Mom, Hungary, Piber and Vienna

My month of May was filled with week-long meetings in Vienna, which made the time go very quickly. Then came the next set of visitors: my mother and a friend. Anita has been a family friend almost forever; she was even my baby-sitter when I was about 4 or 5 years old. They were in Europe for a month, and had an ambitious itinereary including Vienna (!), family in norhtern Germany, Dublin, friends in the Black Forest and in western Austria,Vienna again, Hungary, horses (of course), and Vienna one last time. Phew!

When they arrived in Vienna after the German part of their trip, I took a week off to spend some time with them. This was for 2 reasons: (1) I actually consider my Mom a friend and enjoy her company; (2) I had a big concert with my choir that week and had to take time off for rehearsals anyways.

OK, concert first: This was with all 5 choirs of the University of Vienna, over 250 singers, and a full orchestra of 104 instruments. We performed the Carmina Burana to a sold-out audience of 1800 (and it turns out we could have filled the hall a second time)!  What a fantastic experience! The sound was incredible, the location of the final rehearsals and then of the concert hall were fabulous (even some Klimt paintings on one ceiling), I just loved it!

The day after the concert, we took off for Hungary. First we drove to Budapest and spent a day ad a night there. Another beautiful city! It was somewhat jarring to see some buildings completely restored to their earlier splendor, right next to others that were practically falling down. A question of money, of course, in a country that is definitely not rich.  The best part of that day was a sunset cruise on the Danube. Gorgeous!

The next morning we drove down to Pécs (pronounced Paytch for you English speakers). Another lovely little town. Our main reason to go there was that Mom's old boss was living there for a year. So we visited the town, chatted with Francis and Françoise, and just relaxed. 

The next day we were off again, this time looping back towards Graz, in Austria.  On the way, we detoured to Héviz, a town just off the west end of Lake Balaton, with a great mineral spa. We soaked in the mineral lake, had some lunch and got massages. Wonderful! The only downside was that most of the staff didn't seem to speak any English, or even German. Made things a tad difficult, but we worked it out. I almost felt guilty at the price of the massage, it was so low, about 18 Canadian dollars. I imagine that the massage therapist only got a portion of this, so we decided to give them a nice tip - 1000 forints. Sounds huge, right? Well, the exchange rate is about 190 Forints for a Canadian dollar, so that works out to about 5$ tip.

We got to Graz at then end of the day, with just time enought to eat dinner and collapse into bed in our fantastic hotel suite. The next day we woke to grey and threatening skies. We had planned to visit Graz and then drive out to Piber. This is the stud farm for the Lippizaner horses. But since it was the farm we were really interested in and the weather was very iffy, we cancelled our Graz plans and went straight to Piber.  What a nice place! We saw great installations, beautiful horses, a bunch of knobbly-kneed foals. The tour was informative and fun.

Foals are born dark brown and take 7 years for their coat to turn white!

This poor little guy couldn't figure out how to get his head back out - quite funny, really!

We then drove back to Vienna by way of secondary and smaller roads. I am grateful that Mom did the driving on this part, too winding to be restful. Plus it was the only time I didn't do the driving, so I got to enjoy the scenery.  I of course took over the driving before we came into town, as Mom doesn't like driving in cities. On the way, we came across a number of storks on their nests. This fascinates us Canadians who have read about them (and about their baby-delivering job) but have never seen any.

The last few days of their stay in Vienna were the usual tourist things - Schönbrunn, St. Stephen's cathedral, Lippizzaners, Vienna Boys Choir, cruise on the Danube, etc.

The Blue Danube

Special light show inside St Stephen's cathedral

Summer Riding Hall for the Lippizaners

I went back to work for a few of those days. One evening, I came home from work to find Mom had very kindly vacuumed one room where construction people had tracked dirt. Unfortunately, she had shoved the microwave table against the wall, not knowing this would upset its balance. (I was stupid and had installed the microwave oven on a too-small, wobbly table). So when I pushed the button to open the oven, the whole thing came crashing down... on my foot. I have a sprained foot, ankle and big toe, and a broken 3rd toe. Ouch! 2 weeks later I am still on crutches, and likely to stay that way another 2 weeks. Sigh.  (The upside, I guess, is that I am developing nice muscles in my arms.)

All in all, a nice visit.  Come back soon!

Dome in the Szechenyi baths

A butterfly just fluttered over and landed on my hand.

Anonymous chils. Perfect summer moment!

Best dessert I've had in months!

Ah, vacation!

Manon in Vienna

Oh dear, I see I have neglected my blog for 3 months. Well, since I am stuck on crutches for a while, I now have the time to catch up. OK, sooo... what happened since end of march?

My sister Manon ditched her family and came by herself to Vienna for a short week at Easter.  This was the first time in I don't know how long that we have vacationed together (except a weekend at a spa a couple of years ago).  It was great to have Manon all to myself for a while, no mother, husband, kids, or outside life interrupting. Manon arrived on a Thursday, and we did the requisite walking tour of the Innere Stadt (inner city) that afternoon.  The very next day we got on a bus to Prague, about 4 hours away. The trip ended up taking about 5.5 hours, as we got stuck on the highway due to an accident. But this worked out fine: we'd spent the first hours chatting and admiring the scenery, but were both quite tired, so we used the extratime to have a nap.  Once in Prague, we had a short walking tour with a guide, and then some free time before getting back on the bus to go home. What a lovely city, I must go there again!

At the castle, we got to see the president - OK, he just drove by. But the guards took this very seriously: they told people in Czech where to stand (e.g. Don't go there!) and then just shoved poor tourists who couldn't understand out of the way. The gates of the castle had some rather violent statues. Is this a warning not to piss off the Czech?

Towards the end of the day we fed Manon many yummy things, including this dessert called Trdlo, a kind of dough wrapped around a spit and cooked over coals. I couldn't have any because it contained nuts (of course), but I'm told it was delicious! I did a little Easter shopping and picked up some hand-made easter eggs, but  passed on the lamb-shaped pastry.

Back in Vienna, Easter Sunday was another gorgeous day, so we took the bus up to Kahlenberg and walked through the vineyards down to Grinzing.  From Kahlenberg, there is a great view of the city as well as the vineyards. We ended up at a Heurigen, a kind of outdoor pub but for new wine (vin nouveau) instead of beer.  Had some delicious food and wine, purchased a few bottles, and then went home.

I was quite exhausted, being out of shape and not used to walking so long. My calf muscles also did not appreciate going downhill for 2.5 hours.  Manon, on the other hand, went for a 10-km run with a group of runners from the same organization as her running group back home. A great opportunity for her, they ran out in the countryside, it was really nice.

The rest of her time here, Manon and I "did" Vienna: Schönbrunn palace, Hofburg, several churches, etc. One highlight was in Karlskirche: they have set up scaffolding up to the top of the dome, as they are restoring the frescoes on the ceiling. They set up an elevator and viewing platforms waaay up there, so people can get super close to the paintings. What an opportunity to see these frescoes from just a couple of metres away, instead of several stories up!

On the last evening, Manon and I treated ourselves to a fancy dinner at Meinl's. It being Tuesday and not high season, we had the restaurant almost entirely to ourselves. We had delicious food, a great view of Am Graben, and fantastic service. A perfect end to Manon's visit!

And of course, here are a couple of odd-ball pictures to end this post:

Yummy!

Found the Easter bunny!

Manon "en pénitence", in the naughty corner.