Why Austria?
I didn't do Europe when I had my first chance to backpack long term.
It's extremely rare for most U.S. people I know and have known to have a gap year or even a month of non-committed traveling. Some receive it through studying abroad or volunteering abroad but in Habersham where I grew up most people didn't have that opportunity. If they did they would go to Europe.
I decided on South America.
As I
wrote 3 years ago I am forever thankful for that trip and would never give back that trip up for the life of me. After that trip I knew that Europe would be next, though. I owed myself a European excursion, after the years of dreaming, years of diving into European history and cinema, and the years of devotion to
Passport to Europe with Samantha Brown and everything Rick Steves. I would likely never have an opportunity for a month of meaningful travel soon but I would go to Europe if only for a week.
In February I decided that I would go to Austria.
Austria wasn't the first country that came to mind when I thought of Europe. I thought Spain, certainly, Germany, etc. Often times when considering travel a destination falls into place in my head and dreams organically, like love at first sight. What did I want from mainland Europe? I wanted the opportunity to trek the Alps and I wanted a place where I was invested culturally or historically. Austria made so much sense once I thought that. It was a place that I could have a full week, where I could have my German culture but with cake and coffee, a place where I can have my Alps at any destination to the west, and where I can relish the Central European and Habsburg history I fell in love with while in Martha Bailey's 10th grade Honors World History class.
Austria's not on everyone's radar. Most people who know Europe know Vienna but for travelers I've met it's never a must-see. Europe as a travel destination is divided into the must-sees--Paris, Rome, Venice, London--and the backpacker havens--Amsterdam, Budapest, Greece. It confounded people that I had one week in Europe and I only planned to be...in Austria. When I bought my Eurail pass--my passport to the rails of Europe--I only got one for Austria and the OEBB network. Why just Austria?
When I was on my Inca Jungle trek a man named Samuel, of Israel, told me the best way to travel was to just experience one country at a time. In essence he pointed me to the slow way of travel, of taking in a place in sips rather than gulps. Many times I met people who only spent one day in a place. That's never enough time.
I decided I can find so much in Austria and that I should stick there. I'm quite thankful that what I wanted from Europe--the Alps, the history--was what I found in Austria.
Salzburg
Long while planning this trip I knew it would be a trip with two home bases. The first phase would be exploring the Alps via Salzburg. The second phase was exploring Vienna.
Salzburg was a city on my mind ever since I watched
Passport to Europe with Samantha Brown nearly 10 years ago. It's a city of perfectly restored Baroque buildings nestled in the Alps and lake district that Brown visited in its prime--Winter.
I was going in Summer. Of course it's a city that shines in any season so summer wasn't a bother in terms of aesthetic, right? I was going in August--the month after our library's Summer Reading Program, the month when we can start breathing at the library again. August would be fun, no?
In Europe, August is Hell Month because there are so many tourists. All year Salzburg has tourists but August is the prime holiday season for locals in Germany, the UK, Italy, etc and Salzburg has the prime town they want to visit. Rick Steves describes Salzburg as a city crawling with more tourists than locals and he's not wrong.
Rick Steves also describes Salzburg as a city charming in spite of the tourists and he's not wrong on that point either.
As plenty as the tourists and the tourist shops with overpriced Mozart stuff are, the wondrous cityscape makes up for however annoying or frenzied the people are. I went the tourist route and got myself a Salzburg Card because while it was simply meant to be my home base for the Alps I decided the free public transit entitled was worth the card and the city was worth exploring. It was important to get the two best views I could have of the city. The first view was on top of the Hohensalzburg Castle where I can view the white Baroque city on the front side and I can stand on the terrace viewing a small portion of the town on the other side. After doing some tourist sight seeing--Hellbrun Palace, Mozart's birthplace--I got my second view strolling the Salzac River and hitting one of the last bridges. One bridge had love locks on the chain fence. The banks and sidewalks of the river had lovers committing themselves to much PDA, of which I was of course jealous though intellectually I got it. This city can be so damn enchanting.
Besides Mozart this city is the city of
The Sound of Music and it is EVERYWHERE! All over the city there are Maria von Trapp images and souvenirs. There are
Sound of Music tour buses full of tourists singing
Sound of Music songs. It's part of tourist life in Salzburg and it's hard to go to this city without consenting to hearing "Do-Re-Mi." At first I tried to avoid
Sound of Music. That being said, my hostel did show the movie at 8PM on my first night and I totally watched it and fell right back in love with everything. Saying
The Sound of Music is awful is like saying life is awful. It's surreal to experience the city before and then watch the movie realizing that "you were there." Oddly a couple of ladies I met completed
The Sound of Music tour bus experience and considered it the best tour of their lives.
