Vienna 2010: Thanksgiving Day

Palace Gardens

For the fifth year in a row I celebrated Thanksgiving in a foreign country, where they, of course, do not celebrate the holiday. If you watch BBC or CNN International they’ll talk briefly about Thanksgiving, but mostly in conjunction with it being the day before the biggest shopping day of the year in America. Our goal today, other than see the rest of the sites we wanted to see around Vienna, was to have a nice dinner for Thanksgiving.

We had a few specific plans for they day, but none that required us to wake up really early, but as usual, we wanted to get an early start to maximize the daylight. So we met in the lobby at 8 AM and rather than going straight to the café, I wanted to see the gardens and Gloriette at the Schönbrunn Palace. We made the short walk and found the entrance to the gardens, which were free, and at this time in the morning, cold and not very crowded. About the only people there were joggers and a few other tourist. We wandered around the gardens where there were a few statues to look at before we started the climb up the hill towards the Gloriette, which sat at the top of the hill behind the palace. The sun was out so it was a good time to snap a few photos.

Us above Palace

Before we entered the gardens we were going to eat at the café in the palace, but it didn’t open until 9:30. We were surprised to find that there was a café in the Gloriette, but when we walked in we saw that they had a very slim choice of pastries, and even though we were hungry, we decided just to wait for breakfast and head back to our usual café. So we walked back down the hill, noticing a few very bushy squirrels that wouldn’t stand still long enough for a photo.

Back at the café we had our pastries and coffee. From there we planned to take the U-Bahn to a site (I forget what site) outside the city, but before we boarded the subway we realized that it was closed. So our backup plan was to go to the Vienna Opera house. Once there we were “accosted” by men dressed up in “opera” outfits trying to get us to buy tickets for the opera. We told them that we had no time to see an opera but wanted to tour the opera house. They were very nice and told us that the tours started at 2 PM and tickets went on sale shortly before then. This gave us time see some more sites.

Piano

I think it was my brother that suggested going to the Ephesus Museum, which included the Collection of Arms and Armor and Collection of Ancient Musical Instruments. Include was an audio device that you could enter the number listed on each exhibit and hear a story about it. For some of the instruments, you could also listen to a short audio of it being played.

Most of instruments in this museum were very rare; some were one of a kind. There were all sorts of very early pianos, the most interesting one called a harmonium, I think. The most striking feature of this piano was that there was a different tone for B# and Cb, and E# and Fb. I would have loved to play this piano, but of course the keyboard was protected by a Plexiglas cover and there were the usual swarms of museum personal watching everyone. I didn’t realize until I was almost finished looking at the instruments that you could take non-flash photos. So I only have a few photos of the exhibits.

Armor

They next section of the museum consisted of old arms and armor, the kind used in jousting and other such battles. I was less interested in these artifacts, as I am not into arms and armor, but it was still fun to see all the exhibits, some of which were very rare. There were more swords and armor to see than musical instruments, and I think we all got tired and were ready to leave.

We still had time to grab a quick lunch before heading back to the opera house, so we ordered some pizza to go, except we ate it in the restaurant, which may have been against the local customs. When we were in Rome, I remember that if you order food and drinks in a café, you pay extra if you sit at a table, as the locals ate their food at the counter and then left. Either way, I’m sure they knew we were tourist and didn’t kick us out.

It was time to walk back to the opera house, or maybe we took the subway – I forget. Wait, we did take the subway and actually got back too early. Now I remember that we ate the pizza on our first day, and today we had our lunch down in the subway station tunnel, where there were lots of shops and palaces to eat. After lunch we walked back to the opera house and found it was already open and there was a line to buy tickets. Luckily the line went quick, and once we bought our tickets we walked to the section labeled “English”. There was at least a hundred people or more waiting for the tour, lined up in their native language section. There were so many in the English section that they stated that tour early. We were in the second English tour.

Opera House in Vienna

Our tour guide was a very nice woman who spoke very good English. As she led us to our first stop, I was wondering how they were going to handle up to eight different groups at once, but they had a semi-efficient plan where each group took a different path through the opera house, except where sometimes two or even three groups ended up in the same room and once. Photos were allowed, but some of the rooms were too large to photograph, so most of my photos ended up in the “reject” folder on my computer. Our group was lucky, our last stop was the actual opera house, where we sat in the prime seats for an explanation of the opera. We were told that they never play the same opera two nights in a row, so they have to change the set every single day. In fact, we saw the workers building the set for this night’s opera.

The price of the seats for an opera varied from very expensive to very cheap. The cheap seats were actually standing room only, but for just three Euros, I believe, was a great deal. Kind of like getting the lawn seats at Petco Park for a Padre game.

As expected, like in an episode of The Simpson's, the tour ended in the gift shop. We quickly exited the shop, but since the tickets included entrance to the opera museum, we decide to check it out, despite having a hard time finding it – as did others. It provided a few good photos, and there were pictures of all the famous singers that performed at the opera, none of which I knew except for Pavarotti.

Christmas Lights in Vienna

It was now starting to get dark. That meant it was time to head back to the shopping pedestrian zone to see all the Christmas lights turned on. I was disappointed at first to see many of the light not on, but as we continued along, I was happy to see that the lights strung above the street were shining brightly. Even thought it was difficult to take good photographs of the lights, I was satisfied to see them in person. I’ve loved lights, especially Christmas light since I was a kid, and even at the age of 44 seeing these decorations brought back happy childhood memories.

So now it was time to find a restaurant for our Thanksgiving dinner. We had a book that suggested good placed to eat, but find these places proved difficult to find. Finally, after much walking around in neighborhoods that we had not been to before, we found a restaurant that had a menu that we all agreed we liked. The downside was that smoking was allowed. Austria still allowed smoking in some bars and restaurants, but we were not going to let that stop us. My Thanksgiving dinner was pasta with larger chucks of turkey. It was one of the best meals I had on the trip so far. Add to the meal a local beer and the Thanksgiving experience was complete. The smoking wasn’t too bad, but apparently most people wait until after eating to smoke, and somehow everyone finished eating at once. This meant that what ever clothes we were wearing would not be worn again on this trip.

Thanksgiving Dinner 2010

After dinner we walked around a little more along the way to the subway. Once one the subway we were quickly back at our hotel. This was our last night in Vienna, and the next day, Friday, we were flying to our next destination. My sister and I were headed to Frankfurt, and my brother and his wife were off to London. We arranged for a taxi ride to the airport the next morning, even thought our flights left one hour apart. Back in my room I packed all my dirty and smoky clothes in my checked luggage and all my clean clothes in my carry-on bag. I quickly fell asleep after a long day of walking and was ready for the trip home via Frankfurt, Germany.