Tromso, Norway - Part 2

Friday

We had to get going fairly early on Friday, which was difficult after getting home from an unsuccessful Northern Lights tour at 1.45am. We were booked on a dog sled ride in the morning, so we hauled ourselves out and headed for the hotel breakfast. Mmm, fish chunks.

We were picked up in the town centre at 9.45am and luckily Andrew was feeling much better, so he joined us on the tour. It was a bleak, cloudy day, so the views on our 20-minute bus ride out of Tromso were not that flash. The Villmarkssenter is a tourist organisation that has over 250 huskies for its popular dog sledding rides. It also provides other activities such as snow-shoe trekking, ice fishing and Northern Lights tours.

We got kitted up and headed outside to where the very excitable dogs greeted us. The noise of so many dogs barking was unreal...and the smell was less than ideal. The dogs love pulling the sleds and the ones who were pulling our sleds were eager to start, while those who were having a day off wanted to be involved. Tim and Megan jumped in a big sled (with 11 dogs) with a driver on the back. Given that the dogs were not that big and given how much weight they were pulling, we zipped along at a very impressive pace! The dog sled ride lasted about an hour and the scenery was amazing - we actually saw a reindeer roaming amongst the trees. Alex and Andrew shared a sled and elected to take turns driving it themselves, which was pretty brave! The dogs have only one goal and that is full steam ahead no matter what. The drivers literally have to drop an anchor if they want to stop. Both Alex and Andrew took a tumble but managed to hold onto their sleds, which was a fine effort.

It started to rain towards the end of our sled ride, so by the time we finished we were wet and very cold. Luckily the tour included a traditional Sami hot lunch in a Sami tent (the Sami are the native people of the far north of the Scandinavian countries). We couldn't get into the tent quickly enough and we all gathered around the open fire in the centre of the tent to dry off and warm up. We were then treated to some hot vegetable soup and reindeer stew, which were both really good. After lunch, one of the staff members talked to us about their huskies and took us to see some of the husky puppies! Then we had chocolate cake and coffee before heading back to Tromso in the bus. The hip flask of whisky once again came in very handy on the bus trip!

Back in Tromso, we had a wander through town, grabbing some treasures at the souvenir shop, before hitting the hotel to warm up. Almost every shop, pub, bank, museum, etc etc has a stuffed polar bear guarding its doorway - some of them are massive! We had a few drinks in the hotel room in the afternoon/evening - while there was no fridge in our room, there was almost two feet of snow on the balcony outside our room, so we stashed our beer and wine in the snow to keep it cold! Later in the evening, we all went into town and had dinner at a thai restaurant. The food was fine, pretty much on a par with what you would get at a thai restaurant in London, but in Tromso it cost us £6 million each, although that might have been because Neena got out of control and starting breaking stuff...

Saturday

We enjoyed a much-needed sleep-in on Saturday morning. There had been a lot of snow fall between Friday afternoon and Saturday morning. We had to dig pretty deep to retrieve our cans of beer from the snow on the balcony! Our walk into the town centre took a little longer than normal, as Neena and Megan stoped to throw snowballs at each other about every 5 metres. The town was covered in a deep layer of snow - very pretty.

We visited the Tourist Information Centre and (eventually) booked ourselves on another Northern Lights tour for Saturday night. We then tried to visit the Ishavskatedralen (Arctic Ocean Cathedral), but sadly it was closed, so we could not go inside. The cathedral was consecrated in 1965. Its highlight is a massive 23-metre high, triangular stained-glass window on the east wall. Since the cathedral was closed, we decided to throw snow at each other and then walk back across the huge Tromso bridge. While we did so, it started snowing very heavily - and it didn't stop for the rest of the day.

