Vacances d'Hiver--What We Did

Besides formulating comparisons of the cities we visited, we had a lot of fun exploring them as well. In Vienna, we visited the Hapsburg Palace, seeing both the extensive china collection and the royal apartments. As a result of this visit, I am now obsessed with the Empress Elizabeth and feel I must read a biography on her. She was this tragic beautiful recluse who was an amazing horse-back rider and accidentally wound up marrying the emperor Franz-Josef because he was meant to marry her older sister and when the families met he saw Elizabeth and fell for her on the spot (not sure what happened to the older sister or how well she handled that unexpected change of events). Also interesting to note is that this Empress had hair down to her ankles that took an entire DAY to wash and her shampoo was a concoction of cognac and egg yolk.

And I sometimes think my beauty rituals are too complicated.

Anyway her whole life sounded really mysterious and tortured and glamourous and tragic. Really, when the writers for the Tudors run out of material, they ought to consider a series on the Hapsburgs.

We also visited the Albertina museum, where they had amazing exhibits on Picasso and Michelangelo. We had a freezing, but fabulous walking tour of the city where I had considerable trouble concentrating due to a combination of brain freeze and my preoccupation with the fact that our guide had gloves with her the whole time, yet she never put them on. She held them in her hand. Was she human? It was negative five hundred out there in Siberia/Vienna.

One evening, we went to a Mozart concert in a castle, where a six piece musical ensemble played while ballet dancers in period costumes acted out the scenes. This show was not amongst my husband's favorite activities of all time, but we followed it up with a visit to a bierhaus, where we drank hearty steins of beer and that definitely was among his favorite activities. My beer, by the way, was called Wiener-Helles. Such information seems important to share.

In Vienna, we also climbed St. Stephen's cathedral, which is a gorgeous landmark in the city center. Actually "we" is a bit of an exaggeration. I made it almost all the way up the close to 400 steps when we came to a plexi-glass catwalk. Obviously, I started sweating profusely and had to show myself down before having a full-blown panic attack due to my fear of heights. Grace Vaughn might remember that move from the failed St. Peters climb in Munich.

What else did we do in Vienna? Well, we ate a lot. More on that to come...

In Prague, we wandered around a good bit on our own, since it is possible to do that quite easily without becoming lost or having to use public transportation. We took a four hour walking tour which, admittedly, sounds pretty aggressive. But it was much more of an amble than it was a walk. And the most arduous portion of the tour, the climb to the Prague Castle across the river from the old town, was accomplished via bus. It was a great tour, and gave us a real sense of the city's history and story (thank you for the recommendation, Ellie). Our guide was fantastically informative and also very much "all business." She was an enigma too, because it was nearly impossible to guess her age, though I accidentally found out during a conversation about education we had. My husband thought she was in her 40's, yet when I told him that she was in her early twenties, he was only mildly surprised. Weird how some people seem neither young nor old, yet seem both at the same time too.

The things you learn in foreign countries!

Anyway...we ate a lot in Prague too. Amazing restaurants.

In Berlin, we gave ourselves two walking tours: one of West Berlin, where we were staying, and one of East Berlin. These tours were abetted by our super friendly bartender from our hotel who gave us a lot of information on the city and what to do and see. On the west side, we visited the Berliner Dom (the Berlin Cathedral which is one of my husband's favorite sites in Europe thus far), saw the Lindenburg Gate, visited the Holocaust memorial, saw remnants of the old wall, and went to the Jewish Museum. On the east side, we saw the largest department store in the world and went to a great Helmut Newton photography exhibit.

We ate a lot in Berlin too.

In Amsterdam, I mentioned some of what we did in my last blog post, but it was amazing to see the house where Anne Frank and her family hid for two years. I had been there before, but I think the impact of the situation does not lessen with subsequent visits. It was incredible and emotional to see. The Van Gogh Museum was so impressive if you are a Van Gogh fan, or maybe even if you are not. They provided a lot of details about his evolution as a person and as an artist, and about his psychological demons. It was really informative to learn about the stages of his life as you witnessed the evolution of his brief artistic career.

Walking through the red light district proved a stark contrast to the beauty and refinement of the city outside of that arena--the area where we stayed. It is obviously somewhat seedy and seeing almost naked women in the windows really raised my hackles as a female and as a feminist. But, on the other hand, this city is fascintaing in a way because it does not really hide its underbelly. The "soft" drugs happen out in the open, and the sex for sale is even more blatant. I suppose these things happen in every city and town across the world, in one form or another, so there is something to be said for it not being hiddden.

And, as I said, we loved Amsterdam. It is gorgeous and quirky and lively and fun. We ate a lot there too. Duh.

So my next blog will likely focus on my fave topic: food. But the trip was great--we mixed planes and trains and tried to walk as much as we could, not only to work off the food we ate, but also as a means of really seeing the cities. It is overwhelming to see so much in such a short time, but in a great way. Allows you to see other perspectives on life and living and also gives you a new appreciation for all you have. Like nice shampoo, for example.

Among other things. Food talk to come...