In the time since my last post, our little traveling group has had a whirlwind tour of Vienna…..and more. In addition to our day at Schoenbrun Palace, we took the scenic tram and a walk through Vienna proper, viewed the Wachau Valley and took a side trip to Bratislava, Slovakia. With all of this, we have really only scratched the surface of things to see and do in Vienna and the surrounding area. This is definitely a place that I will visit again…and again…….and maybe again…..
During our travels, we have been using the train systems in the different countries to move from place to place. I may have mentioned this in some earlier posts, but the train system in Europe is far superior to what we have available in the United States and offers travelers many more options. Some of the long distance trains can move at very rapid speeds. On this trip, our fastest train was the one from Vienna to Slovakia. (We will also take this train from Vienna to the Dolomites on Wednesday.) It moves at about 135 mile per hour! Can you believe that!?! These kinds of speeds make train travel the transportation mode of choice for Europeans and other travelers more than not. It just makes sense. If you do it right, you can travel from one end of Europe to the other very quickly, cost effectively and in grand style.
For this trip, we all purchased a first class Global Rail pass that is good for 1 month. This gives us the flexibility to go anywhere within the European Union any time we want to and as often as we want to go within 1 month of activation of the pass. We pay one flat fee before we leave the United States and just hop on when we get to Europe. The cost quickly amortizes itself, especially on a trip like the one we are taking where we are visiting so many different locations. Such a deal!……which, you KNOW this group loves! Anyway, this is how we are able to visit so many places overall and from Vienna. It was great!
We have also made use of the public transportation in each city that we have visited. Almost everywhere you travel in Europe, you can purchase passes for the day, several days or a week that will allow you to use all public transportation in the city for a relatively low price. In Vienna, we purchased a 3 day pass that allowed us to use the subway, buses, and trams throughout the city. It is VERY cost effective and also a lot of fun! You really get a sense of the local color of the city by using the public transportation systems.
So, onto our days in Vienna……….As most of you know, I work at a winery in Paso Robles a few days each week. It’s fun and I like the people there. I also like to talk to people and have an interest in wine. So, this is a perfect fit for me! When I travel, I like to learn about the wine regions in the different areas that we visit. On this trip, there are 2 opportunities for exploring wine country. The Wachau Valley, which is outside of Vienna, is one of these areas.
We could have taken an organized tour of the Wachau Valley, but it was a little pricey and we really didn’t want to pay for the tour. So, we decided that we would piece the tour together ourselves with some help from the internet, Rick Steves and Trip Advisor. As it turns out, it wasn’t that hard to do! We didn’t actually visit a winery, but we did get a tour of the area and a view of the vineyards, which was spectacular. The leaves are just beginning to change in the Wachau Valley, so the scenery was not only spectacular, but colorful as well. One of the things I miss living in California is the change of seasons. I got my fill here.
The Wachau Valley is generally a cooler area and, as such, is mainly known for its white wines. They do have some red wines, but they are typically wines that are lighter in texture. Some of the most popular whites are Gruner Veltliner, Reisling and Gewurtstraminer. There is a wide range of style in these white wines. We sampled some that were sweet, with some residual sugars and some that were quite dry. We prefer the dry wines, but all were good.
The most popular reds are Pinot Noir and Zweigelt. The Gruner Veltliner and the Zweigelt are lesser know grapes in the United States and fairly specific to Austria.
On our trek to the Wachau Valley, we headed out of Vienna (using our rail passes) and headed to Melk, where we picked up a boat (our rail pass gave us a 20% discount on our passage) that took us through Speiz and Durnstein and finally ended up in Krems. From Krems, we took the train (using our rail passes) back to Vienna. It was quite a day.
For those of you who follow travel, Melk is a frequent stop of the European river cruises. There is an abbey that sits on the hill there that is just spectacular. Gene and Carrie and I walked to the top to view this and took some pictures. Just lovely.
The boat ride down the Danube was my favorite part of the day, As we got closer to wine country, we were amazed at the number of vineyards in each of the towns that we passed. As I mentioned, the leaves are just beginning to change. The vineyards were planted on the sides of the hills and were striped with leaves of yellow, orange and green. In these areas where the weather can be a bit cooler, vines are typically planted up the sides of the hills so that they can get exposure to the sun. It helps the ripening process. The towns themselves sat close to the water. They all appeared to be old towns, the center of which was a church and/or a fortress or castle of some type.
It was quite a scene as we cruised along and occasionally docked to pick up passengers. When we finally docked at Krems, we leisurely walked through the old part of the town, did some window shopping and eventually made our way back to the train station and headed back to Vienna. A wonderful day!
When we were on the train, Gene spotted some information on a trip to Bratislava, Slovakia from Vienna. It was only about an hour trip from Vienna, so we decided that we would do this the next day. We boarded the train to Bratislava and made our way to this little country (again, using our rail pases…..they are great, right!!??)
Navigating through the city of Bratislava from the train station was interesting. This is one of those countries where there are few vowels in the words and not many people speak English. As Mike says, “Can we buy a vowel?”
On the up side, we finally landed on the right bus into town and the bus ticket was really cheap (.35 cents one way). On the down side, we overshot the bus a little and had to walk through an underground passage to get back to the other side of the road to go back the other way. Mike was, as you might guess, underwhelmed with the walking. Oh well!
When we finally landed in the old part of town, we were pleasantly surprised with a real Slovak lunch of sauerkraut soup, dark bread and some of the best dark beer we have had on this trip…..maybe on any trip! YUM! We meandered through town and did some window shopping for a short time and then headed back to Vienna. All in all, a good day.
On Wednesday, we headed to the Dolomite area in the north part of Italy to view the mountains. This is our other opportunity to learn about another European wine region. We are all looking forward to this part of the journey. I’ll fill you in soon!
Ciao!
Travel With Betsy 
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