............... Beautiful Vienna

Wow this place is spectacular....The architecture here is incredible. This is very different from Salzburg.  More like a Paris feeling than Gothic Salzburg.  It took us 7 long hours of driving from Stuttgart.  There is a concentration camp called Mauthausen that Gary wants to see and I want to see the Lipizzaners museum (the horses). However after seeing these buildings I am going to be researching this town tonight online.

 Hotel

Gertie the GPS wonder got us here today with no side tips...did I mention that she took us on a wild goose chase on the way home from Paris and we ended up stuck for 1/2 hour in between construction equipment and had to climb out of the road, literally and go through cow pastures to get out from behind barricades. That was not fun but it was day time and not raining so we just sat there and waited for the work to be done.  There comes a time when you can't trust these machines but my map following, although I think is excellent can't be done without a map, so we have to rely on Gertie.  Today she pulled through.  WE drove for 5 miles right through downtown Vienna in all it's cable car glory. 

We have the best hotel we have had yet, the Rathauspark and it rivals the States Best Westerns.  The fixtures in the bathroom are so new I've never seen them in magazines yet.  So clean and spacious, beds are still very close to the ground and a king bed is always in Europe 2 twins put together with separate bedding but hey clean and new. Now the shower stall is always only 2 feet by 2 feet in Europe but this one looks like a shower with nozzles that I can figure out.  One of them had this bar that looked like a ski tow from my old water skiing days...anyway this bathroom is new and clean and we appreciate it.  All the others were so small that Gary could shower, use the toilet and brush his teeth all at the same time....I'm not kidding.

Back to Vienna...........The walk from the parking lot garage (3 blocks maybe) took us right into the town hall having a tasting...like Bite of Seattle or Taste of Tacoma, that was really interesting, tons of people, then to a Pub called Einsteins, as in Albert....I bet he was from here?  It was fantastic food, I love the Austrian food.  I had a wienerschnitzel that was heaven but the apple strudel with "vanilla" was the best.  The vanilla is a creme sauce that the strudel lays in and with a spoon you can get the whole flavor in one bite.  I am definitely going to make that at home.

 University

The Pub was full of University of Austria students which is just around the corner and American music was playing, I felt like we were on a date night. So many people speak fluent English here, we were blown away by that.

I can't wait to see this place in the light, it is so full of history and art here we are looking forward to tomorrow where the fog is to burn off and the sun will come out to show us this beautiful city.

Looks like we are going to be headed home the first of the week so this will be our last little adventure in Europe.

Auf wiedersehen