Eisenstadt - Felder 10 und 12

Für alle deutschsprachige haben wir wieder den Blog auf Deutsch. Also heute war Eisenstadt dran. Jeder der nicht wissen würde dass Eisenstadt die Hauptstadt von Burgenland ist würde Eisenstadt als ein Dorf bezeichnen. Das ist vielleicht ein bisschen übertrieben, doch man könnte es fast meinen. Umgeben von Geschäften, Weinberge und Bäumen ist Eisenstadt ein schöner Ort.

Today we left behind the big-city trappings of Vienna and discovered the small-country charm of Eisenstadt.  The capital of Burgenland, one of the provinces of Austria, is a quaint city with many old buildings. Burgenland itself has a very mild climate and it is very well-known for its vineyards and rolling hills.  We even found banana trees growing near the Castle garden! People can tour from vineyard to vineyard wine-tasting.  We opted to skip that this time! ;-) Wikipedia describes Eisenstadt saying " It has a population of about 14,241 (2016). In the Habsburg Empire's Kingdom of Hungary, Kismarton (Eisenstadt) was the seat of the Eszterházy Hungarian noble family. The composer Joseph Haydn lived there as Hofkapellmeister under Esterházy patronage."  The Eszterhazy Castle, seen below, was our first stop.

Die Josef Haydn Gasse ist eine alte und schöne Straße neben dem Schloss Esterhazy. Es war ein bisschen enttäuschend als wir Josef Hadyn Gasse 10 fanden und es keins der schönen alten Häuser war sondern ein altes verlassenes Haus.

The next 'field' or square on the playing board is 'Josef Haydn Gasse'.  After the splendors of the castle this was a bit of a disappointment. Further down the road the old homes have small doorways, some with quite impressive wooden double doors (the first photo), but our stop, number 10, was simply run-down and unromantic.  Ah well, we take what we get and we still managed some photos- even with the children being blinded by the sun! We explored a bit after that and found some lovely passageways, including the narrow one (below) by the church.

Wir holten uns zum Mittagessen asiatischen Nudel und Döner von zwei kleinen Ständen neben der Hauptstraße. Wir aßen unser Essen dann im Schlosspark das auf dem DKT Brett als Schlossgrund bezeichnet wurde. Ganz anders wie man sich einen Schlosspark bezeichnen würde. Ein Spielplatz, zwei Fußballtore, zwei Basketballkörbe und ein paar Bänke.

For lunch we splurged on Chinese Noodles and Döner kebap from two take-away shops near the main road.  We ate in the Castle garden, finding there picnic tables and a great playground.  This garden area is also on the DKT board, so we managed to tic that off too!

Das Bild das auf dem DKT Brett ist war etwas schwieriger zu finden.

We have also been looking for the right location to take a photo of each city to match the drawing on the playing board.  The sketches are made of the historical city but we still managed to find it.  This time it took some looking- from one side of the city to the other!  We finally managed it, parking next to a vineyard.

Erst die dritte Position war die eigentliche Position. Nachher fuhren wir nach Wien zurück um ein letztes mal dort zu übernachten.

We then drove back to Vienna for ice cream and a chili dinner and for our last night in the city. Tomorrow we will continue with Graz and continue further west into Austria- to land on the doorstep of someone that we were at Bible School with.  When we didn't have 5 kids! ;-) See you then!

Vienna! Fields 15,16 & 17!

Hallo Liebe Leute!  Heute wird es auf Englisch geschreiben....Ich hoffe dass passt.  Jonathan ist schon im Bett.  Morgen wieder! :-)  Danke!

So, for those of you (English-speakers) who were a bit baffled with Jonathan's German version of our blog this morning, I will give you a quick clarification now.  We are finally on our summer holiday trip and for that we decided to do something different.  For Christmas Dominik bought the kids a tradtional Austrian board game- DKT.  It is essentially like an Austrian Monopoly, visiting various cities in Austria, the bank, jail, buying hotels and charging fees etc.  They love it.  So, as we are hoping to embark on the BIG adventure of moving to Canada, we decided to visit all of the locations on the playing board in order to see some more of Austria before we go.  So, that's the plan.  Oh, and no, we won't actually be visiting them in order.

We arrrived in Vienna a couple of days ago, having visited Linz and done the Danube boat trip, and we have had a great time visiting friends and shopping and relaxing.  We needed that after moving into a new apartment after the busy summer program.