We took refuge from the snow in our favourite cafe in Tromso and grabbed some delicious lunch while we tried to stay warm and dry. After lunch we headed for the Polaria. The Polaria is a national centre for research and information relating to the polar regions, particularly the Arctic. The building that houses the Polaria is pretty awesome - from the outside it looks like a line of dominoes that have been pushed over, or books in a bookshelf leaning on each other (photo below). The Polaria features a theatre, where visitors can view a fascinating panoramic film on Svalbard, getting spectacular views of the polar landscape and wildlife. An aquarium features Arctic species of fish and the red king crab (which can weigh up to 10kg). The major attraction is a large glass-bottomed pool for the bearded seals.

After watching two panoramic films (on Antarctica and Svalbard), we checked out the aquarium and watched the seals being fed and perform some tricks. We also saw a short video on the Northern Lights, which got us excited about our Northern Lights tour later that evening. However, it was still snowing and there was thick cloud above Tromso, so it didn't look promising.

Followaing the Polaria, we picked up some more supplies and got ready for our night tour. Alex and Andrew were on a different tour from the rest of us. Neena, Megan and Tim were on a private tour with a woman who works in the Tourist Information Centre. While the weather looked poor for Northern Lights viewing, it was amazing how quickly the sky changed throughout the night. We drove east out of Tromso, towards the Finnish border. Over the course of 2-3 hours, the sky went from thick cloud to completely clear, then back to cloud (and heavy snow) and then to clear again!

We managed to catch a very faint glimpse of the Northern Lights - meaning that we saw some cloud that had a green tinge to it (which showed up more clearly on the cameras than to the naked eye) - but it was certainly not the Northern Lights we had hoped to see. The tour was still very fun though - we were entertained by our tour guide's "interesting" stories and we also made it to the border with Finland. We posed for a photo by a giant roadside sign that marked the border and we all sunk to our waists in the snow, almost getting trapped! We did walk a few metres across the border into Finland, but we won't count that on the official country tally!

Sunday

Needless to say, we were even slower to get going on Sunday morning. When we finally woke, we were surprised to see that there was now a massive amount of snow on the ground outside. We packed up our things and Neena built an awesome snowman on the balcony (see photo below). Tim went for a walk and took some photos of the white-out (photos on separate blog entry following this one).

We met Alex and Andrew for "all you can eat" pizza for lunch - probably the best value for kronor we had in Norway! Then it was time to head for the Tromso airport and the long journey home.

The snow continued to fall heavily all day on Sunday. We were amazed that that much snow had little to no effect on the roads and the airport. There are dozens of snow ploughs that constantly drive around town clearing the snow off the roads, allowing the cars (with snow tyres) to drive on the ice-covered roads. It was crazy at the airport. Once we all boarded the plane and pulled out from the stand, we sat on the edge of the runway while snow ploughs cleared snow off the runway and while a special "de-icer" truck cleared ice off the wings of the plane, so that we could take off! Our next trip (just three weeks after Norway) is to Ghana, where it will be about 36 degrees warmer!

A husky
called Sol

Giddy
up

Our
sled

Warming
up in the
Sami tent

Tromso -
about 2pm

Snow
fight

Central
Tromso

Pretty
church

Brrrrr

Statue of
Amundsen

Ishavs-
katedralen

Tromso's
harbour

The
Polaria

Megs on
snow-
mobile
at
Polaria

Feeding
time for
seals

Neena's
snowman!

Tromso, Norway - Part 1

Wednesday

It was very early start on Wednesday morning, as we were joined by Neena and Alex in a 5.15am cab pick-up to get out to London Gatwick, which incidentally takes about 65 hours from central London! We had booked a mid-winter trip to Tromso, the northern-most city in Norway. Brrrr. The main attractions were a chance to see the elusive Northern Lights, which are easier to spot in the winter months, and a dog-sled ride through the snow. Norway was also pretty much the last country in western and central Europe that we had not yet conquered!

Our flight from London to Oslo was all good, although we had to endure a 5-hour stop-over in the Norwegian capital. Luckily they have a very fine airport there and we grabbed some delicious Pizza Hut pizza for lunch and the time went pretty quickly. Then we had another 2-hour flight from Oslo to Tromso, arriving in the far north at 7.30pm.

