Auf Wiedersehen Europe!

Our last bit of time on our 2018 Europe trip consisted of an evening in Vienna after returning from Bratislava, and a day in Munich before flying out the next morning. We strolled around Vienna on a beautiful evening, revisiting some of the historic innere stadt sites and hanging out on a shared street (mariahilfer straße) south of the innere stadt. Of course we found more ice cream! For dinner, since we ate a late lunch in Bratislava, we just got some wurst and fries from Bitzinger, a popular street cart.

The Natural History Museum looking majestic in the sunset lighting.

There are tons of gardens in Vienna. These are the Volksgarten, with the Rathaus visible behind.

Hapsburg Palace.

Wurst from Bitzinger. It was good!

Gelato number five... but at this point who's counting?

Great shared street south of the innere stadt. We need more of these in the US!

The following morning we got up bright and early and bid farewell to Vienna and Austria. We retraced our steps back to the Vienna train station and took the 4 hour ride to Munich for another day in this Bavarian metropolis before our flight home to Atlanta the following morning. This time we stayed at the Cocoon Hotel Stachus near the Munich train station. It reminded us a bit of the Korean Love Motel we stayed at in Gyeongju.

After checking-in, we decided to walk around a bit and visit a couple museums to occupy our day. Our first stop was the Residenzmuseum. This museum housed the kings of Bavaria back in the day. It was heavily damaged in World War II, but some relics have survived and many rooms have been rebuilt. It's a massive museum that lets you take a peak into the lives of Bavarian royalty. It's worth a look for the very interesting Renaissance Antiquarium (room with lots of Roman/Greek art and recreations from the 1400 and 1500s), and the elaborate baroque and neoclassically styled rooms. also worth seeing is the Allerheiligen-Hofkirche, a church built in the 1800s that was largely destroyed during World War II, and has been partially rebuilt.

Back to the main train station of Vienna.

If you think the swing is weird...

...wait until you see the shower!

Entry to a shopping street near the center of Munich.

Pretty water feature in a courtyard.

Inside the Frauenkirche, Munich's cathedral from the 1400s. 

Modern shopping center on the way to the Residenzmuseum.

The impressive Antiquarium in the Residenzmuseum.

Perspective painted ceiling. When you stand in the middle you get a different sense of scale.

Pictures showing damage from World War II to the Allerheiligen-Hofkirche.

An impressive room.

The over the top throne room.

A bronze lion outside the museum that people rub for good luck.

After visiting the Residenzmuseum, we walked through the Hofgarten on our way to the next museum of the day - the NS-Dokumentationszentrum. Basically, this is the Munich Nazi museum. It's a must-see museum in Munich if you are interested in what led to Hitler's rise in power. Audioguides and thoughtful exhibits help to tell the story of the far-right extremism in Germany culminating with the rise of Nazism. The museum's exhibits seemed pretty fair, mostly denouncing extreme nationalism and Germany's role in the war. It was counterbalanced by exhibits that expressed that not all Germans were on-board and told stories of resistance. Conservative Bavaria, and Munich specifically, served as the base for much of Hitler's efforts. Reading about Hitler's style of rabble rousing and crowd manipulation draws some startling modern comparisons to America's situation.

The building itself is also very interesting. Essentially a giant white four story cube, it stands out in the neighborhood full of older buildings and gardens. Windows on every floor let in natural light and are the only source of cooling. While we were here a big thunderstorm swept through, which was impressive to see but unfortunately resulted in all the windows being closed and us increasing the pace of our visit to escape the heat inside.

Inside the Diana Temple in the Hofgarten.

The Diana Temple.

We walked past this eternal flame dedicated to the victims of the Nazis.

Europeans sure love to enjoy their brief summers!

A random fountain dedicated to beer!

The NS-Dokumentationszenstrum - i.e. the Nazi Museum

Typical exhibits in the museum outlining the rise of far right extremism.

Photos of Hitler doing poses.

