Austria

It is a beautiful March day. The last day in Vienna. The sun is bright and outside it is about 20°C. So quickly, let’s get out into the streets to collect my last experiences, see everything I haven’t seen so far, I must hurriedly visit all the monuments so I can feel like a proper tourist… Or not? It is a beautiful day. The dandelions are blooming. Why am I in a hurry? Previously, when we set off to the town by the tram, we always crossed the river. I watched people lying on the banks and was a bit envious of their doing nothing sitting by the water enjoying the view… And so today that’s my destination. Instead of palaces, I will visit – the river bank. Slowly I weave my way through the suburb where we are accommodated. All the houses here have an interesting design, they are organized into original premises. I would love to live in many of them. At least for a little bit. I am admiring curiosities like the newspaper vending machines, attached to posts. You throw in a coin and get a portion of a daily read. (That would not last long in […]

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To find at short notice in the centre of Vienna a restaurant which would offer at least one nice vegetarian meal, is not as easy as it would look. It’s Friday afternoon and we are circling through the Vienna streets in a vain effort to discover such a miraculous place. In the end our effort succeeded. The menu hanging by the door of restaurant Bastel Beisl promises that even non-meat eaters can eat here. So we ducked into the cellar area. At that moment we didn’t know what our dinner experience will be. The waiter brought us our menu. He is not very friendly. He would be more suited to the role of a sergeant on a parade ground than that of a waiter. He looked down at us grumpily as if he was silently asking: What are you aliens doing in MY restaurant? We study the meal offer, half expecting that the sergeant, excuse me, the waiter orders us to: “About face! Forward march!” Surprise, surprise – the only vegetarian meal they advertised so proudly outside on the board is not available. Doesn’t matter, croquets with poppy seed from the desert menu are also good. Having ordered tea we […]

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We went to Vienna to visit a friend, and also to have a look at monuments and local tourist attractions. Mainly I wanted to see ‘the colorful house which plays music when it is raining’. I have seen many pictures on the internet and I was looking forward to it very much. How surprised was I when we got to our longed-for goal and I found out that this is, in fact, NOT the colorful house which plays music when it is raining. It was a completely different colorful house. The house I wanted to see is in Dresden. We were standing in Vienna looking at a psychedelic creation of an eccentric architect Friedrich Hundertwasser. It doesn’t play music but it flaunts a colorful façade in slightly flaking shades of yellow, blue, red, and white. It didn’t matter. I am used to my chaotic ways and this house was as interesting as the personality of its creator. A house where the floors roll The Viennese colorful house, Hundertwasserhaus, is said to be originally social housing for the poor. Today it’s a lucrative address – if you don’t mind the crowds of tourists constantly pouring under your windows. And that parts […]

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