December 7 - Arrival in Vienna

We were a rather bleary-eyed group and not very chatty at breakfast this morning at 6:30 a.m. At least there were no crowds around the coffee machine or the buffet. We hustled into two taxis at 7:30 a.m. that I had ordered the day before at reception. It wasn’t far, as the crow flies, to the train station, but it would have been a chore with suitcases and all our shopping loot over cobblestones. Vicky wisely invested in a second suitcase last night for her shopping acquisitions. Some of us may rent space in that bag as the days go on.

The Prague train station (the main one – not the outlier one we arrived at on Sunday) is huge and has little or no useful signage. We eventually found the right train, the right car and the right seats and settled in for a 5-hour journey to Vienna. We seem to end up with only a few forward-facing seats. Sue and Vicky get the first two, and we duke it out for the rest of them. Only two on this ride, so I’m getting very little view of the scenery.

The sun is actually out today for the first time since we arrived in Europe a week ago. We have all had to dig out our sunglasses and have had to pull down the window blind on the train car. You’d have to have a high tolerance for cloudy, overcast days from November to April to live in this part of the world.

Vienna is the capital, largest city, and one of nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's most populous city and its primate city, with about two million inhabitants (2.9 million within the metropolitan area, nearly one third of the country's population), and its cultural, economic, and political center. It is the 6th-largest city proper by population in the European Union and the largest of all cities on the Danube river.

In 2001, the city center was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. In July 2017 it was moved to the list of World Heritage in Danger due a planned high-rise development in the city centre. Additionally, Vienna is known as the "City of Music" due to its musical legacy, as many famous classical musicians such as Beethoven and Mozart called Vienna home. Vienna is also said to be the "City of Dreams" because it was home to the world's first psychoanalyst, Sigmund Freud.

We got into the main train station (which is HUGE) just about 1:00 p.m. I hope we don’t all develop pneumonia because there were a lot of germs on that train, coupled with very sketch mask wearing techniques. We all wear our masks on the trains, except while eating. We found our way to street level and walked the few hundred meters to the hotel with no cobblestones in sight. The rooms weren’t ready yet, so we put our luggage in the secure lock up room and went out to find some lunch. This area has virtually nothing but apartment and office buildings. We finally found a little Italian place and had really good salads and pizza. Fed and watered, we went back to the hotel at 2:30 p.m. and found that our rooms were indeed ready.

And the drama began again – just like in Dresden. Although the reservation had clearly stated that we needed twin/separate beds in all rooms, we got two mattresses pushed together on one frame in all three rooms. The dormitory/triple room also had a pull-out couch with a very thin foam mattress. The staff just sort of shrugged their shoulders and said there was nothing else available, and that we would have to put up with the arrangements. The double rooms are so small that there is no possibility of putting a cot/roller bed in them. There is a very slim chance that we might be able to move to a bigger room tomorrow. So, we are living pretty close to another for the night.

Sheilagh and Mary Ann decided that they would like some quiet time, so they stayed back while the other five set out. We have cards that give us access to the metro/tram system, so we hopped on the metro and went a couple of stops to Stephansplatz which is the area around St. Stephen’s Cathedral. St. Stephen's Cathedral is the mother church of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Viennaand the seat of the Archbishop of Vienna. The current Romanesque and Gothicform of the cathedral, seen today in the Stephansplatz, was largely initiated by Duke Rudolf IV (1339–1365) and stands on the ruins of two earlier churches, the first a parish church consecrated in 1147. The most important religious building in Vienna, St. Stephen's Cathedral has borne witness to many important events in Habsburg and Austrian history and has, with its multi-coloured tile roof (covered with 230,000 coloured tiles), become one of the city's most recognizable symbols. St. Stephen is generally considered to be the first martyr of Christianity. According to the Acts of the Apostles, he was a deacon in the early Church at Jerusalem who angered members of various synagogues by his teachings. Accused of blasphemy at his trial, he made a speech denouncing the Jewish authorities who were sitting in judgment on him and was then stoned to death. Saul of Tarsus, later known as Paul, a Pharisee and Roman citizen who would later become a Christian apostle, participated in Stephen's martyrdom.

We went into the church while there was still some light as stained glass generally looks better in daylight. This church, oddly enough, doesn’t have a lot of stained glass. We couldn’t walk up the main aisle, but we could get a sense of the grandeur and magnificence of the building - all built without the benefit of power tools or computers. We lit a candle and said some prayers and headed back out.

Christmas Market stalls are located on two of the four sides of the cathedral. We found the merchandise to be better quality than in Prague, but more expensive. We found some good items.

The whole ambiance of the square changed between 4:30 and 5:00 p.m. with dusk and then darkness. There are many streets that fan out from the square like the spokes of a wheel. Many of them are illuminated with elaborate overhead displays which look incredibly beautiful in the dark. We checked them out and ducked into interesting (mostly high end shops). I made a major purchase in the Läderach Chocolate Shop. We are going back tomorrow. Over the past two days, I have lost the right glove from both of the pairs of gloves that I brought, so I bought red gloves with fake rhinestones in the hope that they will be noticed if I drop them.

Vicky suggested, that given our late lunch, that we pick up dinner fixings in a grocery store and have a picnic in the dormitory room. We took the metro back to the main station and found the grocery store and picked up sandwiches, fruit and wine. We had a grand old picnic with chunks of decadent chocolate for dessert, and mapped out tomorrow’s activities.

Tomorrow, December 8th, is Lukas’s birthday – he is Angela’s oldest son, and he is turning 30 tomorrow. He is a bit under the weather. We have a lunch reservation at 1:00 p.m. at a lovely little café. Hopefully he’ll be able to join us. Angela will check in on him in the morning.

I have booked a walking tour for all of us - a group of four and a group of three - under two different names for 3:00 p.m. I am wise to the ways of the booking system now. The tour will finish at St. Stephen’s Cathedral at 5:00 p.m. when the lights will be so magical. Everyone will be able to enjoy them. We also downloaded a commentary to accompany a tram ride that circles the old part of the city. It will show us many of the main sights. We will know a little bit about the city before we start the walking tour.

Breakfast will be at 8:30 a.m. That will feel better than this morning’s 6:30 a.m. meeting. We all need a bit of a sleep in. Travel days, we are finding, are quite tiring, especially when the hotel reservation isn’t correct.Read more