Month: January 2024

On the Way to Fuschl Am See

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It does sound a bit like “I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew,” for those of you who remember the 1965 Dr. Seuss book…but Fuschl am See was our next destination after our couple of nights in Vienna. (“See” means lake; “am” means “at the”.) This entailed trains and buses and trails, oh my, and a few wrong turns along the way.

Actually, we were about to embark on the hiking phase of our trip — about a week exploring the hills surrounding the Salzburg Lake District. Our adventure started with the subway to the main train station in Vienna, a long wait, and then a train to Salzburg. Fortunately, it was easy to find the bus from Salzburg to Fuschl am See, although getting off the bus proved more difficult.

We bought tickets for the 2:15 bus and boarded almost immediately, except for the delay occasioned by some woman who insisted we put our suitcases in the cargo area below. I knew we must be in the right place, since one of the few passengers on board was wearing a native green Austrian hat, festooned with feathers and insignia. See photo above. We clearly weren’t in Kansas anymore.

We had looked at all the stops listed on the electronic display on the bus and there seemed to be only one Fuschl stop. Although this was not consistent with my previous research, we thought we better go with the real time indication on the bus and get off at that one. I should have relied on my research, as we ended up disembarking a full four stops too soon. It turns out that having Fuschl in the name of a place was not much of an indicator…there were multiple stops labeled Fuschl and the electronic display simply hadn’t shown them yet!

Anyway, we exited the bus at what was a suspiciously remote stop on the side of a highway, after making quite a production since the bus driver had to help us get the suitcases out from the cargo hold. The fact no one else got off should have been another hint. It didn’t take more that a couple of minutes before it was clear something was terribly wrong. I checked GPS (which, by the way, works without cell data or Wi-Fi) and realized we were a good three miles from our destination. Since pulling our luggage along the side of a two-lane highway without sidewalks didn’t seem like a very good idea we were happy to learn the next bus was only 20 minutes away. The bus driver rolled his eyes when we got back on but let us use the same tickets…clearly chalking it up to incompetent Americans. This time we did not put our suitcases in the cargo hold!

After three more stops, we arrived at the correct Fuschl stop and located the Hotel Jakob (which also seemed to have a moniker of the Triathlon hotel). And indeed it was aimed at triathletes and cyclists, with bikes on display and biking gear for sale. The town was quite small – on a beautiful lake surrounded by mountains. J and I strolled through town and had a gin and tonic at a nice lakefront cafe, and made a dinner reservation for the attached restaurant, which was recommended for local fish.

The temperature dropped; we returned to the hotel to change. This is when we figured out that Austrians, at least in the country, eat early – between 6 and 7 p.m.! I can only describe the restaurant as staid, lots of older people (it was a weeknight in the off season), all seated at tables lined up around the sides of the room so we could all inspect everyone else as they ate their meals….I had three types of fish all from the lake – a filet whose name I didn’t catch, arctic char, and perch, served with carrots and leeks.

The next day we finally started the hike, but only after an amazing breakfast buffet featuring salmon, cold meats, cheeses, breads. I managed to mess up the coffee machine by using too small a cup for my latte (you can imagine what happened), but discovered that the coffee machines in Austria rivaled those in Spain. America needs these!

After we checked out of the hotel, we started to follow the “blue line” on our downloaded GPS map, just as we had done in the Yorkshire Dales. The first part, through a valley, was a trail themed around gnomes, with little signs up everywhere telling a story of some ill fated gnome. The landscape really does explain where the Brothers Grimm got their tales.

It was only about a five miles to our next stop, although there was a decent uphill and down, and I did miss my hiking poles – but there was no way to fit them into the luggage. One thing to get used to were all the Catholic shrines and chapels along the trails. Every couple of miles there would be a shrine with candles lit, typically for the Virgin Mary. I’m assuming the candles were battery operated.

After some good scrambling and beautiful views from Mozartblik, we descended into St. Gilgen, which is on Lake Wolfgang. It’s a very wealthy summer town, but many places were closed for the season, which had ended a couple of weeks before. It was almost too quaint, painted buildings and Austrian architecture.

We had lunch by the lake, followed by a power nap, since we still weren’t exactly on the right time zone. After a long walk through town, we capped off the day with a drink at a bar across the street, which featured someone wearing lederhosen along with many tattooed bikers. That theme continued at dinner – again, the restaurant was practically empty by 7 – where we enjoyed watching four very elderly men, clearly on their weekly outing, each wearing lederhosen with the appropriate jackets.

J and I retired early. The next day was going to introduce yet a new mode of transportation – a lake ferry.

Vienna Waits For Me

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As I sit here on a cold, dreary Central Florida winter day, battling the same annoying case of Covid that half the population seems to have, nothing seems as pleasurable as revisiting our six weeks in Europe that made up the third phase of our sabbatical. You’ll recall J and I started our six months off in the UK and Northern Spain, followed by a multi thousand mile road trip that took us from Florida to Yellowstone National Park and back again, with multiple sights along the way.

On October 7, having barely slept, we finished last minute packing into two backpacks and carry on suitcases, and started our journey. Uber to MCO (for those of you not versed in Central Florida lingo, Orlando International Airport is actually the former McCoy Airforce Base, whose initials it still uses). After a flight to Newark, we boarded our Air Austria flight to Venice. All the flight attendants wore red, down to their stockings, and despite some bumpiness there were free drinks and good food, albeit little sleep.

