Settle in folks, this is a long one.

Pt 2. Austria

This one’s a little late in coming, thought I’d write this before too much time passes…

We fell in love with Vienna as soon as we arrived there. It’s really beautiful for a city that actually functions as a city, as opposed to cities that are essentially tourist traps (which is what I found Salzburg to be). The buildings all look like they’ve been freshly painted. Everything just looked like it was in immaculate condition. The last city to make such a strong first impression on us was Paris, but I suppose that was for different reasons.

I’d normally save this to the end of the post, but let me heartily recommend Vienna to you. Should you find yourselves in Europe, be sure to add it to your itinerary, even if only for a couple of days.

Our first night in Vienna was lovely. It was quite a balmy evening and we simply wandered around for a couple of hours. There was a great vibe around the city. This was our first chance to see beautiful buildings that lined the main drag. We knew we were in for a really pleasant four days.

Highlights of our time in Vienna include:

Eating Sacher Torte at the Hotel Sacher, the place which lays claim to having invented this famous dessert. It was one of those things we felt we had to do since we were in town. We read in the Lonely Planet guide, that a nearby cafe also lays claim to having invented the dessert. So we set ourselves up to do a bit of research and sample the wares of both establishments – for empirical purposes only, mind you – and decide for ourselves whos wares were better. We started off having morning tea at the Hotel Sacher. The cake came out along with our coffees and it looked delicious. I have to say the cake was a bit of a let down. I assume it was made about as well as Sacher Torte can be made, but I must admit to finding it a bit ho hum. It was pretty much a chocolate cake, and not a terribly interesting one at that. I wish I’d had a sample of my vermouth soaked chocolate ripple cake handy. I would have given it to the staff and told them to “get a bit of this into you”. I’m sure they would have looked at me like I had two heads, but in my mind I would have been justified. Based on our first experience, we decided to abandon our experiment and spend our cake money on strudel or chocolate or something…

Many of you will know that I am a huge fan of the “Alien” movies. So I was over the moon to find out that there was an exhibition of the works of H.R. Giger, the guy who designed the alien, happening in Vienna during our visit. The exhibition, held at the Kunsthaus (say that 5 times really quickly, after a couple of beers) was awesome if not a little creepy. Giger has a fairly twisted mind. They had a full scale model of the Alien from the films. I was in Brian heaven. Also in the same gallery was a permanent collection of works by a guy I’d never heard of before: Hundertwasser. I strongly suggest that you do a google image search for this guy’s work. Different, but really engaging. Hundertwasser himself also sounds like an fascinating guy with some interesting philosophies. He was apparently once approached to design an alternative to the current Australian flag. We bought a print of one of his paintings that we look forward to framing and hanging up in Footscray at some point.

Vienna had its fair share of stunning museums, cathedrals and the like. A few hours at the Schloss Schonbrunn palace was most enjoyable

One of my goals in Vienna was to eat a schnitzel as big as my head. The gods were smiling and we found a place where such a thing was the norm. For 5.40 euros, this is the plate that came out.

Two huge, but very thin schnitzels covered the plate. Simply delicious. Possibly the best I’ve ever had. We had no problems polishing them off.

After we had such a great time in Vienna, Salzburg was a bit of a let down. Sure it was pretty, but it was SOO touristy that I found it difficult to appreciate. I took some pretty photos, but on the whole Salzburg left me unfulfilled.

Fortunately we didn’t have to spend all our remaining time in Salzburg, rather we used it as a base for a couple of fabulous day trips.

Trip 1 was to a mountain / lakeside town called Hallstatt. What an awesome day. Such a pretty town in stunning surroundings. We’d been going pretty hard throughout the trip, so a relaxing day in the mountains was just what we needed. There are some great photos in the gallery, it’s worth taking the time to check a couple out. Here is a sample. Simply beautiful.

Trip 2 was a half day Sound of Music Tour. Appropriately cheesy, and a lot of fun. Having seen the movie for the first time the night before we left for this holiday, everything was still fresh in my mind.

