Barb and Baden’s Excellent Christmas Adventure – Final

Before I forget, I’ve been uploading my Germany and Austria photos to my photo web site. If you want to see them you can click on this link. Once there, you can click on any photo to enlarge on your screen.

Departure and Arrival

Our friends brought us to the train station at Wiesbaden this morning for us to catch our train down to our first of two destinations in Austria. In truth, our train ride will be ending on the German side of the border in the town of Freilassing where we will pickup our second rental car and drive to the Austrian town of Sankt Wolfgang (which would be known as St. Wolfgang in English).

The navigation challenges aside, I’ve been extremely impressed with the natural beauty of the part of Austria that we’ve seen so far. The lakes and the mountains side by side are spectacular. About the only thing that we could possibly ask for would be some snow on the ground to make the whole landscape just like a postcard. There is a little bit of snow on the mountains but there’s visible bare ground around the snow and the forecast doesn’t show much snow in any place that we will be before we leave for home.

Good Slide

Barb was telling me that ever since Christmas was over we started to hear this expression from people in stores and restaurants: guten rutsch.

The literal translation of this is “good slide” but what it really refers to is a way to give a goodbye to someone who you’ve just met and wish them a happy transition or good slide into the new year. The closest thing in English that I can use is that is analogous to guten rutsch is “happy new year”. It’s just one of those unique German-speaking expressions that once you know about it you start waiting to hear it at this time of year.

Speed (part 2)

Since arriving in Austria on Friday we’ve driven around the countryside to various destinations over the past few days. GPS complaints aside, I’ve got to say that I don’t have anywhere near the driving satisfaction of driving in Austria than when we were in Germany. First, the major highways that we have driven on seem to have a limit of 130 km/hr. Granted this is much better than in Canada but when you’ve driven way above 130 (legally) in the past few weeks you just can’t feel that the highways here in Austria are giving the same driving enjoyment.

While we were in St. Wolfgang, we wanted to take advantage of having the car and explored a bit of the surrounding area. Within a one hour’s drive from our hotel we visited many picturesque spots such as Hallstatt and Berchtesgaden (which is just over the border in Bavaria). Unfortunately, for many of these visits, the weather was not on our side and it was either very cloudy or raining so what would have been spectacular views of towns with imposing mountains in the background were often obscured. Of course it’s always good to come home with just the memories of the places that we visit but for me, getting the photographs along with the memories is always important.

By the time Monday, the 30th came around we packed up again and prepared to head to our final destination of this trip: Vienna. The next few days in Wien (pronounced veen, the way the city name is known locally) would be really special as we will be spending new years in this city. Of course, new years is known as Sylvester here, named after St. Sylvester.

Vienna, at Last

We arrived in Vienna the day before new year’s eve and it was already totally nuts here. The taxi ride from the train station probably took 2-3 times as long as it normally would have any other time of the year due to the traffic and sheer number of people walking cross intersections. The area around our hotel which is located in the heart of the central part of the city and there are numerous pedestrian only streets near us – all of which had hundreds of thousands of people on them. It appeared that our great idea to go to Vienna for new years was shared with lots of people.

At first it was disheartening that there were so many people on the streets as it meant that virtually any cafe or restaurant you wanted to go to had a lineup out the door.

We eventually got somewhat used to the crowds and walked around many of the neighbourhoods around our hotel and discovered many, many stages that had been setup in preparation for the next day’s new year’s eve celebrations. In addition to the stages, most of the streets were decorated with elaborate decorations and lights. Overall, despite the crowds everyone seemed to be in a good mood knowing that being in this incredibly unique city to celebrate new years couldn’t possible be bad.

The City of Music

One of the first things that it took getting used to was the beauty of the architecture. Within a 15 minute walk from our hotel (under normal circumstances, not the day before new year’s eve) I would pass by a dozen or more incredibly beautiful buildings, often lit up at night which allowed fantastic photos to be taken. I’ve been to many cites around the world where there are great photo opportunities but I’ve never seen a place that has so many in such close proximity.

If I haven’t told you before Barb does most of the trip planning for our adventures and one of the biggest challenges for spending new year’s eve in Vienna was how to experience this city of music in some memorable way. Of course there were no shortage of events to choose from but many of them were outrageously expensive and more importantly most events required a dress code that neither of us were prepared to pack. Barb really came though in booking us for a classical concert actually in Mozart’s house in Vienna. It was a quartet known as the Mozart Ensemble and they played for just over an hour, playing compositions from Mozart, Strauss and others. Part of the music experience had to be the room in which they performed. Known as the Sala Terrena (photo above) the room not only had beautiful paintings on the walls and ceiling but also had excellent acoustics and allowed you to experience the music to it’s fullest effect. The whole evening was really magical.

We had a late dinner and spend the remainder of the night walking around and as much as possible trying to enjoy the music of the different areas before settling in at the stage right beside out hotel where a live band was playing. The crowds that were out on new year’s eve were simply unimaginable. Walking along the major walking streets in the city centre was near impossible and we tried to stay to the side streets just to get around.

When midnight finally arrived, fireworks were set off throughout the city. Soon afterwards, Strauss’ famous waltz An der schönen blauen Donau (English: Blue Danube Waltz) is played and many people begin waltzing in the new year. In our case we did our best attempt at waltzing but luckily most people were probably drunk at this point and didn’t notice how bad we were. 🙂

And Finally …

We made it a late morning on the 1st after our late night out the evening before. From our hotel window we saw that crews had dismantled much of the stage that was down in the street and after walking around the city much of the signs of the new year’s eve celebration were already gone. Certainly the numbers of people on the streets last night were easily 1/10th what it was the night before. For the first time in many days the sun was out and Barb and I just did some walking around the city, taking some additional photos but more just enjoying the more relaxed environment.

As I’m writing this last section, it’s Thursday and tomorrow morning we’ll be leaving and will be back in Vancouver by Friday afternoon. We’ve covered a lot of ground during the past three weeks of this Christmas Adventure and I’m usually looking forward to getting home after being on the road for this long.

Barb and I will be taking home so many memories. Of course we will always remember new year’s in Vienna. But without a doubt the most memorable part of this trip will be the days that we spent with friends in Frankfurt and Wiesbaden. There’s one undisputed truth that Barb and I have learned over the years and that is there is nothing better than spending time with friends when travelling and we both feel really fortunate to have such good friends in a country that we both love so much.

I hope that you’ve enjoyed travelling along with us on this Excellent Christmas Adventure and I suspect that it’s going to be a long time before we travel again at Christmas. We already have our next destination picked out and I think that travel planning will have to start again fairly soon after we get home. With all of this recent cold weather travelling I think that Barb and I will want to see some warmer destinations in 2014.

All the best to everyone in the new year and see you on our next adventure.

Photos from this trip have been uploaded to my photo website here.

Baden