Norway is a Nordic country in Northern Europe occupying the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, as well as Jan Mayen and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard (where polar bears and walruses roam freely!). Norway has a total area of 385,252 sq km and a population of just under 5 million, making it one of the most sparsely populated countries in Europe. The majority of the country shares a border to the east with Sweden; its northern-most region is bordered by Finland and Russia; and in its south Norway borders the Skagerrak Strait, across which Denmark is situated. The capital city is Oslo. Norway's extensive coastline, facing the North Atlantic Ocean and the Barents Sea, is home to its famous fjords.

After WWII, Norway experienced rapid economic growth, thanks to the Norwegian shipping and merchant marine and domestic industrialisation and, from the early 1970s, as a result of exploiting large oil and natural gas deposits that had been discovered in the North Sea and the Norwegian Sea. Today, Norway ranks as the second wealthiest country in the world in monetary value, with the largest capital reserve per capita of any nation. Norway is the world's fifth largest oil exporter and the petroleum industry accounts for around a quarter of its GDP.

Tromso is a city and municipality in Troms county, northern Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the city of Tromso. Tromso city is the ninth largest urban area in Norway and the seventh largest city by population. The population of Tromso municipality is around 64,000. Most of Tromso including the city centre is located on the island of Tromsoya, about 350km inside the Arctic Circle. The city is warmer than most other places located on the same latitude, due to the warming effect of the Gulf Stream.

At Tromso airport we met Andrew, who had flown in from Dubai via 97 airport transfers. Alex and Andrew were staying in a different hotel to the rest of us, so Neena, Megan and Tim hopped off the airport bus and dragged suitcases along the frozen main street (literally - there was a thick layer of ice covering the road) to Skansen Hotell (with two Ls).

The woman on the reception desk was very helpful, but our hotel room was just plain weird. We had ordered a triple room, but what we got was a double room with a crazy fold-out camp stretcher in it. Poor form. But that was just the beginning. It was a really large room but one half of it was crowded with furniture - a huge coffee table, a couch and two large armchairs all squeezed into one end of the hotel room. The bathroom was awesome - the centrepiece being a massive spa bath with flashing strobe lights that changed colour, lighting up the entire bathroom. And that wasn't even the weirdest part of our room. The absolute highlight was a framed picture on the wall - it was actually four small pictures in the one frame, two of red roses, and two pencil sketches. One sketch was of a man and a woman eating pizza in a restaurant and the other was of the same couple lying in bed, with the man kissing the woman, who appeared to have died at some stage between the first and second sketches. So we're not sure if this series of pictures was intended to be some romantic scene or if the artist was some sicko who liked to kiss corpses. Either way, we had the strangest hotel room we had ever seen.

After settling in, we met Alex and Andrew for dinner at a Spanish tapas restaurant, which was very nice. It was our first confirmation that Norway is indeed a very expensive place. We were all pretty knackered after a long day of travelling, so we retired to our hotels after dinner.

Thursday

We were greeted on Thursday morning with a hotel breakfast - Norwegian style... There was some good orange juice and dry bread and jam, which was the pick of it, to be honest. Then there was a bizarre selection of cheese, cold meats, pate, caviar in a tube, and a bowl of cold fish chunks swimming in an oily liquid. We almost threw up just looking at it!

After breakfast, we met Andrew and Alex in Tromso's main street and we decided to begin our day with a trip up the city's famous cable car. Our timing was brilliant, as our taxi pulled up outside the cable car just as the first ride of the day was about to leave. They only go once every half hour, so we avoided a long wait. The view from the top of the cable car hill is breath-taking (see photos below). It was also insanely cold at the top of the hill. There was easily a metre of snow on the ground, probably more, and the strong wind whipping in at us as we lined up our photos was well below zero, but it was worth it for the views. The sunlight bouncing off the snow covered mountains was beautiful.

