Smorgasbord of Europe: Vienna (Wien)

The Viennese are sell-proclaimed "grumps". They say they don't like anything 'till it's been around at least hundred years or so. I did not find them to be grumps. They do seem to have a wry sense of humor but self-deprecating. I can see how they wouldn't want things to change, the city obviously tries for perfection. Where Prague reminded me of pieces of cake and fairy tale lands, Vienna is strident in military precision and elegance -- it's buildings standing at attention, gold leafed, and perfect formation. Where Prague was spared the wreckage from the world war, only 30% of the city of Vienna survived the bombings of the war. Vienna was re-built in Baroque style which is perfectly fitting for the city of Mozart and Johann Strauss.

Today we walked around the Ring Road (Ring Straussa), toured the Schonbrunn Palace (which was breathtaking!), ate a wiener schnitzel, a world-famous sacher torte at the Sacher hotel, and an apfel streudel (apple streudel-yum!).

We also toured the Hofburg Imperial Palace where I went in the butterfly museum and palm garden, took pictures of the Mozart memorial, saw the stables of the Lipizzaner stallions (with the horses poking their heads out to watch us pass!) and the Spanish Riding school.

While the Viennese say they are "grumps" when it comes to new things nevertheless they have quite an array of modern art. They have a large modern art museum where I saw the Mona Lisa with a beard and Andy Warhol in a dress. In the afternoon, we went on a ride through the Vienna woods listening to stories of Viennese history - about the Hapsburgs (the woman ruler with the 16 kids again - like Czech Republic she really affected the history here too). We stopped at a lovely country restaurant for a traditional dinner and folk dancing. We were entertained by a wise-cracking accordion player and singer who sang Austrian folk songs but also played the chicken dance and Macarena on the accordion and made everyone dance to it :).