We set off early for the train to Vienna. A 3 hour ride, it seems not too bad to have a single compartment to ourselves. That’s the crucial difference between British and European trains; British trains lack the privacy that European trains can provide. It’s here that we discovered for the 2nd time how friendly and helpful Austrians are. A man joined us in our compartment for the last hour stretch of the train ride. While we were discussing on how to get to our hostel towards the end of our journey, he volunteered in English to guide us to our hostel!
Actually, our hostel is so close to Westbahnhof that it’s easier walking there than to walk to Tesco from my house. However, the nightmare comes after we checked in. It seems that Westbahnhof and our hostel is quite far from the city centre where all the sightseeing is. In fact, we would have to walk some 45 minutes to an hour before we can cover the entire shopping street to the Museum Quartier. Absolutely crazy. You might think we walked the entire stretch to reach the attractions, but what we wanted was only lunch. Looking around for Austrian food isn’t as easy as you think, or rather cheap Austrian food. We had to endure our hunger for half an hour before we found the deal.
Radatz! That’s the place all of you going to Vienna should go. I would never forget the butchery. Yes, it’s a butchery selling largely pork. Grilled, fried, smoked, any style you can think of. More importantly, it’s very cheap. Cheap relative to the amount of meat we get, at least. We had some 4 big portion plates of pork and chicken, and all for the price of 3e per person!!! We stuffed ourselves so full of meat that the rest don’t matter much anymore, other than the sweet and sour appetizer of potato salad.
Museum Quartier was pretty much a gigantic complex of museums of different sorts, but the place that truly attracted our attention was the Christmas market at the centre of the Quartier. Yes, again! Here we found caramel and honey roasted nuts, and snacks of different sorts that makes you drool. We passed by the palace, took some pictures of monumental Vienna and headed straight for Stephanplatz. The famous St. Stephan Cathedral is located here, and it sure looked out of place in the middle of the shopping area. Much of it is under restoration now, and all the scaffolding is just pure ugliness. The interior is grand as any other catholic cathedrals and if you’ve seen St Peter’s of Vatican or any other ones, it’s ok to give it a miss. You haven’t miss any thing much.
We read about the Holocaust museum here, and planned to visit it after passing St Stephan’s. Searching around the area doesn’t help much, for we just couldn’t find the entrance no matter how we try to locate it on the map even street by street. Desperation drove us to ask one of the museums there, whose receptionist told us there’s no Holocaust museum here! What’s related to the second world war, is a Jewish memorial commemorating those who suffered in Austria under the Third Reich. The memorial itself is a rectangular block of grey stone, at the entrance door (or what looks like a door) is a Star of David and some lines stating the sacrifice of 65,000 Jews. Kinda feel cheated though.
Our next destination is the concert hall, since Jan said she was recommended to watch a opera, ballet or concert performance here. On our way, we passed the Opera House which was selling Nutcracker the ballet for 35e a tick, which is quite alright compared to London’s musicals. We gave that a miss, however, for Kiat wasn’t too interested in ballet dances. He doesn’t understand it, and I don’t either but I wouldn’t mind being more educated in such culture though.
At the concert hall, we were lucky enough to be available for 2 performances. A choir in one, a string ensemble with piano accompaniment in the other. We chose the ensemble in the end, though we weren’t quite prepared for what happened in the performance itself. A 20e ticket to allow us to view the performance, though we could have paid 5e for one without the view. Anyway, the ensemble started well till the first piece ended and the nightmare started. A well dressed man walked on the stage, and started to speak from a thick speech file on the stage. We are screwed. It’s in German, and we could understand nuts about what he said. And the thing is, he droned on and on for the next 15 minutes, as long as the ensemble piece itself. Kinda had the feeling that this will be repeated for the entire night. True enough, Kiat and Jordan (and me at times) managed to get some sleep while the man was speaking. All Jan could do was to keep laughing at us for sleeping, though she couldn’t understand German as well. It was the worst to happen, though the Beethoven pieces played sounded not bad with the violin, cello and the piano.
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