Incidentally, while we were in Tromso, the sun was rising around 10.30am and setting around 1.30pm! In late December there is almost constant darkness and conversely in the middle of summer, Tromso is treated to the "midnight sun" - the sun doesn't actually set at all at the height of summer. Itgradually sinks lower and lower in the sky, as if it is about to set, before bottoming out and rising in the sky again, without having disappeared beneath the horizon!

Back down on ground level, we managed to catch a bus, which gave us a tiki-tour through suburban Tromso, before dropping us back in the city centre. We thawed out in a nice cafe, plotting our next move. We settled on one of Tromso's most popular tourist attractions, the Polarmuseet (rather predictably, the Polar Museum).

The Polar Museum was opened on 18 June 1978. The museum is located in one of Tromso's oldest buildings - a wooden building on the waterfront that dates from the early 1800s. Polar hunting and research expeditions are the focal points of the Polarmuseet. Displays feature Fridtjof Nansen's journey to the North Pole in his ship "Fram" in 1893 - 1896 and the life of Antarctic explorer and Norwegian hero Roald Amundsen, which we found fascinating. There are also exhibitions devoted to the first hunters on Svalbard, the trappers of polar bears, arctic foxes and seals (which we were not so fond of).

Given that it was dark by mid-afternoon and that Andrew had been struck down with a nasty bout of food poisoning (don't eat hot dogs from airport kiosks), after our museum visit, we collected some delicious snacks from the supermarket and went back to our hotels to prepare for the exciting night ahead. We were booked on a Northern Lights tour!

The Northern Lights (or Aurora Borealis) is a natural light display in the sky, particularly in polar regions, caused by the collision of charged particles directed by the Earth's magnetic field. An aurora is usually observed at night and tends to be more prevalent in the winter months (December to March). They are most commonly visible between 60 and 72 degrees north latitude - Tromso is about 69 degrees north latitude. In Norway, the most common colour for the Northern Lights is a bright green, but occasionally they also appear in reds, yellows and whites as well, and often look like curtains We had tried to see the Northern Lights on our trip to Iceland at the end of 2009, but it was too cloudy and our tour was cancelled.

Needless to say, we were super excited when the van picked us up at 7pm for our Northern Lights excursion. We had a solid collection of lollies, biscuits and chips, as well as some vodka and a wee bit of whisky. You have got to be prepared when you are standing outside in the freezing wastes in the middle of the night - a hip flask of whisky was just the ticket. Sadly, Andrew's dodgy hot dog prevented him from joining us, but as it turned out, he didn't miss much.

We drove for around two hours, east away from the lights of Tromso towards the Finnish border. Eventually we stopped in what looked like an abandoned trailer park and we all got out of the van and stood in the complete darkness, in -8 degrees, with half a foot of snow beneath our feet and watched the sky. And waited. And watched. And waited some more. And then got back in the van because it was freezing. It was a cloudy night, which makes spotting the Northern Lights almost impossible. We were hoping that one of the occasional patches of clear sky that came and went might show us the magical dancing lights. But alas, we saw nothing.

However, we passed the time while we waited for the sky to clear by sliding down the hill on a traditional wooden snow sled and by stomping around in snow shoes that the tour guides had in the back of the van (photos below). They also provided us with hot blackcurrant drink and a Norwegian sweet cake, called "leksa". The whisky and lollies helped pass the time too! We eventually gave up on seeing the Northern Lights around midnight and drove back to Tromso. We were grateful for the Kathmandu hand warmers we had brought with us, which helped us to defrost on the long drive back to the city.