I hadn't intended to stay for the movie but I lingered in the commons room reading my book and oddly the film was a great opportunity to socialize. After the movie I connected with someone from Australia and another from Portugal and we chatted. The Australian spoke of the difficulty in traveling to Russia with customs and I was constantly asked about Trump. Every time I was discovered as U.S. citizen Trump was the key point of conversation...or guns. If you, my reader, are an U.S. citizen and are confronted with politics keep in mind that most Europeans understand you're unlikely to agree with the extremity of U.S. politics and are often fascinated or curious than judgmental. The succinct way to defend the U.S. is to say this: the U.S. is a vast and diverse country. If there is something great in the world, we have one of the best of it, and if there is something bad in the world, we may have one of the worst of it.
Despite it's small size Salzburg was the city where I had the most social interaction and the most positive social experience. I bonded with Dana, an Australian from Jamberoo (
a real and fantastic city name) who shared my love of metal and quiet forest moments. When we walked to grab food at the grocery store we alternated making each other jealous. "You're going to see AC/DC. I can top that. I'm seeing Iron Maiden." There was the Newcastle crew, a group of friends originally from Newcastle gone corporate and living in Manchester, Bristol, and other U.K. places. They shared ideas from their Vienna visit and drunken, loud rants. Another Australian, Cassie, joined me in Vienna and she'll appear in this post later. We were all gathered by Ty, a man as free as I envy. An East Ender and West Ham guy by way of Belfast, he had no Facebook, no Instagram. He lived in Lagos, Porgual, where for 6 months he'd make 75 euros a day canoeing tourists for 11 hours and sleeping on the beach when his day was finished. The other 6 he'd travel. He was the center of our table, wrangling people to join us. I've known a lot of Ty's and someone uptight might see him a drifter or a layabout. I could never be Ty, but I cherish a person like him for their warmth and I'll never begrudge the man for his happiness.
The Alps
My exploration of the Alps was meant for two cities: Zell Am See and Hallstatt. I only took on one and changed it up for another.
I used my Eurail pass to go to Zell Am See because I saw pictures like
this and thought why not visit a supremely blue lake in the middle of the alps. As soon as I walked off the OBB station I just started muttering "Holy fuck" "Wow" "Holy fuck." Even better that morning--around 10:30AM, tourists weren't quite awake and I was able to have a quiet stroll around this jewel.
I visited the Tourist Information to see what I can do for hiking. What I could do and what I did was take a cable car to Schmittenhohe which was a mountain that oversaw the lake. On top of the mountain was highly overpriced restaurants where people could get a beer or coffee or dessert or food and have an astounding view. To be honest I was turned off. Mountains should be left alone and wild yet here this mountain was trying to be tamed. All over the mountain was construction for new restaurants and a new cable car. There were fantastic views to be had, however. Taking the nature promenade eventually leads down the mountain towards the Alpine views you dream of when thinking of the Alps. There was even quiet too, as I sat on a bench on occasion and just breathed the Alps. Still...there were so many tourists...
I have no problem with tourists. I'm a tourist. I do have a problem with loud tourists. I have a problem with tourists who are loud trying to get that perfect selfie when the whole point of being in a place...is to be in that place. I'm not a professional photographer and I don't use pro equipment. I use an iPhone and I swing it out, take a snap, then go back to experiencing where I'm at. In Zell am See I was reaching a fever pitch because construction was going on for a new cable car lift. It took work to get away on the promenade, and I did for my moments, but I wanted the wild. This didn't feel wild.
After this experience with over-tourism I reconsidered Hallstatt, long a destination on my itinerary since reading
Europe Through the Back Door by Rick Steves. Of course it looks beautiful. But do I really want to have a day devoid of natural scenery but chocked full of tourists? I knew that taking the train to Hallstatt would last 2 hours 30 minutes and to be there for only 1 hour given the resources...it didn't seem worth it.
People at my hostel suggested options--ice caves, Konigsee in Germany--but I decided to try and find a place off an OEBB line (and thus covered by my Eurail pass) and found Golling an der Salzach. It's the last stop in the Salzburg city line, on the outskirts around 45 minutes away. This train ride, as it was with my journey to Zell Am See, was grander as I moved out of the city with ideal Alpine scenery. The train stop at Golling was a quiet place and looking outward I could see a bald mountain gazing over the town. It was a bit idyllic--too idyllic for me to believe it was real. There were three major trekking places that put Golling on the map--a gorge, a valley, and the waterfall. I started towards the valley, going over the Salzach river and past farm pastures covered by tractors. I didn't know if this was for tourists and I'd like to believe these were the real Alpine farmers. It's hard to know if anywhere in the Alps is the real Alps or the tourist Alps.
