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!
2 comments:
Sounds like fun. Thanks for bringing us along. You girls are beautiful no matter the length of your hair but I do really like the new look�� Lori Hurley
How neat to make such a fun memory with your kids. They are all growing up. Come see us when you move back to North America.
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