We arrived in Vienna very early on Sunday morning and managed to find the train to take us to the Prater station, which, to our surprise, was at the edge of a very large and old fashioned amusement park. Ferris wheel, roller coasters, fun houses, and games of chance…it reminded me of Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen, which informed Walt’s ideas for Disney….I guess I just can’t escape! Pulling our suitcases through a deserted carnival the day after the last day of Oktoberfest was a little eerie.

Lobby of the Superbude

The Superbude Hotel, recommended by one of J’s colleagues, was just on the far side of the park. A very hipster style place, with lots of retro, mid century modern stuff in the lobby, including an astronaut space suit. Our room, which fortunately was ready by 10 am, was perhaps modeled after a tent? How appropriate. A pattern of mushrooms on the wallpaper, net hanging from the ceiling to mimic tent walls (?), folding chairs attached to the wall.

After a brief rest we decided to wander toward the city center via the canal. We’d been told there were lots of bars and establishments on the canal – we could see signs of that but they certainly weren’t open on a cold and rainy fall Sunday.

Eventually we made our way to the old city center. Lots of grand, ornate buildings situated next to utilitarian structures clearly built after the war. We ventured into St. Stephen’s, the main cathedral in Vienna. Highly decorated, multiple altars, and a Virgin Mary icon that is supposed to have wept…and to whom many were lighting candles.

It was now raining even more so we headed back to the hotel in a slightly more direct fashion. We hadn’t yet mastered the subway system. After a little more napping, we went to a nearby restaurant in the non carnival side of the Prater, which is dominated by the Sigmund Freud University and the Messe Vien (a conference center) and home to lots of small shops and cafes. The restaurant, Stuwer, was great and local. J had wild boar schnitzel (we were later informed that wild boar are farmed domestically and not actually being hunted in the wild!), and I had fried carp served over carrots and leeks. Two things I learned – (a) carp is an edible fish and (b) Weiner means Viennese style. Also discovered that spritzes (red or white wine or Aperol mixed with seltzer) are huge in Austria. And they are good – with none of the nasty sweeteners that tend to be added in the states.

The next day was our one full day in Venice before heading toward the Salzburg Lakes for a week of hiking. My diary reflects that I was fighting off an upper respiratory infection but felt ok. How appropriate, given my current circumstances.

Breakfast for me was something called “eggs in a glass.” Medium boiled eggs in a small bowl, liberally sprinkled with chives, and bread and butter. Chives are also very popular.

I had done a lot of work by then to figure out the underground, so we walked to the nearby Messe station, took the U2 one stop to the U1, which took us to the main train station from which we’d be leaving tomorrow.

Then, using GPS (thank God for GPS which connects even without Wi-Fi) we walked ten minutes to the Belvedere Palace, one of the huge Hapsburg palaces. It was originally the summer residence of Prince Eugene of Savoy. There are two palaces, upper and lower, surrounded by formal gardens. The museum is in the upper palace, so that’s what we explored. Built in 1723, the ceilings are painted, highly ornate, and the signs did a good job of explaining the function of each room.

There’s an enormous collection of Klimt, including the famous “The Kiss,” which even has its own signs posting its location. The Messerschmidt character heads also reside here.

It was very interesting to view the Expressionist and Modernist works against the backdrop of 18th century baroque rooms. And it’s a manageable size museum.

After Viennese coffee and chocolate torte at the cafe (how could we not) we walked another thirty or so minutes to the Museum Quartier. This took us past the Secession Building, the headquarters for an iconoclastic group of artists led by Klimt (and whose members seemed to come and go based on personal and other conflicts). The building is ornately painted and has a golden globe on top; designs harkening back to the English Arts and Crafts movement, at least to my eye.

The Museum Quartier is a collection of art museums and event spaces, and also home to the Vienna University of Technology (architecture and design), and is full of pedestrian walkways and lots of trees.

After a quick lunch we went to the Leopold Museum, which has an amazing collection of Vienna 1900. See the film, Portrait of Wally, for more background on the museum’s less than salubrious history. The museum is constructed of white travertine marble, and is light and airy. There are numerous references throughout to settlements reached with the original owners of a number of the paintings.

We saw lots more Klimts, and rooms of Egon Schiel’s paintings. He died at age 28, in 1918 of the Spanish flu, only three days after his pregnant wife- and the same year that his mentor, the much older Klimt, died. It was also the year he had his first successful show.

It turns out that I was so enamored with the various print and graphic styles and their potential use in future projects most of my photos are of various posters and not of the great Klimts and Schiels!

I had never really before focused on the immensity of Vienna as a cultural and intellectual capital in the early 20th century- Klimt, Schiller, Freud, Mahler, Wittgenstein- you name it. And then along came the world wars and isolation for some decades.

By this time we were pretty museumed out, and took the train back to the hotel. Dinner that night was at L’Osteria, a nearby Italian restaurant that’s part of a chain but clearly a local student hang out and quite inexpensive.

It was time to try to get some sleep. Some real Austrian adventuring was about to begin the next day.