I reached a crossroads on my way that gave the time for the valley--1 hr. The distance to the waterfall--45 minutes. I mulled this--influenced by the tourist officer's enthusiasm for the waterfall--and decided to go towards the waterfall. Changing course I was led through an Alpine forest, quiet and absent of the loud Zell Am See tourists. Much with my initial Zell Am See reaction, I kept muttering transcendent profanities of awe. The best parts of earth are almost never man made and always seemingly of a fantasy novel. These woods were pure fantasy, as were the cows settled underneath the mountains. That's right--there were Alpine cows! How is this a real thing?!
Then I got the waterfall and once again I muttered transcendent profanities as I was covered in the chilled mist of the waterfall.
Afterwards I had sausages for lunch in the market main street and left for Salzburg for no pants time. Zell Am See was worth the view but I must admit that Golling ended up being the place I wanted to find in the Alps.
The Old Vienna
I had a tall order of expectations for Vienna. I wanted the old city--the Habsburg palaces, the boulevards, the fin-de-siecle aesthetic that I imagine Gustav Klimt or Stefan Zweig experiencing. I would feel guilty if I didn't experience the new vibrant city. Last I wanted to relax, to find a vacation in a place for adventure. I wanted three places out of one place.
Vienna fit the bill.
When I say Old Vienna I mean the Innere Stadt. I mean the city where Vienna was kept intact from the last days of Habsburg supremacy. I wanted to stroll, not hike. I wanted to be in a place that fit the waltz music everyone associates for this city.
The best way to experience this is to create an axis to base your trip on any day present in Vienna, that axis being one of the multitude of palaces. Each day had a palace I wanted to take in: the Hofburg, the Belvedere, and the Schonbrunn. To prepare for this I got the Vienna Pass, which provides fast-track and easy access into pretty much every museum and palace in Vienna.
Like Zell Am See, there were the August-Hell Month crowds. There were the souvenir shops for Mozart chocolate. There were international tourists pushing other tourists and Vienna Sightseeing workers on the Hop-On Hop-Off bus that had no A/C. Vienna worked hard to live up to their expectations. Inside the Karlsplatz U station Strauss's "Blue Danube" would play on loop. It was the 100th anniversary of Kaiser Franz Josef's death so images and collectibles of him as well his wife Elizabeth of Bavaria--the Princess Diana of the 19th century--were everywhere. There were the individuals in wigs and pantaloons handing out concert flyers. It was surreal sitting at the State Opera outside the U station watching individuals in white wigs emerge with to-go coffee in their hands from Starbucks or McDonald's.
Yet Vienna was everything I could want out of an old European city. I couldn't help but fall in love with it. Tucked in quieter streets would be flower shops straight out of an Impressionist painting. These were boulevards you would expect to stroll to "Blue Danube" and all the waltzes. In fact I did, listening to them on my phone glistening in the abnormally punishing heat.
I spent my first day in the Hofburg, first meeting Dana from Salzburg and chatting before she went to find a vegan bakery. We would meet back at Stephansplatz after I walked through all of the Hofburg, which was now a series of museums for Austria. I chose to go through the Kaiserappartments, the bedrooms on display primarily from Franz Josef's reign (to be fair, he did reign a long time). There was the Imperial Treasury full of Empire crowns, the old musical instruments museum, the arms and armor museum, and the Natural History museum which I went into purely to see the Venus of Willendorf.
The second day brought Cassie to join me at the Belvedere, the former palace of Prince Eugene of Savoy and current Austrian State Gallery for art. I made the suggestion because I wanted to see Gustav Klimt paintings in the flesh. I read
Lady in Gold about Klimt's relationship with Adele Bloch-Bauer and the portrait he created. Of course that portrait is at the Neue Galerie in New York City, but their collection of Klimt is peerless and while tucked away in a small corner of the massive gallery it was worth the 14 euro fee alone.
I should've ended my sight-seeing tourist escapade there. By noon the heat was enough to where I just wanted to stay in my hostel for a while for what I called "no pants time," where after a day of sight-seeing I would lay for a good hour, shed my pants, and detox. Instead I decided to go back into town to see the Imperial Crypt (which was mighty interesting) but the Hell Month tourists got to me, particularly with my decision to use the non-air conditioned Hop On-Hop Off bus that my Vienna pass entitled me with to get to the
Heeresgeschichtliches Museum (Military Museum of Austria), which was near the Belvedere. This was bad planning on my part and bad decision making. I should've known I was subjecting myself to pain in trying to desperately get to this place--recommended by the Newcastle crew in Salzburg. Of course the man sitting incredibly close to me would turn back and talk very loudly to his family. This is the travel experience I and most try to avoid and I knew better but I didn't know better. That military museum was fine enough--the World War 1 exhibit with the Franz Ferdinand assassination jacket and car was worth seeing--I was done before I walked in.