Two museums were enough for one day and as the afternoon was winding down we decided to stroll to a large beer garden before finding somewhere to watch the World Cup and chill before bed and our early flight home. We found our way to Augustiner-Keller, a massive beer garden about a half mile from the Nazi Museum. While here, it started to rain again, but luckily our waitress anticipated this problem and moved us under an umbrella. Unfortunately, it was with a couple of Americans talking politics, which we tried our best to ignore. Overall, beer gardens are great places to hang out and enjoy the outdoors while drinking liters of lager and eating just ok food. It's all about the atmosphere!

The Glyptothek - museum of classical sculptures. We didn't have time to visit.

A super elaborate court building.

Augustiner-Keller. This place could seat thousands.

Paul was born to live in a city with beer gardens... literally because he's German!

Like the beer, pretzels don't come in small sizes here.

Not as good as the sausages in Vienna, but still tasty.

After hanging out in the beer garden for a while, it was time to find somewhere to watch the World Cup semifinal. We started walking back towards the city center and ran across an FC Bayern Munchen watch bar. The place wasn't very crowded. The Germans weren't in the World Cup anymore, after all. There was an interesting cast of characters, however, that kept us nearly as entertained as the Belgium v France game. There were two older guys dressed like they were on safari and an older Asian gentleman that would periodically reach into a backpack and pull out a single dorito, then very slowly lift it to his mouth, lick the cheese power off, and methodically eat it. This man clearly loved these doritos; we've never seen anyone so painstakingly consume a single chip at a time. A few younger people came into the bar, looked around and bailed...but by the end of the game the place was reasonably full and everyone seemed to enjoy the game, despite hoping for France to lose.

After the game, and the additional 2 liters of super low-alcohol beer we imbibed, bringing our total up to like 4 liters each including the beer garden, we made our way back to the hotel by way of a kebab stand. These things were all over Munich and still pretty common in Vienna. Mostly run by Turkish immigrants, Paul had wanted one most of the trip. He was pretty happy to get one after all the beer.

Wow it's like Bayern Munchen threw up all over the place.

Yet another liter of beer.

Motley crew of World Cup watchers - including dorito man in the middle with his hand in the backpack.

Finally a donor kebab. It was fine.

So ends our 2018 summer trip to Europe. We tend to avoid summer for big vacations since the weather can be hot and humid, making it uncomfortable to walk as much as we do on international trips. Luckily the weather wasn't that bad and it's not nearly as humid as Georgia, making the heat much more tolerable. The last day in Munich was almost chilly when it started raining!

Vienna and Munich are both really interesting cities. Overall, we both liked Vienna more. There are way more things to see and do in Vienna, and the city is very well planned, easy to get around, and full of interesting historic sites and monuments. We would like to visit Munich during Oktoberfest though.

Congrats again to Mahvish and Nate, and thanks for the invite!

Alpine Foothills and a Jaunt into Hungary

Continuing our Austrian journey, after visiting Melk in the morning we drove south without too much of a game plan. We hadn't planned this part of the trip, deciding to keep the day flexible and have a meandering drive through the countryside before returning to Vienna. It turned out to be a lovely day where we saw several cute off the beaten path towns and made a quick visit to another country.

Typical scenery from our drive through the alpine foothills.

Our driving route through Austria with a jaunt into Hungary.

Looking at Google maps in the morning, it looked like the town of Mariazell was not too far and was at a fairly high altitude, so we set off in that direction. One of the first cute towns we happened upon was Gaming. It has about 3000 people, and a compact little downtown with two mountain streams (Gamingbach and Mitteraubach). It was founded by Celts and was later part of the Roman empire before becoming Slavic (thanks, wikipedia). We walked around for a bit, and continued on, passing gorgeous mountain scenery and tiny towns.

Downtown Gaming.

A stream running through town, with city hall in the background.

A waterfall running alongside the road.

An old church in the tiny "town" of Neuhauser. There were about six buildings in the town.

We arrived in Mariazell in the early afternoon. It's a small city (1,400 people) but has a nice downtown dominated by a large basilica. Mariazell is a site for Christian pilgrims, and also a popular summer day trip for tourists. In winter, people come here to ski in the nearby mountains and participate in other winter higher-altitude sports. We walked around for a bit and had lunch on the main square before visiting the basilica. The basilica itself is famous for its "miraculous" image of the virgin Mary, dating back nearly a thousand years. Only in Europe can you unknowingly come across a town that's been around for a thousand years and has had numerous visits from Popes, kings, marauders and martyrs.