Yesterday afternoon we drove up into the very lovely Cobenzl area of Vienna.  It is a very wealthy and green area with many vineyards and Heuriger.  They are little restaurants where you can order Austrian meals and sample the latest local wines.   The Cobenzl road travels up above the city and from there you can enjoy a panoramic view.  We introduced the children to that and then headed down to find the right street number for our photo.  It was a bit confusing for the children because the name of the road 'Cobenzl' is spelled with a 'K' on the playing board, making it more German. :-)
We finished off the evening with a trip to the Prater.  This amusement park has the oldest Ferris Wheel in the world- seen in the James Bond film 'The Living Daylights'.  We didn't ride on that but Cathy, Jonathan and Rebecca did go for a spin on the chain swing ('Ketten Karousel'), which was the highest in the world at 117m.  We were on it just after sunset so it was really lovely but cool.  This was a late evening but all the kids survived and loved it!

This morning it was back to business, starting with Rebecca and Elena having haircuts.  They decided to cut their long hair and donate it make wigs for children.  Coincidentally, the charity which cuts and takes the hair was only a five minute walk from where we're staying.  The man was friendly and the girls enjoyed the experience- their first real hair cut!  It will take some getting used to- for them- but we all think that it looks great!:-)

That completed we headed out on the streetcar (Straßenbahn) to the underground and then rode up to the Stephansdom and Stephansplatz.  The cathedral is always impressive, as are the crowds, the increase in police presence these days, and the horse and carriage possibilities for tours of downtown.  No, we didn't take a tour.  We found our number (each number on the board has a number and we are looking for that house number on the required street) on the impressive Kärntnerstraße- a very expensive shopping pedestrian zone which flows from the Cathedral all the way up to the Opera House.

After a picnic lunch and crowd-watching, we were off to the National Bank of Austria.  We found it to be situated in a lovely green area of the city, which was a great break for us after the noise and traffic of the downtown.

Our final official stop was on the Mariahilfestraße.  This is another very fancy shopping area.  I don't know what people have been thinking as we stop beside a random building to take a photo with our game board, but so many people are doing odd things that we might not have looked so out of place! ;-)   We bolstered ourselves up with a few fries from McDonald's and hopped back on the underground to meet the lovely Adams family for ice cream at Schwedenplatz.  The Canadian embassy is also there but we didn't drop in... Oh, and the ice cream.  It was lovely.  We had usual flavours but two were new- chocolate-banana and mango-cardamom.  They were delicious.

And now to get ready for tomorrow- Eisenstadt in Burgenland.  Let's keep playing!

Austrian DKT - Tour

English is at the bottom

Linz und DDSG

Wir stiegen ins Auto. Die Reise konnte beginnen. Doch wohin ging die Reise? Nach Italien? Nach Kroatien? Vielleicht sogar schon nach Kanada  ;-). Doch zu diesen Antworten muss ich immer wieder NEIN sagen. Wir machen die wahrscheinlich erste österreichische große kaufmännische DKT  Reise. Doch was ist DKT??? Ein Frühstücksmüsli? Ein Brotaufstrich? Vielleicht sogar eine Elektromarke . Erstaunlicherweise ist DKT keins von diesen Sachen sondern ein typisch österreichisches Brettspiel. In diesem Spiel kann man acht von Österreichs neun Hauptstädten kaufen und sich darauf Häuser und Hotels bauen. Wer auf einem Haus oder Hotel landet bezahlt. Vor der Bank und dem Gefängnis muss man sich in acht nehmen. Wer wird Milliardär und wer nagt am Bettlerstab? Wir werden probieren jedes Feld, jeden Betrieb, und jede Linie zu besuchen. Wetten werden gerne angenommen. Werden wir jedes Feld schaffen?

