September 22, 2011

September 21 and 22, 2011
Days 14 and 15 - On the Road and Verona

I didn't have it in me to post yesterday. I had the beginnings of a cold the day before and it came on strong yesterday. I felt like crap with a sore throat, lots of sinus pressure, and a headache. I feel better today. Thanks to the migraine medicine I took last night, Ricola, and lots of water!

Yesterday we left Altaussee and headed to Italy. We went through some amazing mountains and beautiful scenery. Rick has been so great about driving, our "ladies" did their usual arguing about route, and I slept part of the way but we finally made it to Verona at 5pm. What we didn't count on was how hard it was to find the agriturisimo at which we are staying! Forty minutes and a couple of phone calls later we made it!

Susan found this place through TripAdvisor.com. It is wonderful, and so is Marco the owner. He was very helpful in suggesting restaurants, places to see in Verona, and a couple of day trips. I think I'm the saddest yet that Susan and Werner aren't with us. They, especially Susan, would have loved this place and somehow, we are going to get her here in the future.

The agriturisimo mainly grows olives for oil here but they also have grapes, some fruit trees, pomegranates, a kiwi tree, a very beautiful vegetable garden. We're high up on a hill above Verona. There are only four rooms and so far we haven't seen the other guests. Here are a few photos:

View toward Verona

Another beautiful view

Our room is the window on the left

After an adventure at a self-service laundry, we headed into old Verona. Marco told us about a free parking lot which was just a few minutes walk to the Ponte Pietra. It is an old Roman bridge that was rebuilt from the original stones fished from the river after it was destroyed in WWII.

We wandered through the town. It pretty touristy but has an incredible amount of Roman remnants and those are what interested me the most. We had trusty Rick Steves with us on my iPad but mostly Rick Gumpertz led the way turning down tiny vias and into piazzas and piazettas.

We did find the "supposed" Juliet balcony. It looked just like it did in Letters from Juliet. What struck me was all the graffiti and, for some reason, gum stuck on the walls leading to the little courtyard. Rick thought people must have used gum to stick up their letters. Here's the other bizarre thing, besides it's probably a made up place, but there is a statue of Juliet and people line up to get their picture taken fondling her breast.

Around 3:00 we stopped at an osteria that Marco recommended and had a great lunch/dinner. I'm so excited to be in Italy and be done with the Swiss/German/Austrian cuisine. Not that it was bad, it's just that the styles were all similar in taste. It was delightful to have olive oil to dip my bread in. I think it may be in my head but the olive oil imported from Italy we get in the US tastes nothing like the fruity, extra virgin olive oil you get here. It's so delicious, I sometimes want to order it by the glass! Just kidding I'm sure the bread is part of the magic too.

I had fettuccine with peas and tomatoes and Rick had what was simply a hunk of melted cheese with potatoes and a bacon-like meat that he said was very nice.

We were the last diners for the afternoon (they close for a few hours between lunch and dinner) and we chatted with some of the staff. They helped me with some Italian words I couldn't remember the meaning of and were just very pleasant.

After lunch we meandered around some more. We checked out Roman arena and gate.We saw lots more Roman remnants, some beautiful frescoes, tiny streets, interesting statues, and even a L'occitane! We took a photo for my son, Daniel, who works at the one on the Plaza.

By that time, all I had energy for was to eat a gelato from the place both Marco and Rick Steves recommended and then walk back to the car. I don't know what the building is on top of that hill (some kind of church I'm sure but I do love the cypress trees in Italy.

Speaking about loving Italy. I so love it here! I love the way people sound when they talk, I love the easy-going nature of everyone, and I love the landscape. I'm on vacation so I'm not thinking of the politics, the past, or the prejudice perpetrated on my peeps. I'm in the moment and very happy here in it!

September 20, 2011
Day 13 - Altaussee

I neglected to mention that our hotel has a spa in it. We decided to take advantage of it (I mean it's raining still so what else could we do!)

I had the first appointment. In August, I had a girlfriend weekend in Santa Fe with my friends, Leslie and Billie. Leslie signed us up for a head and neck massage with a salt scrub at the most wonderful place, Ten Thousand Waves. Anyhow, since we are in salt mine territory, I thought another salt scrub was in order.

