Sunday 6 January 2008
Saturday 5 January 2008
Seefeld - Rösshutte
Daniel still has to fill you in on skiing - but on the third day after deciding that my aching body was more precious than a few more rushes of adrenalin, I left Daniel on the slopes and explored Rösshutte in Seefeld. You have the option of going up on two different cable car routes. After being swamped by people holding ski equipment in the cable cars, the view I was presented with was worth the squash. It was so beautiful and breathtaking. I literally sat on top of the mountain for 2 hours just taking it all in.
The photo shows the cable car and part of the 360° view I had. You could see into Germany as Seefeld is very close to the border. Definitely recommended - although don't take the 2 cable cars and cake deal as the second cable car trip across the valley leads you to a grumpy cable car man who likes to blast you with a loud siren and death stare you if he feels you're too slow getting in - I just wanted a quick photo! - and the view isn't as good. Finding the free cake is also tricky and when you eventually find it it's a big let down...
Friday 4 January 2008
Vienna
So, Bronwyn's told you about the famous Sachertorte... it's all a little dry for me though. Only go if you really really like oranges, everything with the word Sacher in it tastes like an orange.
If you dodge famous cake places that actually should really only make money by taking your coat then Vienna is a wonderful place as far as cities go. It's got the most amazing buildings and churches of any city I've been to so far (Zanzibar is the only one on my touring list for comparison). Below is a picture of... the library.
Our friend Patrick, who's home city is Vienna, showed us around for a day. I was amazed at how someone could be so patient and wait for me to finish taking pictures in every church we visited and yet have his route so well planned out and fit so many sights in during the day. He even found some time to take us to his second favorite cake resturant, cafe Landtmann, where we personally throught the cakes tasted better. I guess he must like oranges.
While in Vienna we booked to see two orchestras playing. One was held where Beethoven used to perform to audiences. Playing, was a subset of the Viennese Imperial Orchestra. It was fun and down to earth, the music was great (a selection from all the good composers, but mostly stuff from Mozart and Strauss). The guy at coat collection didn't even fight back too much when we refused to pay a euro each for them to keep our coat. We really enjoyed it. The other was supposed to be more classy and was held in a more prestigious venue but the music wasn't as good, the vocalist made me cringe, our seats were further back and we had to get to manager level not to have to pay a euro each for our coats. Bronwyn said she enjoyed it but I certainly didn't.
I think Vienna gets better the more money you have as their main street in town is lined with designer shops. For those with mediocre amounts of cash there are always the Christmas markets where you can grab 7 roasted chestnuts for the equivalent of a pound.
Photos get cheaper the more you take... thats why I take lots. By now I can capture numerous whole stands at the Christmas markets for as little as a few pennies. Bronwyn might just have to cut them out in the right shape to hang them on our Christmas tree next year.
They even make Christmas hats for their horses... how sweet. Bronwyn fits right in. I think I like Chloe's hat better. Apparently it's taboo to call Vienna Wien while speaking in English. I must have sounded like a wannabe German for quite some time before some kind person informed me. All in all, Vienna is a great city and I would recommend visiting it to anyone.
If you dodge famous cake places that actually should really only make money by taking your coat then Vienna is a wonderful place as far as cities go. It's got the most amazing buildings and churches of any city I've been to so far (Zanzibar is the only one on my touring list for comparison). Below is a picture of... the library.
Our friend Patrick, who's home city is Vienna, showed us around for a day. I was amazed at how someone could be so patient and wait for me to finish taking pictures in every church we visited and yet have his route so well planned out and fit so many sights in during the day. He even found some time to take us to his second favorite cake resturant, cafe Landtmann, where we personally throught the cakes tasted better. I guess he must like oranges.
While in Vienna we booked to see two orchestras playing. One was held where Beethoven used to perform to audiences. Playing, was a subset of the Viennese Imperial Orchestra. It was fun and down to earth, the music was great (a selection from all the good composers, but mostly stuff from Mozart and Strauss). The guy at coat collection didn't even fight back too much when we refused to pay a euro each for them to keep our coat. We really enjoyed it. The other was supposed to be more classy and was held in a more prestigious venue but the music wasn't as good, the vocalist made me cringe, our seats were further back and we had to get to manager level not to have to pay a euro each for our coats. Bronwyn said she enjoyed it but I certainly didn't.I think Vienna gets better the more money you have as their main street in town is lined with designer shops. For those with mediocre amounts of cash there are always the Christmas markets where you can grab 7 roasted chestnuts for the equivalent of a pound.
Photos get cheaper the more you take... thats why I take lots. By now I can capture numerous whole stands at the Christmas markets for as little as a few pennies. Bronwyn might just have to cut them out in the right shape to hang them on our Christmas tree next year.
They even make Christmas hats for their horses... how sweet. Bronwyn fits right in. I think I like Chloe's hat better. Apparently it's taboo to call Vienna Wien while speaking in English. I must have sounded like a wannabe German for quite some time before some kind person informed me. All in all, Vienna is a great city and I would recommend visiting it to anyone.
Thursday 3 January 2008
Vienna - Cafe Sacher
I'll leave it up to Daniel to tell you about our skiing experience, so I'll tell you a bit about some famous coffee shop in some famous hotel in Vienna. Apparently, if you go to Vienna, you just have to have Sachertorte at Sacher Cafe in Hotel Sacher.
