for at least a week.

It was during this lunch that I mentioned that it was my dream to go to Romania and that I had found a great tour company that did a Dracula tour that I was simply “drying” to go on. Tammy’s ears perked up and she said that she had also wanted to do a tour like the one I was describing. I gave her some more information and then mentioned that I had inquired about the single supplement as Mike didn’t care to go. At this point she offered to be my roommate for the tour and now we are planning on going to Transylvania this Halloween.

After walking back to the hotel we had a bit of time to rest before dressing for dinner at the hotel and then we were off to a Strauss concert. After dinner I was very full, very tired, and ready to slip into my PJs and have an early night. I could tell that Mike was in the same frame of mind, but we decided to “gut it out” and do what one did in Vienna, which is attend a classical concert. The concert was at the “Kursalon Wien” which was completed in 1867 and first served as a “place to drink the curative waters; the Viennese soon claimed this wonderful building for their own purpose. Dances and promenade concerts, many of them conducted by Johann Strauss himself, of by his brother Eduard, filled this house with an atmosphere full of waltz enchantment and zest for life.”…ok, ok so on with my story.

During our bus ride there we passed directly by the ice rink that we had been searching for earlier that day and to add insult to injury, it was located right behind the hotel where we had taken a potty break and right across from the Iraq embassy. The concert was presented in a saloon style. The chairs were placed in row on the dance floor and the musicians were on a small portable stage in the front of the room. The event was only about half full and could probably hold roughly 300 people. Mike and I just cracked up when we saw the Grand Circle tour group and scanned the crowd for any faces that we might have recognized from our Egypt tour. We laughed harder when we spotted a tour member wearing very obnoxious green, red, black, and while plaid pants. Mike had been worried that his black jeans and cowboy boots wouldn’t be dressy enough, but after seeing the other guy he knew he was safe from the fashion police.

The concert ended up being a real highlight of the trip. It was a mixture of Strauss, Mozart, a Christmas medley, and a few other composers. They didn’t have a conductor, but played in the true Viennese fashion with a “leader” playing first violin as Strauss was know to do. During the musical performance there were couples who performed waltzes (no surprise there, eh?), some ballet (which I could have done without) and a freaking fantastic baritone who sang “The Magic Flute” and performed the other duets. The best part about his performance was his total stage presence. When he first came out he had a big grin and there was a slight chuckle because of his obvious Asian heritage. Once he opened his mouth he owned the room. I have to admit that seeing an Asian dude sing in German was a bit strange, but he really made the show memorable.

The next morning was spent on the bus touring the outer part of Vienna. Our tour guide was from Romania and while she spoke English, she was difficult to understand at times and she spoke too quickly pointing out one sight to the next. I began to wonder if she ever stopped for a breath. After the outer city tour we visited the Hunterwasserhaus which is a subsidized housing apartment complex that was designed by a modern art painter of the same name in the 80’s. He believed that “straight lines are godless” and was against “window racism” meaning that each window in the complex was different. He planted trees on the roof, so that there was sever water damage to the top floor units and trees also grow out from the side of the building. While you cannot visit the actual apartments there was a shop across the street designed in the same style. This “style” is actually very disconcerting as all of the walls, floors, and even stairs have some sort of curve and unevenness to them. I almost become motion sick in the restroom there do to the curvature of the walls, stalls and the very vibrant graffiti style of art work. On a side note, almost all of the original tenants moved out complaining of sprained ankles and furniture that wobbled due to the uneven floors.

Next we headed with our guide to the city center where she, like our guide in Salzburg, had to compete with the church bells. At this point we had already visited many sights so five of us decided to give our regrets to the tour organizer and slip away from the tour to do our own thing. They were headed to the royal palace next and I have a good feeling knowing that I would not be missing much as I had already head my filled of old furniture and artwork. I have to admit that I’m getting a bit jaded about most of the churches, palaces, and famous works of art. It’s kind of like all of the sex temples in Egypt, after awhile it’s just another fucking temple.

Our little adventurous group walked the side road parallel to the main shopping drag and ended back up at the Australian pub from a day earlier. We squeezed into a small table area and ordered some fine Aussie beers. The family sitting in the only booth at the back of the pub was getting ready to leave, so we poised ourselves to take over that spot ASAP. Another group of 3 had come in and they were also eyeing the same spot, so as soon as it was appropriate we tossed our winter coats over the railing and Al made the dash to claim the area as ours. Ah, teamwork!

The menu was a little unique as one of the appetizer platters had battered crickets on it, which we all decided to skip. Some got the fish and chips, but most of us ordered that kangaroo burger, which was actually pretty tasty. We drank more beer of course and just had a fun time hanging out.

After heading back to our hotel a few of us checked out the Irish pub that was just down the street. Of course the guys who came in to watch the football (soccer) match had to sit right next to our table and light up. Then when I cheered for the wrong team I received death stares, those Brits take their soccer way to seriously if you ask me. So I went back to our room for a bit of a lie down before dinner.