This was a little different as they had this amazing table. It felt like it had a small mattress filled with warm water on it. The scrub was a bowl of honey, rapeseed oil, and coarse salt. After she finished scrubbing my body (apparently in Austria they think it important to exfoliate your breasts too, oy vey), she folded the mattress over me and wrapped me in towels so I felt like I was in a cocoon. She then pushed a button on the bed and the hardness under me disappeared and I was floating in what felt like a bottomless water bed. It was warm but not too warm. She explained that it was to open my pores and let the oil in. She turned down the lights and left me there for ten minutes. It was pretty psychedelic. It reminded me of the thing that we had in the 80s where you floated in a dark tub of salt water. She checked on me and then left me for another ten minutes. I had coffee for breakfast so I didn't fall asleep. It was just utter relaxation, both mind and body. What an experience. After there was a shower right in the room so I was able to shower off the salt but leave on the oil.Then it was a matter of putting on the bathrobe they provided and taking the elevator up to our room. What a luxurious treat!

After I was done, Rick had a hot stone treatment with a massage to follow. His description wasn't as detailed as mine but he thorough enjoyed it.

After Rick relaxed a little, we headed off to the salt mine in Hallstatt. Werner had assured me that I would enjoy it so I was pretty calm until we got there and I noticed the funicular. I didn't realize that we had to go up a mountain to go down into it. This seemed like the longest funicular I've been on. Here are a couple of photos of it and from in it.

Once we got off the funicular we then had to take a "panoramic lift" up higher, and then we walked still higher to the place where the tour started. Along the way, they had interesting information. Hallstatt is the oldest salt mine in the world. There is evidence of mining here from 7000 BC. That's the Bronze Age!If you are interested, I put a link about the mine above. It was a fascinating experience and hard to believe people have been here that long.

Archeologists discovered a burial ground and were able to uncover more than 1500 human remains of an advanced society. They had some good exhibits about how the bodies were buried and how they were discovered.

Once at the beginning of the tour, they suited us up in two piece outfits that were to protect our clothes for the slides and keep us warm. The mine temp is about 50 degrees with 65% humidity. The guide gave her spiel in German and English. This would not be a tour for anyone with claustrophobia. Some of the tunnels were quite narrow. We walked throughout the 80 minute tour and had two "slides" to take us to different levels. My trainer Stacy would have been proud of how easy it was for us to do all he walking and climbing.

I'm proud of myself that I didn't freak with the slides. The first was shorter. You straddled a wooden rail, put your feet up and your hands on your knees. The first one I leaned back a bit far and went pretty fast. The second one was 65 meters long and I sat up for that one. They took photos of us and calculated our speed on the second one. I was going 21 meters per hour. Rick went 31. The tour guide 38. We left the pictures in the car. I'll try to include them in tomorrow's blog post.

Along with the slides, they had a couple of light shows and multimedia presentations. They had a giant underground lake that was incredibly beautiful. The website shows it. Our pictures didn't turn out. At the end of the tour, we boarded a little train, same straddling position and it took us for a ride about 5 minutes to where we started. Then we had to make our way down the mountain to the funicular. It was totally cool and I am so glad I did it. Here are a few photos but they don't do it justice. This first pic is me with a "fake" miner.

The next is the entrance to the mine.
Then walking through the tunnel. Notice the salt on the beams.
Me waving before going down the second slide.

These two photos are of the town of Hallstatt. Very lovely.







Thanks, Werner, for convincing me that I could do it. It was a fantastic experience!

Tomorrow we're off to Italy!

Erratum, i.e. I made a mistake

Oops! I got Strauss and Brahms confused in my post. Brahms is who I meant. Strauss was the guy whose statute was being repaired in Vienna. Thanks to my wonderful husband, Rick, for finding the error!

September 19, 2011

Day 12 - Altaussee

The forecast was correct, it rained all day. No wind just a steady, chilly rain. After breakfast we came back to the room and I did what I hoped I would do, took out the watercolors I brought with me and painted a picture! The view out our window was so dreary that I instead chose a photograph from the trip to use as my model. As some of you know, I have no confidence in my artistic abilities but I try every once in a while.

After my heartfelt experience with Hundertwasser, I was intent upon having a creative experience with no judgment. I somewhat enjoyed myself playing with the paint. There are parts of my painting I like. I'm going to post it here in an effort to get over myself. It is my intention to keep at the painting until I can enjoy the whole experience instead of just parts of it.