Thanks to Wiki, here is a description of the cake: "The cake consists of two layers of dense, not overly sweet chocolate cake (traditionally a sponge cake) with a thin layer of apricot jam in the middle and dark chocolate icing with shreds of chocolate on the top and sides. It is traditionally served with whipped cream without any sugar in it because it is considered
too dry to be eaten on its own". The hotel registered a trademark for the cake and the recipe has been a well kept secret. So being typical tourists, we tried some Viennese coffee loaded with liqueur and some very dry and rather boring cake (which is why you need the liqueur in your coffee to make you feel better about paying so much for a dry cake). So, here's a picture of me and the cake :) What you don't see is us plotting ways of getting back at the Austrians for charging to take our coats!
Thanks to Wiki, here is a description of the cake: "The cake consists of two layers of dense, not overly sweet chocolate cake (traditionally a sponge cake) with a thin layer of apricot jam in the middle and dark chocolate icing with shreds of chocolate on the top and sides. It is traditionally served with whipped cream without any sugar in it because it is considered
too dry to be eaten on its own". The hotel registered a trademark for the cake and the recipe has been a well kept secret. So being typical tourists, we tried some Viennese coffee loaded with liqueur and some very dry and rather boring cake (which is why you need the liqueur in your coffee to make you feel better about paying so much for a dry cake). So, here's a picture of me and the cake :) What you don't see is us plotting ways of getting back at the Austrians for charging to take our coats!Wednesday 2 January 2008
Salzburg
I tried to convince Bronwyn that alot of work went into setting up this blog site (It didn't really) and that she should be the main contributor as a result. Well... it's my turn to post again I guess. She saw straight through my sneakiness.
Our first stop in Austria was in the city of Salzburg (right). We only had two days here and the second would be taken up in our visit to Hallstatt so we really only had one day to check out the entire city. I was a bit grumpy because we got out of the hotel so late and the harsh sun was already in the sky and so our day didn't start off as nicely as we would have liked... but we soon cleaned our act up and began to enjoy the city. We were concerned that once we got to the ski resort we would be stuck with the clothes they had to offer so we wanted to get some cheap skiing clothes before getting ourselves into that position. Sadly, skiing clothes don't come cheap and we wasted alot of our day looking around for a good deal but not finding one.
We mostly ended up walking along the Salzach (the river there), but also found some time to browse a few local curio/antique shops and grab some mulled wine and Austrian bread at a Christmas market. Sadly we missed looking inside Mozarts birth house by a couple of minutes and didn't have time to take a trip up to the castle and look inside a few old buildings. Some of us were more sad than others though :)
After we got back from Hallstatt on our second day Bronwyn couldn't wait to get into her new ski clothes and pretend that she was on the slopes. Here she is. As she would find out later, you actually ski with your feet together most of the time.
Our first stop in Austria was in the city of Salzburg (right). We only had two days here and the second would be taken up in our visit to Hallstatt so we really only had one day to check out the entire city. I was a bit grumpy because we got out of the hotel so late and the harsh sun was already in the sky and so our day didn't start off as nicely as we would have liked... but we soon cleaned our act up and began to enjoy the city. We were concerned that once we got to the ski resort we would be stuck with the clothes they had to offer so we wanted to get some cheap skiing clothes before getting ourselves into that position. Sadly, skiing clothes don't come cheap and we wasted alot of our day looking around for a good deal but not finding one.We mostly ended up walking along the Salzach (the river there), but also found some time to browse a few local curio/antique shops and grab some mulled wine and Austrian bread at a Christmas market. Sadly we missed looking inside Mozarts birth house by a couple of minutes and didn't have time to take a trip up to the castle and look inside a few old buildings. Some of us were more sad than others though :)
After we got back from Hallstatt on our second day Bronwyn couldn't wait to get into her new ski clothes and pretend that she was on the slopes. Here she is. As she would find out later, you actually ski with your feet together most of the time.
Tuesday 1 January 2008
Salzburg - Hallstatt
Hi Everyone! I've been instructed to fill you in on our Austria Germany trip! So, I'll start by filling you in on a day trip we took from Salzburg to Hallstatt. It's a little lakeside village southwest of Salzburg - it took us 3 hours to reach it by train. We were told about this village by the ballroom dancing teacher at Wolfson :) It was our first train ride through Austria and the scenery was so different with everything covered in powder-like snow. To reach the village you have to take a ferry from the train station across the lake. Before we hopped on the ferry, we wandered around the lake a bit, I think there's a walk all around the lake but the path was covered in snow. But look at this picture of the swan we took - I think it looks like a scene from a fairy tale. The village itself is very pretty, I can imagine it's absolutely beautiful in summer. Quite a few of the restuarants right on the lakeside were closed for the winter and in summer you can hire little row boats to go out on the lake. There is also a long walk to the top of the mountain above the village but everything was icy and cold. We actually found a sport shop that was having a big sale on last years ski clothes and ended up spending a lot of time kitting ourselves out for our skiing trip, which worked out because it was a bit too cold to be wondering around outside. So next up, photos of our new ski gear :)
First Blog!
Hello Everyone,This blog site was made to save us time when it comes to communicating our general thoughts and experiences to the ones we love.
The date is 1/1/2008 and Bronwyn and I are currently one third the way through our 1 year studies here at Cambridge. The cold is really getting to us and we keep wishing that we were back in sunny Durban again.
We've just returned from our Austria-Germany vacation, so I'm hoping Bronwyn will be good enough to fill you in on the trip :D
The picture above was taken in Hamburg close to the harbour. Other pictures from our trip can be found here.
Hope you enjoy...
-Daniel
The picture above was taken in Hamburg close to the harbour. Other pictures from our trip can be found here.
Hope you enjoy...
-Daniel
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