Mariazell

Darn, we'll miss this concert.

The center of Mariazell.

The main square, surrounded by restaurants and guesthouses.

The basilica, with Christian tourist shops in front.

We had Italian for lunch. Not bad! It was a bit chilly, which was a nice change from the hot weather in Vienna.

The view from the graveyard in Mariazell. Cue the Sound of Music songs.

Leaving Mariazell, it was about a 2 hour drive back to Vienna, but we noticed driving to the Hungarian city of Sopron would only add about 45 minutes total. From a quick google search it appeared to be a cute city, so we made up our minds and drove to Hungary. Thanks to the European Union, you can drive right across the border. The old border gates are still in place, but you just drive right through them. God bless the European Union!

Hungary doesn't use the Euro yet, so our first stop was an ATM to get some florints to spend and to keep as souvenirs. Entering from the edge of town, Sopron isn't very glamorous. Hungary was behind the iron curtain for a very long time, and it shows in the architecture and atmosphere of the city. This short trip to Hungary was actually our first visit to an old Eastern Bloc nation. Once you get towards the old historic city center things lighten up and it resembles a more typical historic European city.

Unfortunately, since it was Sunday, most of the shops in the city were closed, but the main ring road  surrounding the old city was bustling with people going on family walks and getting gelato. The actual old city was lovely, but fairly deserted because most things were closed. This city seems a bit off the tourist radar, but if you're in the area we recommend you check it out since it's only 45 miles from Vienna.

Part of the old Sopron city wall.

The street around the historic center had a lot of shops and cafes, and was very pleasant.

David on the firewatch tower.

View of the old town churches from the firewatch tower.

We walked up a lot of spiral steps like this on our European vacation!

We can't pass these by. Paul is... umm... a rappelling elf?

Roman foundations below the museum at the base of the firewatch tower.

The beautiful main square in the old town.

Looking back towards the old city's firewatch tower.

Typical old city street scene.

Some colorful buildings in the old city.

Another building in the beautiful but quiet historic center.

A monument to the German speakers that were forced out of the city after World War II.

These types of signs are somewhat ubiquitous now. We even have one in Atlanta.

Gelato number four of the trip. Don't judge us.

Sopron was actually a bit of a surprise. It's a nice city to spend a few hours walking around, and it's very close to Vienna. The language barrier is a bit of an issue - it's frustrating seeing a language written in the Roman alphabet and not even having the slightest idea about most of the words (a theme that would carry on when we visited Slovakia). As English speakers with some experience with Spanish we're pretty accustomed to Germanic and Romance languages. Hungarian is a very unique language, not related to any other major European language - with ties to Finnish and some Russian languages. Fortunately, some people spoke English and written German was somewhat common. We got by at the museum and ordering ice cream mostly in English with a bit of German.

Hungary is an interesting country. The current political situation isn't great and we're curious to see how the people that live there juggle their modernization and ascension within the EU with their current semi-dictator situation. We'll definitely be back to Hungary someday to visit Budapest.

Hungary flag in the old city of Sopron.

Getting the rental car was a great experience overall. It ended up being a bit more expensive than we thought, after insurance and gas were included, but made the entire day possible. I think we'll be less anxious about renting a car again in Europe. The car even came with bonus awkward baby-tossing Euro-signage:

Signs in Europe are the best. This was in our rental car.

To end out day we drove back to Vienna, which is only about an hour from Sopron. We had to return our rental car at the airport and then take a train back to the city to check in to our hotel for our last two nights in Vienna, Hotel Beethoven Wien. This hotel was just south of the innere stadt near the large food and goods market (the Naschmarkt) and the large beautiful Karlskirche. We took the opportunity to check these landmarks out over the next couple evenings, as we used Vienna as our base for our next day trip to Bratislava, Slovakia. That evening we went out for a walk to Karlskirche, where they were showing a movie in the park, and then got dinner at a trendy Asian noodle house called Ramien. The food here was really good and we'd highly recommend it as a break from wiener schnitzel.

Random Hungarian beer Paul got at a gas station in Sopron.

Karlskirche at night.

Next stop Bratislava, then wrapping up our trip with a final day in Munich.