Tromso

Giant
polar
bear

View
from
top of
hill

That's
a lot of
snow

Andrew
on a
swing

Pretty
Tromso

Massive
icicles

Rugged
up

Snow
covered
roads

Polar-
museet

Giddy
up

Amund-
sen's
head

Church in
central
Tromso

Waiting
for
Northern
Lights

Neena
in snow
shoes

Tim on
the snow
sled

Hansel and Gretel - The Opera

On Tuesday 4 January, we pretended to be sophisticated and we went to the Royal Opera House in London's Covent Garden to see Hansel and Gretel, the opera. We had always wanted to visit the Royal Opera House while we are in London and we had always wanted to see an opera. So we ticked two things off the list.

If truth be told, this was the second opera we had been to. We visited the Opera House in Budapest in May 2010 - we went mainly to see the spectacular opera house, rather than the opera itself. On that occasion the opera was performed in Italian, with Hungarian subtitles, neither of which are we fluent in. So we, along with dozens of other tourists taking a peek at the opera house, left at the interval, having understood little of the opera.

On this occasion, we chose an opera that we already knew the story of - Hansel and Gretel. This opera was in German but, being in London, the subtitles were in English! The music to the opera was written by none other than Engelbert Humperdinck and was performed by the Royal Opera House orchestra, who were amazing.

The inside of the Royal Opera House is spectacular (see photos below - kindly borrowed from the old interweb, as there is a no photo policy in the Royal Opera House, as some person discovered when they were ejected for taking not one, but two, photos with flash during the performance).

We thoroughly enjoyed our first proper opera experience. The orchestra was brilliant and the opera singers were amazing. We might even be tempted to go back some time...

Birmingham City v Arsenal

New Year's Day

We decided to start 2011 with a bang, so after having a massive, much-needed sleep-in, we headed down to Euston train station and caught the train up to Birmingham. We had tickets to see the Birmingham City v Arsenal premier league clash. Thankfully it was a 5.30pm kick-off...not sure if we would have made the lunchtime kick-off time!!!

It was cold and wet in Birmingham and the city didn't look particularly exciting. We stopped in at a pub en route to the stadium and it was a touch on the scary side. It looked a bit more like a drop-in centre for homeless people and there were a couple of very drunk guys busting some moved on the otherwise empty dance floor (at about 4pm). Cracking. We had a nervous drink and then carried on towards the stadium. There was a huge contingent of Arsenal fans at the game and the chanting was as awesome as ever at an away game, drowning the almost silent home fans.

Birmingham are very tough to beat on their home patch, having already beaten Chelsea and drawn with Manchester United there this season. However, Arsenal started brightly and took the lead after about 20 minutes. Things got better after halftime, as we went 3-0 up around the hour mark, which brought more hilarious chants from the Gooners. Arsenal spent the last 20 minutes of the game entertaining the fans with outrageous tricks and flicks and, while the game ended 3-0, it could have been plenty more.

The train ride back to London after the game was entertaining, as we were amused by a group of rowdy young Gooners. Happy days. We love away games! Arsenal are starting to look very strong now and if the key players stay injury-free, we should have a great chance of reining Manchester United in at the top of the league.

Happy New Year!




Megs at
St Andrew's
stadium












St Andrew's

Vienna, Austria

Boxing Day

On arrival in Vienna, we were much better at working out the underground system this time and we found our way to our hotel no worries. After checking in, we walked the short distance to the city centre. It was insanely cold, even with our many layers of clothing on. Our walk included a crossing of the Danube, which looked very pretty with lots of lights from boats and city buildings reflecting off the water. Vienna looked amazing with all of its Christmas lights, awesome shops and people everywhere.

We found a German beer garden-style restaurant and tried out their wheat beer, which was very nice and then we ordered some dinner. Megs ordered potato soup and calamari. Tim had the local specialty, the "giant wiener schnitzel", and it was seriously enormous - see photo below. But it was delcious and between us we managed to devour it.

Monday

On Monday we were greeted with blue sky and sunshine, but it was still very, very cold - a high of about -5 degrees. After breakfast in the hotel, we realised that the Kunsthistorisches Museum was closed on Mondays, so we changed our plans and Megan led us on a walking tour of the city centre of Vienna.