Thankfully Schonbrunn, the Habsburg summer palace, rejuvenated me. Maybe it was the high of my last day and the desire to experience the best of the city but it's hard to not find that palace truly remarkable. The apartments weren't too different from the Hofburg but that ballroom is one of those places full of tour groups that still elicited a proper transcendent profanity out of me. The Privy Garden, quieter than the palace because it costs extra money to get in, was quite lovely in the vine rings. The Habsburgs could afford to have what they wanted and who could blame them for having all of this. They could have all of Vienna and I'm happy to take in the spoils of what they gave themselves.
The Relaxing Vienna
I did a lot. I always do a lot. I'm Leslie Knope when it comes to travel, worried I'll never see anything again and thus packing in everything. It's a habit I've worked on curbing after Montreal when I didn't give my blistered feet the rest they deserve. It's why I gave Vienna 4 days instead of 2. Even then once I got that Vienna Pass I had to do everything and keep myself busy until I couldn't walk. If I wanted to relax, I often tell myself, I can stay at home and not spend money. Unfortunately I think this is why people don't travel with me.
Every city should have its places for relaxation such as its parks like Stadtpark. Vienna is actually an ideal city for relaxation because of the coffeehouses. I mentioned how Vienna fell into my view as a destination like love at first sight. One of the Vienna elements that contributed to this was Vienna coffeehouse culture. When I read and saw that Vienna had these older, stately, enchanting coffeehouses where people sit for hours and read, relax, and eat cake...I knew this was my city.
This is how I relaxed in Vienna: I downloaded a podcast or grabbed my book which on this trip was My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante and went to Cafe Schwarzenberg, a coffeehouse that's been on the Kartner Ring since 1861. The Kartner Ring is on the very edge of the Innere Stadt, near Karlskirche, an old Baroque cathedral. At Schwarzenberg I would order as I would in any coffeehouse in Austria a Melange--it's like Vienna's cappucino. I would stir the melange's foam and read or listen, people watch, sitting in my small booth looking out the window or in the shop for as long as I could.
I did abandon Schwarzenberg one time to go to the cafe at the ritzy Hotel Imperial because I wanted to end my trip with an Imperial Torte. I initially felt I should get a Sacher Torte...but the Hotel Sacher had such a wait. At the Hotel Imperial I could read in my booth, people watch, and have my torte with whipped cream while drinking my melange. This was the life I wanted in Vienna.
The New Vienna
I felt guilty in wanting to splurge my Habsburg imperial fascination and my desire to live in a fin de-siecle past. I knew it wasn't fair to treat Vienna as an open air museum, dead except for a city to please my love of its past.
What was alive in Vienna?
There was still life in Vienna. Even in the old part there was a Viennese love of the timelessness. But there were signs of life at night. The parts of Vienna you didn't see were awake. Riding the U at night there would be all the young people in skinny jeans and wearing fades speaking in German or Arabic or Turkish. On Columbusplatz near my hostel people would be riding bikes with their phones or radios blaring techno and hip hop music.
Cassie and her new Dutch friend Daniel joined us at Strandbar Hermann along the Donau Friday night as we had our drinks on the river, with the neon of the buildings glaring. This bar was dressed tropical with sand and palm trees to create a beach feeling along the river. Was this true Vienna? In reality there are several true Viennas. The Hofburg was true Vienna but so was the kebab and sausage place we stopped at Schwedenplatz or Puerstner's off the Stubentor U station, where Cassie and I got spaetzle and plate-covering schweinschnitzel.
The Donau is where I saw the most life in new Vienna. Later I'd go for dinner with Lucie, a new friend from the Czech Republic. We met over Italian food--which I was fine with because I needed vegetables--at the Summer Stage off the Rosauer Lande station where we shared our travel stories and she shared what being in Czechoslovakia was like when it was Communist and when the Velvet Revolution happened. Walking all the way to the Schwedenplatz area we saw how the river was a refuge for the young with hip urban bars around, neon graffiti along the bridges, and endless amounts of couples making out and saying romantic things to each other as if they were in a Levi's commercial (I'm not cynical about it as I seem).
To be honest I found myself less in this new Vienna than in my old and regal coffeehouses. Saturday night I ventured to the Viper Room off the Rochusgasse station to check out the Desert Rock Festival (Stoner Rock). I relish seeing metal alive in any place and Vienna was fine to see amateur metal artists lounging with their parents there to support them in between acts. I lost interest in the stoner metal, however. I'm a caffeine addict so it wasn't my pace.
What made new Vienna alive for me was that it was tailored for people to gather. Summer Stage was set up tent style, where people can sit and chat all night. The city sees the Donau as the ideal place for those to stroll and have Instagram posts and why not? I quite enjoyed it with my friend Lucie and earlier with Cassie and Daniel. It was quite lovely to see the waltz city still alive...even if with stoner metal or techno.
