Lands of My Ancestors - Part 2

I feel that I should start off by clarifying the title of these posts.  My family is mostly German, but I traced our lineage to an area of southern Germany very close to the Austrian border.  For all I know, way back in the day my great great great great great great.... well you get the picture... could've been from what is modern day Austria.  Also, my mother tells me that her father's side of the family had some Italian in them, though no one knew quite how.   Either way, I'm claiming both Austria and Italy as "Lands of My Ancestors".  Now that we've cleared that up, on to Italy!

My "First Class" Seat on the Train

Lets start with that fun 4 AM train ride from Villach.. you can't make this stuff up!  So we catch a taxi to the train station which is halfway across town from the one we arrived at the night before.  The place was completely deserted when we got there; no signs indicating when the next train was arriving or IF there was a next train.  When the train finally did arrive, we discovered that it was a fully booked sleeper train, so there were people standing, sitting, and sleeping in the gangways.  The only free space was outside a bathroom, so I tried to get comfortable for the 3 hour ride on my suitcase.  What we didn't realize was that the area was free because one of the passengers had gotten sick (a little bit in the hallway) and was holed up in the bathroom, and it was a little smelly and messy in that little area.

When we got to Venice, I once again lucked out because the first taxi driver I approached spoke English.  I probably got robbed on taxi fare, but we made it to our hotel in enough time to shower, grab some free breakfast, and take a quick nap (it had been a long night).  The view from our room probably wasn't much to most people, but I thought it was so cool.  If you've played the more recent "Assassin's Creed" games, you'll understand. 


Once we'd gotten a little rest, we wandered Venice.  I loved the architecture... my brother was less impressed after his trip to Spain he said.  I guess there's a medieval cathedral or castle on every corner or something (note to self: visit Spain!).  We walked over the Grand Canal and got harassed by street peddlers.  I walked through a couple museums, but we mostly window shopped.  The coolest things were the masks that they sell there.  I bought a few really gorgeous, elaborate masks, but since I didn't think to snap a picture, these are just examples.


One of the things that I really like to do when traveling to other countries is to sample the local cuisine. We stopped at a little restaurant for a dinner of lasagna, spaghetti, and vino!  I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't all I thought it would be.  The spaghetti kind of tasted like it came out of a can, but the wine was great.


The next day, we were on a mission since it was our last day in Venice.  I wanted a gondola ride, my brother wanted to buy a mask for his girlfriend (hopefully she doesn't read my blog or has already gotten the mask), and we both wanted to hit the hard rock cafe.  The gondola was great, and the gondolier was a wonderful tour guide. 


Third day in Italy we went to Milan - one train ride that went perfectly.  A few doors down from our hotel was a sushi restaurant, so we spent a good few hours there just eating, drinking Sapporo, and talking.  Good times.  The rest of that day was pretty much a lazy day.  We went back to the hotel for naps and later that evening we headed to another "Italian" restaurant for some pizza and tiramisu... Olive Garden and home cooking, you ruined real Italian for me.

The next morning we planned to do some sight seeing since it was our last day in Italy.  We thought about taking the city bus tour, but once we got to Duomo di Milano, aka Milan Cathedral, we realized there were really only two things that we really wanted to see while in Milan.  The Duomo di Milano (right), and of course Leonardo da Vinci's "The Last Supper". The cathedral was one of the most beautiful ones I've seen.  The high windows made the main parts of the cathedral glow with sunlight.  If you're ever in Milan, I definitely recommend visiting.  Entrance to the cathedral is free, but security is tight.



The Last Supper was somewhat more of an adventure.We walked half the city looking for the monastery, Santa Maria delle Grazie where it was painted. During World War II, the monastery was heavily damaged and at one point, the room where the painting is was being used as a stable!  So, needless to say, after all the restoration that had to be done on the building and the painting, they're very strict about how many people can be in the room with the painting at once, photography, etc.  You have to buy tickets in advance, either online or at the front desk, but if you pick the front desk, be prepared to wait a bit for your tour.


Time to go back to Vienna.  On our way back through Venice, we had a matter of minutes to catch our bus to Villach, and we missed it.  We waited for the next bus in the train station McDonalds for 3 hours; drinking Heineken and watching the store manager walk around watching customers like he was afraid they were going to steal their trays - that was surprisingly entertaining actually (the beer probably helped).  We finally did get onto the bus, but it was fully booked, so we had to sit on the stairs and the floor.  We were just glad to be on our way back to Austria. 