Austria is a landlocked country of around 8.3 million people in central Europe. It is bordered by Germany and the Czech Republic to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west, and it is shaped a bit like a chicken drumstick. The territory of Austria covers 84,000 sq km. Its capital and largest city is Vienna, with more than 1.6 million people. The official language of Austria is German. Austria is one of the richest countries in the world, with nominal GDP per capita of close to $44,000.

Our walking tour began outside the State Opera House, where we would be returning later in the day for a guided tour inside the opera house! We continued past the Albertina art gallery and the Monument to Anti-fascism and arrived at Stephansdom (or St Stephan's Cathedral) in the middle of the main square in Vienna, Stephansplatz.

Situated in the centre of the city, Stephansdom is the soul of Vienna. A church has stood on this site for over 800 years, but all that remains of the original 13th century Romanesque church are the Giants' Doorway and Heathen Towers. The Gothic nave, choir and side chapels are the result of a rebuilding programme in the 14th and 15th centuries. We had a quick peek inside the huge Cathedral, which was beautiful, before carrying on with our walking tour.

From Stephansplatz we wandered down the busy Graben (a major shopping street), where we saw the enormous Monument to the Plague and St Peter's church, which was also beautifully decorated inside, before we hit the Demel bakery. The Demel bakery is a famous pastry shop and chocolatier in Vienna (and now Salzburg, apparently). It was founded in 1786 and was moved to its current building in 1857, where it has remained ever since. We had a look inside at some of the tasty treats before heading on to the Hofburg Palace.

Hofburg Palace has housed some of the most important people in Austrian history, including the Habsburg dynasty, rulers of the Austro-Hungarian empire. It was the Habsburg's principal winter residence and it currently serves as the official residence of the President of Austria. The huge Hofburg complex also contains several museums, a chapel, a church, the Austrian National Library and the Winter Riding School. We walked through the courtyard of the Hofburg Palace, past the building known as the Winter Riding School, which is home to the famous Spanish Riding School, which performs dressage shows there on pretty white horses.

From the Hofburg Palace, we ventured past the Museum Quarter and back along the road to the Opera House, where we had started our walking tour. It was a great little introduction to the centre of Vienna. We had lined up a tour of the Opera House for 2pm, so we decided to visit the Sacher Cafe, one of Vienna's world famous coffee houses. The Sacher Cafe is part of the Sacher Hotel and is most famous for its "Sacher torte" - a secret recipe chocolate cake that was first made in 1832. We managed to get a table fairly quickly and each ordered a slice of the original Sacher torte, along with a hot chocolate (Tim) and a pot of tea (Megan). It was pretty flash inside the cafe. The cake was only OK - a little dry to be honest, but the experience was fun!

The State Opera House opened on 25 May 1869. Built in the Neo-Renaissance style, it initially failed to impress the Viennese. Yet when it was hit by a bomb in WWII and largely destroyed, the event was seen as a symbolic blow to the city. The Opera House re-opened after the bombing in November 1955. Our guided tour of the Opera House went for almost an hour, with the highlights being the Grand Staircase made of marble that leads from the main entrance up to the first floor (embellished with statues of the seven liberal arts) and the opulent Schwind foyer, decorated with scenes from operas and busts of famous composers and conductors. We also learned about the annual opera ball, an extremely high society which opens when the "well-to-do" young ladies dressed in white and their escorts take to the dance floor.

By the time the tour of the Opera House ended, we were a little bit peckish, so we headed to the classy hot dog establishment behind the Opera House and got ourselves a hot dog to snack on. It was a pretty good dog. Then we returned to our hotel to thaw out, re-emerging in the evening, again rugged up like the Michelen Man.

