Tuesday Day Trip: Lower Austria & Czech Republic

Yesterday, B had a plan: today we'd drive up (!) to Lower Austria (which is east of Upper Austria, to furthur confuse matters) and go from there into the Czech Republic to drive around the Moravia region and see the sights.

Joining us in this adventure: Franz, our friend. Unlike a lot of people who on short notice would never manage to show up the next morning, Franz not only agreed last night to join us but also rode his bicycle across town so we wouldn't have to meet him at the subway station.

We took off about 9 AM and headed first through some beautiful countryside to the town of Raabs an der Thaya, a small town of about 3000 people on the Thaya River.

Driving into town we saw some manniquens placed here and there.

















ABOVE: This fine young Aryan specimen is annoyed that I caught him trying to cop a feel.

While B amused herself at an exhibition detailing the many problems between the Czechs and Austrians in this border region, Franz and I strolled around, more concerned with seeing the sights than experiencing a rehash of geopolitics and tribalism.


















ABOVE: The castle, the oldest part of which dates from the 11th Century. Did we go inside? Nope. It was closed, naturally.

From there we drove into the Czech Republic. The Moravian countryside was unbelievably bucolic. It reminded me somewhat of the wine growing region of northern California, without the grapevines. Gently rolling hills, mostly farmland, tractors in the fields plowing or mowing hay. Sometimes you'd come across a car parked beneath a tree, the people happily sitting there having a picnic. The skies were blue and cloudless and the temps were in the low to mid 80s, so there wasn't anything not to like.

I was sitting in the back seat so I couldn't really get any good pics of this as we drove from village to village on our way to Telc, our next stop. It was so beautiful, this countryside, that I tried to find pictures on Flickr to share with you but decided to hell with it. Check it out for yourself if you want.

But I did get a lot of pics of Telc, including the famous town square, below.
































ABOVE: The view of the town square from our restaurant table.

There was another exhibit B wanted to see, maybe, so she went there while Franz and I wandered around. Twenty years ago, according to B, the towns in the former East Bloc countries were badly in need of renovation and upgrades. There's been a lot of progress and the place is really coming along, though Franz and I did see some crumbling buildings and a lot of others that weren't crumbling but which were really in need of a coat of paint.

I'm used to hearing German but not Czech, and it's strange wandering around listening to people talk and not understanding a single word they say---not even "no" or "yes." I've mentioned before that written Czech looks like a bowl of alphabet soup, minus most of the vowels, that somebody threw up against a wall. Whatever combination of letters appeared, that's Czech.

















ABOVE: The Armageddon Restaurant. Hope you enjoy your meal.

Turns out B didn't want to see the exhibit after all, so she called us and we met back at the town square, Franz and I having enjoyed watching the Czech people go about their daily business.

B wanted to show us what she'd discovered, namely this:

















ABOVE: The big-ass castle of Telc

For more pics of the place (which really was quite beautiful) try this link to a virtual tour.

Oh----without going into a lot of detail, lunch was delicious and very reasonably priced, given the exchange rate of about 25 Czech crowns to the Euro. A good bowl of soup was about $1.40, for instance. Later in our trip we sat down at a place for drinks----I had a small beer, B had a mineral water, and Franz had a coffee. Total was about $3.

Final stop on the tour: Znojmo. (And zno, I don't know how the fuck you'd begin to pronounce it.)


















ABOVE: Here's a beautiful church. Note the little chapel on the right. If you walk all the way over there and then point your camera more or less back to this vantage point, you see the pics below:
































BELOW: I would be the coolest dude in all of Oklahoma if my house looked like the top of this tower.























BELOW: The town square in the unpronounceable city of Znojmo, Czech Republic. We sat down for drinks there and spent about $3 for all three of us----thank you, advantageous exchange rate!


















From Znojmo, it's about an hour's drive back to Vienna if you don't get stuck behind slow moving trucks or tractors.

All in all, a beautiful day with my Girlfriend Unit and Franz, and I thank her for setting it up.

Sunday: A Walk Through The Woods and Vineyards

We took a walk into the woods. From B's neighborhood, it's within easy walking distance.

Once there, you can wander the trails for hours if you want, covering many miles.

Along the path we saw three Muslim women up ahead. Two were on our right, kneeling in prayer just off the path. The third was sitting on a bench across from them on the left side of the path, reading something----probably not FEAR OF FLYING.

So the praying women bowed up and down and prayed as we passed them and I thought: "Hey, Mecca ain't that way, it's the other way!" But since you can connect any two points on a globe with a curved line, I guess it doesn't make a shit one way or the other. Face any way you want, draw a line from your head to Mecca, and it connects.





