Then we went home.. It was a great holiday folks. Good for the soul. I think a lot of the photos speak for themselves.

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As an unrelated aside… Italy have just won the World Cup. I’m pleased that Italy beat France, but can’t help but feel that the team I cared about was bundled out in the Round of 16.

Last Saturday was a pretty exciting day for me. As I’ve previously mentioned, I managed to snaffle a ticket to the World Cup Quarter Final game between England and Portugal. After watching a handful of World Cups on TV at ungodly hours, I was thrilled to see a game in the flesh.

I had to catch the train from Frankfurt to Dusseldorf. The France V Brazil Quarter Final was on in Frankfurt the same day, so the main Frankfurt train station was packed with people wanting to buy tickets to the game. I heard it was not uncommon for people selling tickets to the Qtr finals for 1000-2000 Euros. Wish I’d had one to sell…

Arriving at the stadium in Gelsenkirchen, the first thing that struck me was the level of security. Everyone was being searched before being let into the ground. Not really surprising given a) it was the World Cup and b) the reputation of English soccer fans. The stadium was new and fit around 52000 people. Kind of like Telstra Dome – but better designed, and very bright – even when the roof was closed.

I entered the stadium expecting a 50/50 split between the supporters of the two teams. So I was a little taken aback to see a sea of England fans, and what looked like a few token Portuguese scattered here and there. The chanting and the yelling of the English was a sound to behold. It was loud.

I was seated in the middle of the loudest English section, behind some guy who I believe had tightly wound springs in his legs. This guy would almost jump out of his seat and stand to attention whenever the ball crossed the centre line into our half of the field. So basically whenever the play would approach our end I got a tremendous view of his back. I very quickly learned that in order to see the more interesting bits of the game, I’d need to develop similarly quick reflexes, which I did. A couple of people behind expressed their annoyance, to which I simply pointed to the man I came to know as “kn0b in front”. What is it with me and getting annoyed with people at big events?

The game itself was a little on the excruciating side. 0-0 after full time. Then 0-0 after extra time. This meant after watching two teams slug it out for 2 hours, I was yet to see a goal scored. One of the main reasons I feel that AFL is a far superior sport to soccer – although I realise that few seem to agree with me on this one. Sure, both teams had their chances, but I couldn’t help but feel that neither team deserved to progress to the next round. With the final between Italy and France less than 3 hours away, I’m glad to see that neither England nor Portugal are there.

Nonetheless, the atmosphere was incredible. The fact that neither team scored in regular or extra time only heightened the tension among the crowd. The longer it went on, the more they chanted, cheered and sang “God Save The Queen”.

The funniest aspect of the day for me was when the game went down to penalties. In the 5 min break before the penalties were taken, the song “Que sera sera” was played at full volume over the stadium’s PA. Given the “who the hell knows what’s going to happen” message in that song, it was entirely appropriate, and having the entire crowd singing along took the edge off the tension.. well, a bit anyway.

The penalties were certainly nerve wracking. Portugal won, after some dreadful shooting by England. It was only after the game that I learned that England has a long history of fluffing up their penalty shootouts. Here is the official match report. Kn0b in front left before the penalties were over, he just knew.

One of the players who missed a penalty for England was Frank Lampard. Later in the evening I was out with a bunch of Brits helping them drown their sorrows. Around 1am we were in this bar and a guy walks past wearing a Lampard guernsey. The guy next to me yells out “Hey Lampard, you’re sh!t” – We (including the guy in the guernsey) erupted. Maybe you had to be there and drunk, but it was a hilarious moment for all concerned.

Just a quick note on the crowd – despite the hooligan reputation, I saw no real trouble being caused by the English fans. I heard that something like 50 people were arrested that evening, but all things considered that number is extremely small. Bet you the German authorities were breathing a sigh of relief.

It was a great experience. Am very grateful to have scored a free ticket to one of the world’s biggest sporting events. Next World Cup is in South Africa. I will make sure I get along to that – shucks, even if I have to pay..

LINK TO WORLD CUP PHOTOS.