Tag Archives: austria

29 Days of Spring Break across Europe

3 weeks. 1 backpack. 9 cities. Possibly the most liberating thing I have ever done. Amongst the 4 of us (on the PSU program), we organized the entire trip with every sight and travel all on our own. We were together for the 1st week of cities and then I followed a roommate (Aviva) to Barcelona to join her family and then left to fly to another roommate (Joelle) in Italy.

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In this post, I want to give my overall to-the-point blunt impressions and experiences in each city. I use a scale of 1-5

1: When do I go back?!

5: Don’t recommend ever coming.

And details are to come in my next blogs about specific places and events that stood out. With that:

SPRING BREAK 2015

Innsbruck, Austria (1 day): 3. perfect amount of time, most scenic city in the Alps as mountains soar into the sky around the entire town. We took the Nordkettenbahn (gondola) to the top of the Alps for the breathtaking views and in one day were on the next train to our next destination. Visiting once is enough for Innsbruck as it is a relatively small and expensive city, but the views are unparalleled.

gorgeous view of Alps

View from the top of the Alps in Innsbruck

View from the city center of Innsbruck.

View from the city center of Innsbruck.

Salzburg, Austria (2 days): 4. home of Mozart and “The Sound of Music”. We spent Palm Sunday in a cathedral that played Mozart, visited the old and cute shopping street Getreidegasse and the Hohensalzburg Fortress overlooking the city. Most of the movies’ filming locations were scattered outside of the town and “Sound of Music” bike tours were highly reviewed/advertised to take to them. However since we came during the tail-end of winter, the tours hadn’t started yet. Otherwise, Salzburg was just another small European town; one day would’ve been plenty.

view of Salburg

The hills are alive….

Vienna, Austria (3 days): 1. gorgeous, ready to visit again! Visiting around Easter, the city was peppered with Easter markets full of treats and trinkets. The streets were lined with regal and grandiose architecture – including the opera (where Jo and I scored the 3 euro standing tickets to see Swan Lake at the Vienna State Opera – talk about once in a life time experience). Favorite museums were the MOMA (modern art museum – saw some Andy Warhol) and the Albertina (gorgeous exhibit from the private stock rooms of Musee d’Orsay – Degas, Cezanne and Seurat). Schoenbrunn Palace tried to compete with Versailles, and although it had gorgeous gardens the visitor very quickly can tell who really won.

Vienna!

Vienna!

Viennese Easter Markets - bring on the painted eggs!

Viennese Easter Markets – bring on the painted eggs!

Andy Warhol - Marilyn Monroe

Andy Warhol in the MOMA!

Also, this was our 2nd stay at a Wombat’s Hostel and their hostels are excellent! True social hostel experience packed with Viennese info/recommendation packets lying across the lobby around the lounging travelers.

Prague, Czech Republic (4 days): 1. go go go, would definitely visit again. Plus, AFFORDABLE; from the beer (0.50 euros/ bottle) to the food. Reminded me a lot of Eastern Europe. Visited the creepy bone church – Sedlec Ossuary – decorated with between 40,000 – 70,000 bones. Very fun, friendly, and quirky city. “New Europe Free Walking Tour” is a must. Awesome tour guide, Chris, who entertained us with history and stories of Prague for three hours through the windy and freezing day. The tour guides merely ask for tips at the end and to “pay only what you think the tour was worth”. This way you are ensured to have a great tour as the guides work for their penny. We learned the history of the city and some helpful hints for our stay.

Prague and it's bridges

Prague and it’s bridges

Sedlec Ossuary - shield of bones

Sedlec Ossuary – shield of bones

Barcelona, Spain (4 days): 1. Can I say LOVE? Barcelona was one stop on our Spring Break that I didn’t have to plan or research as I joined the Doery family, so I was completely surprised by the Catalonian capital. It actually felt like this was the REAL vacation (maybe that’s why planning trips is so hard…). Barcelona is the relaxed, fun-loving vibe that just literally envelops the entire city. (I saw people just rollerblading through the tiny alleys of Barcelona with a pizza) I’ve never seen such a vibrant life-filled beach city. The city is peppered with art and architecture by Barcelona’s beloved Antoni Gaudi – the mosaicked Park Guell – the cathedral the Sagrada Familia still being built. The markets, the tapas, the warmth – GO BARCELONA.

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Park Guell

Sagrada Familia - natural light flowing in

Sagrada Familia – natural light flowing in

 

Rome, Italy (3 days): 3. hot and full of tourists (even in the off-season at the beginning of March). Rome holds the Vatican City, the Pantheon, and the Colosseum but the rest of the city didn’t impress. The people aren’t nice, the public transport is awful, the city is not walk-able, and I can’t stand large crowds of people. All in all, not a fan.