This afternoon we decided to venture out to do our salt mine tour. Hey, it's underground. A little rain can't mess it up. There are two tours in the vicinity, one in Altaussee and the other in Hallstatt. We checked out the one near here but the brochures informed us that the Hallstatt one is more extensive. It was a 30 minute drive to Hallstatt and the rain turned to slush as we went up over the mountain. Then it turned to snow! Not knowing what to expect, I encouraged Rick to turn around but he wouldn't, saying he knows how to drive in snow. I also was feeling a bit anxious about the tour since the pictures in the brochure showed people sliding down a big slide to get to the mine. I don't like heights and I don't like speed. Why would I think this could be fun?

The snow didn't accumulate where we were but by the time we got to Hallstatt, the last tour had left. Now I get to be anxious until tomorrow! I've been telling myself that if it were that dangerous, they wouldn't let people do it. I'm mostly concerned about how you stop, like in do you go flying off into the mine?

When we got back to our room, I detected snow on the mountains across the lake. Wow, a week ago I was whining about being too hot in Zurich and now it's cold enough to snow! You notice I'm not whining though. I prefer this to the heat.

After our now habitual afternoon nap, we went down to dinner. They seat us a the same table each meal. The dining room is very quiet and feels kind of formal. People smile here when you make eye contact but don't seem to welcome conversation.

The hotel we are staying in used to be a villa called Villa Wagner. A friend of Herr Wagner (not the composer) was Johannes Brahms. He apparently spent time here and composed a couple of his pieces in this villa. They have a Brahms Room which is set up to feel like a Viennese coffee house. They serve cake and coffee in the afternoon. There is a baby grand piano in it. Usually they have a life sized dummy to depict Brahms sitting at it. At 8:00pm tonight they had a live pianist playing Brahms, among other pieces. We went in after dinner to enjoy the concert. The only thing disconcerting to me was that they had placed Johannes at the bar and he starred at me the whole time!

September 18, 2011

Day 12 - Vienna to Altaussee, Austria

We had our last breakfast in Vienna, packed up the car and got on the road to Altausee. It was about a three hour drive through some beautiful scenery. About halfway we entered the mountains. Lots of tunnels plus lots of impressive peaks.

We arrived at the Seevilla around 3pm. It was pretty cloudy when we got here. About 20 minutes after we got here it started pouring. I'm going to post some photos we took from our balcony before and during the rain. The rain brought cooler temps and before we settled in, we settled down for a nap. Ah, this is what vacation is about.

When we woke up we went down to dinner in the hotel. It was in an inviting dining room with windows on three sides. Had it been light we would have had the same view as our room.

They had a pretty extensive salad bar with all kinds of marinated veggies and salads along with the ingredients to make a green salad. There were three entrees. Thank goodness for a vegetarian option since the other two dishes were veal and fish.

We started with a cream of caraway soup which was like drinking delicious rye bread. My meal was breaded cauliflower, roasted red pepper rings, and chopped hard boiled eggs. It could have fed a family of four. It was wonderful. Rick had the fish which was perch from a neighboring lake on a bed of noodles and chopped spinach. For dessert they served poppyseed mousse with sour cherries. I have mine in my room, not hungry enough to try it yet.

We're here for three nights. There is a 100% chance of rain tomorrow. At some point we are going to take a tour of salt mine. The other thing Werner suggested we do is take a walk around the lake. Hopefully the weather will cooperate.

September 17, 2011

Day 11 - Vienna

Another lovely day. After an earlier breakfast we started walking through Vienna to find Gustav Klimt. But first we thought we would stop off at Mozart's house which happened to be next door to our hotel! His house is the white one and our hotel is yellow. We decided not to go in since none of his original stuff is in it.

Rather than try to figure out the public transportation system we decided to walk to the

Belevedere Palace, former home of Prince Eugene of Savoy, a Frenchman who conquered the Ottomans. There are several more famous palaces in Vienna but we chose Prince Eugene's because it contains one of our favorite paintings of Klimt's, The Kiss.

It was quite a walk but of course enjoyable as we saw more of Vienna. We went through a lovely park that had a statute of Johannes Strauss that was fenced off because it was under repair. We got a kick out of the barrier they had up.

The palace is actually made up of two huge buildings, the upper and lower. We only toured the upper on the advice of Rick S. It definitely was just the right amount of palace for us. All the rooms had artwork from the different art movements in Vienna through the years. They also had drawings of how each room was used and how it looked when it was used as a palace. It took a few hours to do our tour of the palace and grounds. Here is a photo of the outside since we couldn't take pictures inside. The flowers in this garden looked much like a Klimt painting.