Unsere Reise begann mit einem kurzen Stopp bei unseren Großeltern, bevor wir am 18.8 nach Linz fuhren. Nach kurzer Zeit rollten wir an der Stifter Straße vorbei. Wir gingen dann die Stifter Straße hinunter und suchten Stifter Straße 19. Warum ausgerechnet Stifter Straße 19? Weil auf dem DKT Brett das Feld 19 die Stifter Straße ist wollen wir auch ein Foto mit der Hausnummer Stifter Straße 19. Innerhalb wenigen Minuten fanden wir Stifter Straße 19.  Ehrlich gesagt war die Stifter Straße nicht eine sehr schöne Straße

          

                                                                                                                                                           

Kurze Zeit später gingen wir zum Linzer Dom. Wiener bitte nicht weiterlesen. Wegen dem 4 Meter hohem Kreuz auf der Spitze vom Dom ist der Linzer Dom 1 ganzer Meter höher als der Stephansdom. Bitte erzähle das aber den Wienern nicht weiter. In der sind interessanterweise hinten auf den Glasfenstern Geschichten von Mönchen und Kaisern abgebildet. Erst vorne bei einem Bild von Jesus und wo der Altar sind sind Wunder, Geschichten und Gleichnisse von Jesus abgebildet.

Ein paar Ecken später befanden wir uns in der Landstraße. Diese Straße war wahrscheinlich die schönste Straße die wir von den drei besucht haben.  Eine lange Straße mit Geschäften, Häuser und so weiter und so weiter und so fort. Leider konnten wir hier nicht die Hausnummer finden. Na ja, nicht direkt.

Nachdem wir ein kleines beim Kunstmuseum Lentos gegessen hatten machten wir uns auf dem Weg zur auf der einen alt und zusammengefallen auf der andern Seite alt und schön und guterhaltenen  Museumsstraße. Die Nummer 22  war ein altes weißes Haus neben einem anderen alten Haus wo ein Honda Schild drauf war.

Gleich nachdem wir die Museumsstraße besucht hatten sprangen wir ins Auto um nach Melk zu fahren. Warum nach Melk? Um bei DKT Feld 13 zu erfüllen. Eine Donau Dampschifffahrt. Mit der DDSG Blue Danube.

                                                                                                        

                                            

Wir waren froh dass wir nicht um zwölf Uhr mit dem Schiff gefahren sind. Es stiegen soooooo viele Leute aus. Wir hatten nachher auf dem Schiff soooooo viel Platz.

Lange Zeit später fuhren wir nach Wien und ruhten uns erst mal gut aus. Was für ein langer Tag.

We got into the car. The journey could begin. But where was the journey going? To Italy? To Croatia? Maybe even already to Canada ;-). But I  have to say NO to these answers. We will probably make the first Austrian DKT trip. But what is DKT ??? A breakfast cereal, A sport? Maybe even an electronic market. Surprisingly, DKT is not one of these things but a typical Austrian Boardgame. In this game, you can buy eight of Austria's nine main cities and build houses and hotels on them. Anyone who lands on someone elses property has to pay. You have to whatch out that you do not get in trouble with the law or the bank. Who will become a billionaire and who will beg on the streets? Like Monopoly. We will try to visit every fiels. Bets are accepted. Will we be able to go to every field?

Our journey started with a short stop at our grandparents before we drove to Linz on the 18^th of August.  After a short time in Linz  we rolled past Stifterstrasse. We then went down Stifterstrasse and found Stifterstraße 19. Why Stiffterstraße 19? Because on the DKT board field 19 is the Stifterstrasse we also want a photo with the house number Stifterstraße 19. Within a few minutes we found Stifterstraße 19. . Honestly, the Stifterstrasse was not a very nice street.

A short time later we went to the Linz Cathedral. Viennese  please do not read on. Because of the

4 meter high cross on the top of the cathedral, the cathedral is one meter higher than

St. Stephen's Cathedral. But please do not tell the Viennese this. Interestingly, in the back of the church

on the windows, stories of monks and kings are showed. But at the front where the altar is and where

 the is a picture of Jesus parables, miracles and stories are shown on the glass windows.

A few corners later we were in the Landstraße. This street was probably the most beautiful street

 we visited from the three in Linz. A long street with shops, houses and so on and so on and so on. 

Unfortunately, we could not find the house number here. Well, not directly.

After eating a small lunch at the Lentos art museum, we made our way to the old and collapsed 

on the one side and new and beautiful and well-preserved on the other side Museumsstraße.

The number 22 was an old white house next to another old house where a Honda sign was on it.

Immediately after we had visited the museum street, we jumped into the car to go to Melk. Why Melk? 

To complete the field 13 of DKT. A Danube steamship ride.  With the DDSG Blue Danube.

We were glad that we did not go at twelve o'clock with the boat. There were soooooo many people on it.

We had soooooo much space on the ship at four thirty.

A long time later we drove to Vienna and rested and slept all night. What a long day.