Collosseum

Collosseum

interior of Colloseum

interior of Colloseum

Florence, Italy (2 days): 2. A smaller walk-able Rome with better transportation and less tourists. Took a fun bike tour and loved the leather-store lined streets. Home to the Duomo and Michelangelo’s David. Took a half-day trip to Pisa for pictures. Cute little homey city.

463 steps later - Top of the Duomo!

463 steps later – Top of the Duomo!

view of Florence

view of Florence

Michelangelo's David

Michelangelo’s David

Florence

Florence

Cinque Terre, Italy (2 days): 2. Post-card colored pastel houses perched on the rugged coast of the Italian Riviera. The 5 water-side towns were a lot smaller than I expected, merely just a street you can see in an hour. You could also tell some of the houses needed a paint face-lift. However, we stayed at 5 Terre Backpackers Hostel, which was by far the best hostel we’ve ever stayed in. The owner, Francesco, formally introduces himself and welcomes guests upon arrival and is available for any help you need during your stay. From daily home-cooked family style meals to evenings playing Jenga on the back porch overlooking the Italian Mountains, it was like staying at a distant relative.

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Cinque Terre

Cinque Terre

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Of course, I could say more about each city, but my blog doesn’t do my trip justice. I was liberated, driven, and learning. Seeing a new place every day was just remarkable and doing it all on my own was ridiculous fun. Through visiting every destination, I found my favorite cities to be Vienna, Prague, and Barcelona. I’m so glad to have seen every destination and it sure makes a story I can look back on proudly.

Munich and snowboarding the Alps

I can officially leave Germany happily – not only have I fulfilled my goal of seeing the peaks of the Alps but I also RODE the peaks. This past weekend my roommate and I were originally looking to ski locally at a small mountain in the Black Forest. Upon texting our German friend, Matthias, he said, “actually I’m going to Munich this weekend and then heading south to Austria to ski the Alps, want to come?” YES!!

Taking the 6 hour car-ride to Munich, we arrived in the heart of Bavaria. Walking through the city, I loved how…GERMAN it was. One of the locals told us, that Bavaria is like the Texas of Germany and that whenever people think of Germany, they think of the Bavarian proud traditions of liederhosen, beer steins, and weisswurst. Sure enough there was tons of that! The locals greeted us with “Gruss Gott”, which I remember learning from my high school German class. It is equivalent to “Guten Tag” and is specific to the Bavarian region.

Where we stayed in Munich

Matthias is part of a German singing fraternity in Freiburg (very different from American fraternities and not affiliated with the Greek system). He has a sister singing fraternity located in Munich and after a quick call, they offered to house us for the weekend! Receiving our own room in the guesthouse of the home, we were so ecstatic for the great free housing. The brothers were extremely nice and cooked us an authentic Bavarian breakfast. Fresh weisswurst and soft pretzels with a delicious sweet mustard on the side – yummm. (Weisswurst literally means white sausage and was a spongier sausage that comes in a casing that you peel off once you cook them in water.) The brothers also showed us around all of Munich – we couldn’t have asked for better hosts.

The Alps

I love mountain range landscapes and I had been looking forward to the Alps for my entire trip. Clearest blue skies, breath-taking views, and peaceful massive mountains. I was in heaven. After waking at 4:30 AM to drive 3 hours to the Alps, I was re-awakened and revived by the crisp air and scenery. Being acclimated to the sub-freezing slopes of the American North-East, I was remarkably happy to find myself snowboarding without a ski mask and with 2 of my layers tied around my waist. I couldn’t help but exclaim “wow” every time I looked up at the mountains as I went down the slopes …hopefully no one heard me over the swooshing of the snow! Words just can’t do the whole experience justice…

Austrian Alps Austrian Alps me standing before the Austrian Alps

After an exhausting and action-packed weekend, this was one of my favorite trips so far. The Alps were peacefully breath taking. Plus, I fell in love with Bavaria – can’t wait to come back to Munich at the beginning of May.


Location: St Anton am Arlberg, Austria

It has begun!