ABOVE: We came to this old tower. It cost 50 cents to climb the 100 steps to the top and when you get up there, you see this, below (click on pics to enlarge them):


















By the way, this view of Vienna is approximately to the south. On the other side of the trees are vineyards, and where the vineyards end, B's neighborhood begins. The river to the left is the Danube.

After a bit we came to a nice restaurant where we had lunch, along with about a hundred other happy people sitting outside enjoying themselves. Then back on the trail, and eventually we emerged from the woods and came upon a Heuriger set up in the vineyards, as many of them are. We sat outside, thus:

















In a way I pitied these poor bastards, sitting outside in the Austrian sun, the vineyards and Vienna spread below them as they enjoyed good wine and conversation in the perfect weather. I know each of them in their hearts wished they were in Moore, Oklahoma, driving around looking for the WalMart. And who, really, can blame them?

And turning my camera 180 degrees the other way, I saw this:





















Click the pic to enlarge and you'll see the nice little monastery on the hill in the background.

A nice glass of white wine and some snacks, then the walk through the vineyards, downhill toward B's neighborhood.

















ABOVE: Almost home


















ABOVE: The butterflies had a good day, too.

And for dinner, to round out the evening, B made this:





















ABOVE: Fresh cherry tomatoes from the garden, buffalo mozzarella, and fresh basil, topped with salt and pepper and a bit of good olive oil. A decent but very inexpensive white wine, and some good bread.

Saturday

The order of things today:

1) Laid around the house until about 1
2) Went out for groceries and computer gear
3) Drove into town to see a gathering of vintage VW Beetles and Vespa scooters

















ABOVE: This was a cherry VW Beetle. Vintage unknown.

















ABOVE: Most of these scooters weren't vintage, but the white one in the foreground, lower right, was. I'm not sure of the make or model.


















ABOVE: After it started raining and the Beetle / scooter show broke up, we found a Wurstel stand where we each had one of these----currywurst. A semi-sweet red sauce with curry and it was almost too hot for me. Which is hot, because I can take the heat, boy! Junk food at its junkiest.

















ABOVE: This is a portion of the Museumquartier, the Museum Quarter. World-class stuff to see here.

The yellow things in the background are metal "chairs" or "recliners" of sorts. In nicer weather you'll see people sitting or laying in them, reading or sketching or taking pictures or conversing...sometimes sleeping. They're painted a different color every year.

We saw an exhibit at the Architekturzentrum Wien (Vienna Architecture Center) called "Ich wohne, bis ich 100 bin."

The idea was, you walk through a mock house with different rooms and fill out a questionairre you carry with you that asks you to consider what sort of living conditions you'd want when you finally reach geezerhood. Do you want help 24-7 or do you want to be as independent as possible right up to the end? Etc. I felt kind of uncomfortable thinking about it, to tell the truth----I'll feel lucky if I 1) get to take an early retirement in the next two years, no matter how horrible the shitty pension, and 2) live another ten years in relative good health. After that, the fucking worms can eat me. I figure if I get the good ten years, I'll have spent a sixth of my life doing exactly what I want to do, which is better than a lot of people get. Then me and Mr. Death can fly off to his place for a beer. As long as he's buying, that is.

It was raining most of the afternoon and evening. We met some friends for dinner at Lux, which is a pretty cool restaurant.

Click on the link to see pics of the place. The first pic at the top is what I saw from my table. The second pic, below it, is what I saw behind my table....a courtyard surrounded by buildings that went up about 4 or 5 floors. The door to the courtyard was open and it was raining gently, which meant a nice breeze wafted in...kind of magical, what with the sound of the rain.

The patio where we were eating was originally outside but had been covered by a roof made of glass, which you can see in the pic. All in all a very cool place...and the prices were reasonable. I think my drink and dinner cost about $20, and I could have gotten away for less.

Click on the link called SPEISENKARTE to see the menu. I won't bother translating it for you---Google can do that. But note the prices. 1 Euro is about $1.40, 10 Euro is about $14. If you're like Einstein you can continue in this way, up to INFINITY Euros.

Also note that they stay open really late----unlike restaurants in Oklahoma, most of which have never see a customer past 10.

After we said goodbye to our friends, B took me to the Rathaus (city hall) to give me a taste of the free outdoor film festival that goes on there for about a month. FREE film festival, I should say. You just show up and start watching! Farther away from the screen are plenty of food stands where you can get anything you want to eat or drink....or you can bring your own and enjoy that.

We didn't stay long...we were tired from our day, and it had been raining and looked like it would rain again. Depsite the rain the films were relatively well-attended, and the food stands were doing a healthy business.

Check the previous post if you want to see what it's like to walk through this place...kind of ethereal, really, especially on a rainy Vienna summer night.