Postcards From An Italian Adventure – Vienna, Austria

Author: scott, August 6th, 2010

Gay Friendly Austria Bed and Breakfasts, Hotels, and Vacation Rentals

Our dear friend, Bella (Dolly Goolsby) is on an extended adventure in Italy. She has graciously agreed to let us republish her travel logs. Enjoy!

Monday, July 26th

Hi everyone,

Guess I cannot say “buon giorno”, as I am in German speaking country now.

Guten tag, for Good Day, is about the best I can do.

I arrived in Vienna Thursday night.

The heat here was just as bad as it was in Florence. I finally found my hotel at about 10:00 p.m., and when I checked in, my room was like a sauna, small, cramped, no air conditioning, no fan, no help from the desk clerk.

I spent a miserable night, then went on a search for a better hotel in the morning. I am now in a great old hotel, right on one of the main streets (pedestrian only) in the heart of Vienna, about 2 blocks from the cathedral, St Stephen’s.

Vienna is a fun city. Now, in the heart of this old town, in the pedestrian areas, not only are there sidewalk cafes, but entire bars set up in the center of the streets.

Great for relaxing after a hard day of shopping… of course, I could not even think of shopping in these high end stores, so I settle for relaxing, and of course, I had to have my first Aperol Spritz in Vienna.

Here they are called Aperol Gespritzer, and they mix the Aperol with Austrian white wine, and a dash of carbonated water. (I like the Italian ones better, where they are made with Aperol and Prosecco.)

Music is everywhere. I knew there was a free pipe organ concert in St Peters church Friday afternoon, and was pleasantly surprised to find myself attending a Mass, with the Mens Choir from New Zealand providing vocal music, accompanied by the pipe organ. After the Mass, the choir performed for another 40 minutes. They were very good…they are on a European tour, and I was lucky enough to get in on their Vienna concert.

The evening was beautiful.  I walked and walked… I had forgotten how easy it is to get lost in Vienna. The center of the Old Town is St. Stephens, then around the city are parallel rings, and the other streets run like wheel spokes from the center of town to the Rings.

If you happen to go down the wrong street, you may end up somewhere you don’t want to be. This is my fourth visit to Vienna, and I thought I might retain some memory of how to navigate the streets, but I didn’t, so I get lost a lot. I am getting better, though.

I have a ticket for an opera tonight. The main opera house is closed for the summer, so the opera is being held in another theater. I decided yesterday, that I had better find that theater, so I would not waste a lot of time tonight, trying to find it. Well, I did find it with only a few wrong turns, and lo and behold! I found the Naschmarkt. Marj and I tried to find that place when we were here a few years ago, and never found it. It is right across the street from the theater I needed to find.

The Naschmarkt is like a huge, huge farmers market, with all sorts of fresh fruit and vegetables, interspersed with food stalls, sandwich stalls, bars, little restaurants. Olives, pickles that you can buy right out of the barrel, spices, candies, fresh meat and fish, sausages, cheese… one can eat their way through the market, as all the vendors are happy to give you a taste of their products. I saw the biggest tomatoes I had ever seen, beefsteak, for sure! Some fruits I had never seen before, and they looked too scary to try. I did buy some marinated peppers and tomatoes that were stuffed with different types of cheeses. Yummy!

Today, I found another great event by accident. I was walking through the Habsburg palace area, and found that the Spanish riding school was having a little show. This is the home of the Lippenzaner stallions, who are vacationing up in the Austrian Alps until September.

However, there are always new horses that need to be trained, so I attended a show of the newest horses.  There are 6 new young stallions that will start their training in September. These are 3 year olds, with a lot of energy. They are learning to do simple commands, with their trainers, and are learning to be in the arena, with an audience. These guys are beautiful.

I didn’t know that Lippenzaners, who are white horses, are born with black coats, which gradually change color to white. We were told it sometimes takes as long as 10 years for them to become truly white. One guy was coal black, though, and the announcer said that that horse will stay black.  One in 100 horses never changes color.

Then, after we saw them, they brought in the new babies, alond with their mothers. These little guys were born in May. They were so cute, and so frisky. I was glad that I happened along at the right time to see all of this.

Also, today, I took a walk through Staadpark, where the Kursalon, the hall where Johann Strauss performed, sits at the end. It is a beautiful park, with statues of different composers at intervals through the park, and of course, the gold statue of the Waltz King himself. There is a duck pond, lots of benches for just sitting and admiring the view.

Unfortunately, the weather has changed. On Thursday, the temperature was 95 degrees F. (35 degrees C.) Friday, there was a pretty brisk breeze blowing, so the temperature cooled down to 80 F. (26 C.) Saturday was downright cold – 62 F. (16 C.) with wind and some rain.

Today the temp is about the same, but the wind is about 13 MPH, so makes sightseeing a bit of a cold adventure. But I cannot stay in my room all day, so I had to venture out. I even went to Mass in St. Stephens this morning. That makes twice in one week that I have attended Mass, and I am not even Catholic, but it is the best way to get to see the churches without all the tourists in the way.

Tomorrow I go to Salzburg, where this weather has already passed, and is supposed to be warmer there, maybe as high as 70 degrees F. (20 -21 C.) I have already bought my train ticket, found my way to the Westbahnhof and back, so I think I am good to go. The time is going fast.  I will have 2 days in Salzburg, one in Innsbruck, 2 nights in Lugano, Switzerland, then back to Florence. This country is very beautiful, but I am a failure at their language. I keep trying to speak Italian to people, and they look at me, with very confused expressions. Much like the Italians do, when I try to speak Italian to them!

So, on that note, I will say:
Auf Weidersehen, and I will write more later from further into Austria.

Dolly

Want to Follow Bella’s Adventure Directly? Check Out Dolly Travels

Categories: Uncategorized Tags: austria, bella, dolly, gay austria, gay men, gay travel, lesbian, Uncategorized, vienna