Next time: Will we make it back to Austria in time for my brother to go to school the next day?? Thanks for reading! 

Lands of My Ancestors - Part 1

"Excuse me, madam," said the woman with a thick German accent.  I turned my attention from the book I was reading on my iPod to the flight attendant addressing me.  "Would you care for some complimentary champagne?"  Music to my ears after hopping an airplane out of a dry country (and when I say "dry", I don't mean the desert country of Kuwait that I currently live in).

It was just after midnight on New Years Day, and I was on my way to Austria (via Frankfurt) to visit my brother for the holiday. (For those of you who don't know, my brother is in Vienna studying German for a semester.)  I must say, that was definitely a great way to kick off the new year!  When I landed in Frankfurt for my plane change, the flight attendants were handing out roses!  That might have just been what Lufthansa always  does, but I still LOVED it.  I did not, however, love the discovery that European airports really don't have that many moving sidewalks (at least there was only one between my two gates in Frankfurt, and it felt like they were about a mile apart... and I only had a 30 minute layover).  Still, I made it to my gate in time and before long I was landing in Vienna. 


One thing I was continually impressed with throughout my whole trip was having a professional car service driving me to and from the airports, train stations, and hotels.  My first driver was Turkish, and he spoke only a little English.  He was fluent in German, but of course I knew about as much German as he did English, so we both spent the ride trying to decipher what the other was saying. I thought it was fun though; meeting new FRIENDLY people from all over the world is awesome. :)


Since I arrived so early, the hotel didn't have a room ready for me yet.  Luckily, there was free wifi in the lobby, and the lady at the front desk was seriously the nicest.  I was able to get a message to my brother to let him know where I was.  He took me out for my first meal in Austria, and you'll never guess what it was.  Good old McDonald's.

St. Stephens Cathedral

We hadn't really planned to do much that day, so we walked around the downtown area where I was staying, and hit a tavern to get some Stiegl - an authentic Austrian beer.  It was pretty good, but after not drinking alcohol for so long, I could only drink a couple.  We wandered a little more, I took some pictures of the amazing architecture, and my brother took me to a street vendor selling Bratwurst, my favorite!  We still had a lot of time to kill after all that, so we hopped a couple trains and my brother showed me some of the sites and the places that he frequents.  In one of Vienna's main  train stations we got some sushi from a Chinese vendor.  

The next day we planned to go snowboarding.  I had gotten directions and the train schedule from the concierge at my hotel, so we had everything planned. Well, I overslept so we didn't make it up to the mountain until close to noon.  Plus we found out that our directions were slightly inaccurate.  We stayed on the train one stop too long, but we both thought it was pretty funny.  We ended up catching a taxi back to the right town instead of waiting for a train.  When we finally made it to the mountain, it was super slushy in the sunny areas and straight up ice in the shade, so we only made a couple runs before we decided to call it quits.  Snowboarding always makes me hungry so we found a nearby restaurant.  We shared a pizza and a couple bowls of the absolute best chili ever... EVER.   And of course, as with every meal (except McD's), we had some awesome Austrian beer - Puntigamer.


The third day was supposed to be the day we got to Italy.  My travel agent had warned me that Euro Rail tickets could be tricky to schedule, but I couldn't really understand the tickets to start with, so I just trusted that they would get me where I was going... WRONG.  The car picked us up from my hotel as scheduled - again, I absolutely love this service!  We caught the train we were supposed to be on, but after that is where things started to go wrong.  We were supposed to catch a BUS (could've fooled me since the tickets had EURORAIL all over them) from a little town in Austria called Villach to Venice Italy.  It didn't really matter since the bus we were scheduled for had left about 2 hours before our train from Vienna even pulled into the station at Villach (tricky schedule!).  Fortunately, the customer service lady in the train station spoke English well enough to put us on a train leaving for Venice at 4AM the next morning - more to come on that.  The little detour in Villach actually turned out to be a good thing though.  As I said, the customer service lady was fantastic and she directed us to a cozy little hotel a few blocks down the street.  I was able to get an internet connection at the hotel to contact my agent and figure out our new travel schedule, and we got some of the BEST steak ever at a little hidden restaurant down a dark street.  I really wish I had made a note of the restaurant's name... darn.


So far, Austria, you're pretty darn awesome!  In Part 2, I'll recount my adventure in Italy as my brother and I visit Venice and Milan.  Thanks for reading!