We walked back to our hotel realizing we were pretty much done with Vienna. Unfortunately, we wandered into the touristy area. My idea of hell. Millions of people, a McDonald's on every corner, and the whole place smelled like horse pee since this also was where the horse and buggy tours originated. We were accosted by one two many guys dressed up like Louis XIV trying to sell us tickets to the opera. We hadn't eaten since breakfast so we grabbed a slice of pizza to go and headed back to our hotel.

We're now in our hotel room and after taking naps we are watching reruns of The Daily Show on Rick's computer, too lazy to go out to dinner. Tomorrow we're outa here to a hotel on a lake three hours away from Vienna. I'm looking forward to some peace and to rest my blistered tootsies!

September 16, 2011

Day 10 - Vienna

I don't know why I wasn't that excited about coming to Vienna. I really like it here! It reminds me very much of Paris but feels more approachable. There seems to be a sophistication yet it's not intimidating.

We slept in today. Our hotel is quite civilized about breakfast. It lasts until 11:30 and we showed up at 11:15. So far all of our hotels have included breakfast with the price of the room. The ones we have been to are not like the US breakfast buffets. Here they have had few hot items but mostly cheese, cold cuts, fruit, yogurt, cereal, lots of dried fruits and nuts, jams and jellies, and a wide assortment of different breads, croissant, and rolls. Some have had different kinds of pickles, a few sliced veggies, and some sweets. One thing different for me here is that I have coffee with hot milk every morning. At home I'm a Diet Pepsi woman but here the diet drinks suck and the coffee is fabulous!

Rick was in charge of the day. We left Rick Steves in the room. My Rick had mapped out four destinations for us but we only made it to two. We did try to go to the Jewish museum but silly us, we showed up late Friday afternoon and go figure, they were closed!

This impressive building housed the 

Austrian Dept. of Children and Families

While Vienna has the usual incredibly great city transportation system, we chose to walk. Actually, Rick suggested walking and I had no idea how far away we were going, so I agreed. On our way we walked along the Danube canal, saw some pretty impressive government buildings, and lots and lots of stone buildings that looked like they could be office buildings or apartments.

We were on our way to the Museum Hundertwasser (Kunst Haus Wein) Am I the only one who has never heard of Friedensreich Hundertwasser? He is one of Rick's favorite artists. I've known Rick for 15 years and he never introduced me to him.

There are many things about his artwork that struck a chord with me; the colors, the movement, the intricate simplicity. His philosophy about art and architecture got me though. The museum contained four floors that demonstrated who he was, his evolution, politics, and vision for a world where people and nature would co-exist. We couldn't take pictures inside the museum so go to the website and take a look.

He hated the architecture of his time and designed the museum as a studio and living space. The  photos I'm posting show you the outside and a section of the floor in the entry way with an explanation of what he viewed floors should be like. As you can tell, he really resonated with me. I didn't want to shlep around some of his posters and books but I plan to buy some and even use his writings in my work with clients.

I dragged Rick away from Kunst Haus Wein after about 2 1/2 hours because we still had places to go. We walked along the canal some more and found the Jewish Museum but it was closed as I mentioned before and then after another 20-30 minutes of walking we found our way to Freud's house.

Officially described as the Sigmund Freud Museum, it was the building he lived and worked in for 47 years before he had to take his family to England to escape the Nazis. Just prior to their having to leave Austria, a famous photographer and taken pictures of all aspects of his consultation room and office. In the museum each room had the photos going around the room up the wall about 3 feet and then above them were display cases with photos, personal papers and objects. The entrance to his office was separate from the entrance to his family's apartment. His waiting room contained the original furniture donated to the museum by Anna Freud.While psychoanalysis is very much different than the way I practice and some of his theories are not what I believe, I was very moved to be in the presence of the spirit and energy of this amazing man.

When we finished our exploration, my back and feet were shot. It was a gorgeous walk back to our hotel. We stopped by St. Stephen's Cathedral. It was pretty impressive dating back to 1300. We were able to go into the entryway of the nave (more than a football field long and nine stories tall). They were having a mass so we couldn't go any further. There was an organist playing which really was cool!

The cathedral was just a few blocks from our hotel, hallelujah! We got back at dusk. Rick promptly took a nap and I did some laundry (much needed) in the bathroom sink. I had a Luna bar for dinner and Rick went out later, got a bratwurst for himself and some gelato for both of us. We sure ate better when we traveled with Susan and Werner! Between us, we're too lazy to search for a good restaurant and then make up our mind which one to choose!