     Here I am, in Vienna! It is hard to believe that it has already been two full weeks. So much has happened and yet somehow, it seems like I have done so little. It is quite a strange sensation. I just know that I have a LOT more to do and see and experience here.
     Okay, so what have I been up to these last two weeks? Well, firstly, I spent my initial weekend in Vienna in a tiny little town nestled up in the mountains, known as Mariazelle. There we (the IES group) received our several orientations, met with most of the head individuals in the program here in Vienna, became introduced to each other and managed to simultaneously extract a little sampling of Austrian culture from the town. It snowed the entire duration of our stay, adding a certain eerie or gothic feeling to the scene. The main attraction of this city, the founding of which has been traced back to approximately 1150 AD, is the Basilica in the town center. Nearly a million pilgrims per year are recorded visiting the site, making this one of the most visited holy sites in all of Europe.
     Aside from the Basilica, the town was very low key, locals going to the town ski spot a few minutes out, but otherwise, it was a very sleepy sort of town. I have not experiences quite this atmosphere before.
     After our weekend excursion and break in, we drove into Vienna and dispersed, by way of taxi, to our assigned housing. If you are ever in Vienna and can avoid it, do not use taxi. They are quite expensive (as I suspect is the case in most of the world, but have you ever paid in Euro?) This is a fact that I constantly overlook when buying anything here. The simple fact that the Euro –> US dollar is not equal. The items with low price tags are not necessarily good deals. The matter becomes further complicated by the measuring method here. Have you ever bought meat in grams? Or dekagrams? Or drinks in terms of Euro per liter?
     I digress. My first week consisted mainly of trying to figure out the public transportation system, which is heavily relied upon. It takes me 35 minutes (on a good day) to get to school. I walk 5 minutes to hop onto the Stra�enbahn 43. Ride that about 15 minutes then hop onto the U2 which is about a 5 minute walk to and another 5 minute ride. Then I walk another 5 minutes or so to get to the school in the first district (or ‘Bezirk’ as it is called here). The transportation system is quite extensive, as you can imagine, I have gotten lost several times. Many of those times resulting in very extended (originally short) trips across Vienna. 🙂 Good times.
     The most interesting event so far has been the Austrian ball (TU Ball) that I attended just this past Thursday night. It was unlike anything I have yet experienced. I will write more about this and post some videos (if I can figure out how) on here soon!

Closing thought: I have only been here two weeks, but already I feel that I am being stretched as an individual. I have begun broadening horizons in ways I had not imagined. I am excited, but also nervous anticipating how I may continue to grow personally and in what ways I may come to better understand of myself and the world I live in. (and yes, I realize how cliche this sounds, but it is the real McCoy. Ask me sometime where this saying came from if interested)


Location: Vienna, Austria

Trapped in Austria

I came to Vienna, Austria last Sunday (Nov.28th) to visit one of my best friends from back home who is studying abroad here. I was supposed to fly home on Wednesday (Dec.1st) early and take a bus back to Leeds so that I could get back to class for Thursday and Friday. Well, I showed up at the airport in Vienna and my flight was completely canceled because Gatwick was closed due to snow. I started to stress a little, but got rebooked on a flight for that evening. An hour later, I’m on the phone with Bertie in London who informs me that the BBC just announced Gatwick would be closed all day and not reopen until Thursday morning.

So I go back to the window and there was no line (no one else had heard yet) and I got rebooked onto a flight for this morning (Thursday). I had no way to reach my friend, no cash, and was slightly panicked. More than slightly. Until the airline says they’ll put me in a hotel for the night. So they took my to the Hilton Vienna (SO NICE) where I had a suite to myself. I called my parents, Bertie, and wrote on my friend’s Facebook wall from the lobby computer. I fell asleep for a bit from stress exhaustion and when I woke up my friend showed up at my room. I went back with her to her apartment to use free internet and phone.

Anyway, I check my emails, Facebook, etc. I email my groups for my classes to let them know I can’t make it back. Then I decide to check my flight time again. Turns out, it was CANCELLED. Again. I start freaking out, get Bertie on Skype, and try to reschedule to the flight later on, but there were no seats available until Saturday, at the earliest, and even then I couldn’t book because the website was crashing from traffic. My friend got one of her friends who is here in Vienna on her Skype and he found me a flight out of Bratislava for tomorrow morning to Luton Airport rather than Gatwick. He also found me a bus from Vienna to Bratislava. I leave, in theory, tomorrow on a bus at 6:50 to Slovakia (this would be more exciting under different circumstances) and my flight should leave, in theory, at 10:40am back to London.

I applied for my refund from EasyJet, and to buy the other ticket on RyanAir it cost me about 45 euros more than I’d be getting back from my refund, but at least I have a better chance of getting back to the UK? Maybe? For now, I’m staying in the spare bedroom at my friend’s flat and hoping.

In summary: I’m stuck in Vienna (3 canceled flights so  far) until further notice. At least I have a friend here.


Location: Vienna, Austria