We're Home!

No problems flying home today.

Flew from Vienna through Frankfurt and direct to Ottawa. Frankfurt airport was unexpected. We had to take stairs down from a huge plane due to major airport construction and buses to/from terminal, just like the old TO airport!

Here's Ida with a cute escort!

Biggest thrill was seeing Greenland for the first time.

In summary, I had some blog challenges with different computers and keyboards in each city. Every city had a different keyboard, English, Slovak, Czech, German, Hungarian. I now know several ways to find the "@" key! Was not able to upload pictures sent to me by email either, so have added a few more now that I am back home.

Hope you have enjoyed following trip!



Warm regards to all,
Ida, Paul and Anne

Schonbrunn, Tuesday Afternoon

We got some good advice from our Concierge today and spent a lovely afternoon at the Schonbrunn Palace and market near our hotel.

Took the subway out to Schonbruun and took a tour of the palace. Forty rooms in 60 minutes, that's my kind of HGTV tour!

Nice back yard as you can see, and quaint Gazebo with pond. Loved the loggia with purple flowers. Walked up to the Gazebo and got some nice shots of the Palace with city in the background. This was the summer palace of the Hapsburg family.

Took the subway back home and got off one stop before the Opera. The market was right there. Bought some fresh strawberriies and Indian Paprika to take home.

Morning in Vienna - May 11

Got up early again and headed our for a walk. Another pleasant morning, cool with a bit of sun.

I think I mentioned that our hotel is kitty-corner to the Hofburg palace. We walked through the gardens on our last visit here. Lovely palace and gardens, not! Actually we walked through their BACK yard. Here's a photo of the back and front. You can see the Hofburg's put a bit more money into the front of the house. Good curb appeal!

We walked by a monument dedicated to communist Russia when they occupied Austria. Accordng to our tour guide yesterday (we did learn a few things), President Putin was recently here and laid a wreath. If you look carefully you can see a ton of flowers at the base.

The last shot is that of another museum across the street from the Hofburg Palace and down a few doors from our hotel.

Stay 20 feet behind me!

During our trip I've been taking most of the pictures. Quite often, I have had to wait for someone to get out of the way of the picture. Several times I have had to advise this guy to stay "20 feet behind me" - don't want him wandering off and getting lost do I?

Wherever I go, whatever city I'm in, he seems to appear in at least one shot. I've tried to lose him just about every day, but he always seems to find me. Maybe it's my hat. I might not wear it tomorrow.

Oswald Family Crest

Did you know the Oswald family has a crest?

Peter Vira has been doing some research on the Oswald family and found this crest. He's not sure what the symbolism is, but will continue researching. I think I mentioned previously that he has a story about the Oswald family dating back to the 1500's. Maya says it is in story format, a bit convoluted, but Maya hopes to get it organized to make a clearer story. I think there is some confusion on names.

Anyway, we are not sure what the family motto is, but we think it should be, in Latin of course, "Leave your shoes at the door!"

Most Barrons that I know hate wearing shoes. They take them off in cars, they kick them off as soon as they enter their home, or any home actually.

As soon as I walked into the Vira home, I was greeted with a display of shoes at the door. Could this be a family trait of the Oswalds? Could this be another family mystery solved? They warmly greeted us and advised us to take off our shoes. When we went to the Krupka's house, we asked if we should take off our shoes, but were advised to keep them on.

So there is another family mystery solved. Oswald's don't like to wear shoes. It's in their soles!

Disappointing Day in Vienna

Well, the day started well. Paul and I walked the outer limits of the city, didn't see much, but got a good walk in.

We grabbed some lunch and got picked up at the hotel for a bus/cruise tour.

The city portion was just awful. No historic buildings, but the ones they showed did not seem to have any relevance. The tour did get interesting as we headed out of town and up into the woods. A small town there was quite quaint and Beethoven and Albert Einstein both lived there. Why they lived there or when, we'll never know! There was never any opportunity to get pictures, as the bus never slowed down.

The tour guide had no animation, spoke three languages, all in monotone. He never shared any information about what we were looking at. There was also an artistic community and many wealthy celebrities/politicians live in this area.

We stopped for 30 minutes at the top of the hill. We were surpised at the size Vienna. We reflected that we really could have gotten into a lot of difficulty trying to find our hotel on our last two visits here! So we really were never lost, we were always in the Centrum!

Headed for the cruise and that was the real disappointment. Nice interior of the boat, but no decking in order to take photos. Our cruise in Prague was much better. Grabbed this picture of the red roofed church. What church is it? I have no idea.

There was no tour guide on the boat either, just a recorded commentary on some of things we were looking at. Very short trip on the Danube and couldn't see much, except one hill. Then we went up the canal, through a lock (30 minutes) and couldn't see much, but graffitied walls. Trees generally blocked our view and not much to see really.

They did seem to be very proud of their sewage treatment plant. That's the picture with the blue/gold ball. I must say it is the most attractive and impressive sewage treatment plant I have seen!

Towards the end of the tour, it poured. We had been told we would be dropped off at the Opera which is right across the street from us. Unfortunately, that did not happen, so we ended up taking the subway back to the hotel.

Maps?! We don' need no stinkin' maps!!

Years from now, some may want to speculate on how the Barrons managed to navigate through Europe without GPS, Mapquest, detailed city maps or Zuzanna. (Note to future travellers, Mapquest does not yet provide driving directions or maps for central Europe.)
If they were the detectives from Law & Order, they would question how we arrived in cities at 2:30 pm, but arrived at our hotel at 4:00. Or if we left the hotel at 9:00 a.m., why did it take more than hour to actually leave the city?
Did we stop to shop? Perhaps someone needed to find a bathroom? Perhaps someone was hungry? Or indeed, were the Barrons lost in Europe?
We would say 'No', at all times we knew we were in Europe! We knew when we were in Vienna! We knew when we were in Prague!! The only time we MAY have been lost was attempting to reach our hotel in Bratislava. There were times we were not exactly sure if we were in Austria, Slovakia, or indeed Hungary, but we were confident we were nearing Bratislava and the centrum (city centre).
Today, May 9, Mutterdag in Vienna, we departed Budapest with no problems and arrived in Vienna with a few more detours to get to our hotel. Paul and I then dropped off the car (took a little longer than we expected to get back out of town) at the Airport and took the CAT back to the city and walked back to our hotel. Tour buses and walking will be our mode of transportation for the next few days. Paul can finally relax knowing he doesn't have to drive the standard anymore. By the way. we learned today that there is a European website that provides driving directions and we are'nt going to tell anyone how to get to it.