Dinner was a real treat as we went to a Heuriger, which is a “typical” Austrian home-style restaurant that served up food “family style” and provided live music. The restaurant was in an old house and we were seated in a room at the top floor. The accordion player stayed in our room throughout most of the meal and played many famous Austrian waltzes, folk songs, songs from The Sound of Music, and even a few American favorites such as Home on the Range.” FYI, “Edelweiss” the song from “The Sound of Music” is NOT the Austrian national anthem and it is most certainly not even an Austrian song. However many enterprising Austrians now market music boxes with the song in it simply because Americans will buy it. Plus, all of the musicians there now know it.
The meal itself was served on large platters at each table. We had the usual European style salad, which is mostly julienne carrots, cucumber, and cabbage. Then there was a platter of potatoes and cooked veggies. The main platter was piled high with pork and ham slices accompanied by the best roasted chicken I have ever eaten.
Unfortunately the drink selection was not that great. Traditionally you drank a “young” white wine and mixed it with carbonated water. They even had the old fashioned “spritzer” bottles. They only had one kind of beer and it was very disappointing. Being that I’m not a huge fan of white wine (and the fact that it wasn’t very good) I drank a lot of the carbonated water. The entire experience was a lot of fun thought and I would recommend it to anyone going to Austria.

The next morning we began our return trip, planning to stop in the early afternoon in the medieval town of Rothenburg, Germany. Even after all we had seen and done, this visit was really a high point of our trip. Rick Steve’s uses a picture of the village on the cover of his “Germany and Austria” guide book, as do many others. It’s one of the most perfectly picturesque villages I have seen outside of Disney World. Our hotel was outside of the city walls, but we were within a 10 minute walk to the center of the old village. Now it is a tourist town, but one well worth seeing. It is listed as having one of the best Christmas markets in Germany. The best recommendation I can give about Rothenburg is, if you go to Germany, make a point to spend one day here. It’s small, so that’s all you need, but you will enjoy yourself so much that you will thank me later!

Our group of 5 headed into town in the late afternoon just to do some general exploring. We crossed over the moat and under the drawbridge casement and it was like we had walked into anther century. Even though half of the village was destroyed in WWII, it had all been repaired to its original look. The entire village is surrounded by a wall and you can walk along that wall. Most of the stores were geared towards the tourist trade, but they really had some beautiful trinkets at great prices. There were also many lanterns, wind chimes, ceramic goods, crystals, semi precious stones, decorative stones, antiques, medieval costuming both decorative and authentic, and the most comprehensive German souvenir shops that I have even seen in my life. At that shop I found one of the best hats in the world. It was red velvet and had a stuffed devil on the front with his tail attached to the back. It most certainly got a lot of laughs when I wore it for the rest of the evening.

At dinner time we meet our entire tour at the Rathaus (City hall) and walked to our restaurant for dinner. In the typical European fashion, dinner was very slow being served, so we had to leave before dessert in order to join the famous “Nigh Watch Tour.” Only our group of 5 went on the tour that followed a night watchman as he made is rounds through the dark village streets. He provided us with much of the history of the village and explained many of the reason behind some of the unique architectural structures. It was money well spent. After the tour we headed back to the restaurant where we had eaten dinner and enjoyed apfelstrudel and coffee before heading back into the cold night and walking to our hotel.

The next morning was also ours to spend as we wanted in the village. We visited the Medieval Crime and Punishment Museum and then did more shopping. I went back to the great souvenir shop and purchased a Christmas Pyramid. That is the wooden stand that has different levels that spin due to the heat from the candles that surround it. Our friends bought a decorative crossbow and battle ax that was more functional than decorative. We all had some coffee and a famous pastry that is made in the village, which I can’t seem to recall the name of. It was dough strips that had been rolled into a ball, fried, and then dipped into various coatings. To be honest, it wasn’t the best, which is probably why I can’t seem to remember the name.

We boarded the bus at 1pm and headed back into Belgium to end our journey. We drove though Luxembourg City, but the sun had already set so I really couldn’t see much but the lights from the autobahn. We stopped for dinner right inside the Belgium border and had the worst meal ever experienced on our trip. On our “travel days” we had been stopping at the roadhouses right alongside the autobahn, while expensive, the food had usually been very decent and there was a fair selection of hot meals, soups, salad, and sandwiches. This place was just awful. I mean, it was bad enough that they were speaking French, but the restaurant had been picked clean. There were no sandwiches, there was one kind of unidentifiable soup, and I have no clue as to what the hot meal really was. When we looked in the store part of the facility they had 3 cheese sandwiches left in a very large cooler. Needless to say a lot of people went hungry.

Last meal aside, the trip itself was a wonderful experience and I’m very glad that we went. It was such a blast to spend the holidays with friends and to make new friends on the trip. If given the chance I would most definitely do it all over again. The best part is that our vacation really wasn’t over at this point as Mike and I were going to spend New Year’s at Al and Catherine’s….which is another story.