Megan had heard about a cocktail bar at the top of a hotel in Stephansplatz, that has a great view looking out onto the huge Cathedral, so we made that our first stop of the evening. The bar was very busy and sadly the only seat we could get did not have a great view of the Cathedral, but it was a nice bar nonetheless. We then grabbed dinner at a place called the Bettelstudent Restaurant (where the lure of back to back wiener schnitzels was too much for Tim to resist) before settling into the Irish pub along the road from there, which was showing the Arsenal v Chelsea match live. Aside from the cigarette smoke that filled the pub and stunk out our clothes, it was a fantastic night to be a Gooner, as Arsenal hammered their title rivals 3-1!

Tuesday

On Tuesday morning we had our hotel breakfast and checked out of the hotel before tracking down one of Vienna's favourite monuments - the Johann Strauss II monument in Stadtspark (or City Park). The gilded bronze statue, framed by a marble relief made by Edmund Hellmar, is one of the best known and most frequently photographed monuments in Vienna (see photos below). It was unveiled to the public on 26 June 1921. Johann Strauss II (1825-1899) was an Austrian composer of light music, particularly dance music and operettas. He composed over 500 waltzes, polkas, quadrilles and other types of dance music, as well as several operettas and a ballet. In his lifetime, he was known as "The Waltz King", and was largely responsible for the popularity of the waltz in Vienna during the 19th century.

The main event of our last day in Vienna was a visit to the Kunsthistorisches Museum in the Museum Quarter. The Kunsthistorisches (or History of Art) Museum is housed in a magnificent building on the Ringstrasse, opposite an identical magnificent building containing the Natural History Museum, across the other side of Maria-Theresien-platz. The building itself is amazing - it has a beautiful huge marble staircase from the main foyer, with a massive statue of Theseus clubbing a centaur or animal of some description in the centre, flanked by two fine looking lions.

Its collections are based largely on those built up over the centuries by generations of Habsburg monarchs. On the ground floor there is an Egyptian antiquities area (which includes a small blue ceramic hippopotamous aged about 4,000 years) and a Greek and Roman antiquities area (the highlight of which is the Gemma Augustea - a beautifully detailed Roman cameo carved from onyx). On the first floor are halls and halls filled with French, German, Flemish, Dutch and Italian art work.

We were blown away with how good the museum was - we could easily have spent longer there, if not for our feet starting to get sore and our stomachs starting to rumble. We grabbed some lunch on the go from a bakery and then wandered through the pretty streets of Vienna until we stumbled upon the finest of all Viennese coffee houses, Cafe Central.

Cafe Central was opened in 1860 and late in the 19th century it became a key meeting place of the Viennese intellectual scene. One of its most famous regulars was Peter Altenburg, a renowned poet with an awesome moustache, of whom there is now a life size statue in the entranceway to the cafe. In January 1913 alone, Josip Broz Tito, Sigmund Freud, Adolf Hitler, Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky all visited the cafe! There was a more relaxed feel to Cafe Central than Cafe Sacher, although the staff at Cafe Central were still formal and the service was excellent. They had an amazing range of delicious cakes to choose from - coffee and cake seems to be a national passtime in Austria! So we each chose a piece of cake and spent a relaxing hour in the charming Cafe Central.

With time almost up on our Christmas excursion, we walked along some more lovely streets, taking in the beautiful Judenplatz square, which is home to a large Holocaust memorial (photo below). Then we collected our luggage and made our way out to the airport. Thankfully our flight was on time and the trip home was not too painful. Now, three weeks until the next adventure...






Giant
wiener
schnit-
zel









Mozart
Cafe













Stephans-
dom

















Inside
Stephans-
dom










Stephans-
platz














Monu-
ment
to the
Plague














Hofburg
Palace














Very
chilly





























State
Opera
House









Inside
Opera
House

Opera
House
ballroom

Old guy
pointing

Johann
Strauss II
statue

Kuntshis-
torisches
Museum

4,000
year old
hippo

Theseus
getting
aggressive

Cafe
Central

Delicious
cakes!

Holocaust
memorial