Salzburg & Day Trips

The wonderful experience of visiting Salzburg started while approaching the airport for landing. The views from the low altitude give the glimpse of what to explore in the next 4 days at the second Austria trip! The Airport is a small one, but well connected with good public transport and as the city is small, mostly it is punctual. Bus#2 runs regularly to the city centre. The first task to do is to buy the Salzburg Card. It comes in several options but the best buy is for 48h. Normally, in my EU city explores, I don’t buy a city card. But Salzburg is a different case. They (cleverly, I would say) keep the entry price for every must-see-sites quite expensive and thereby the tourist will eventually buy the city card to make it cheaper; of-course as card covers several other options (for free or reduced price), it shows out to be cheaper and effective. But, if you see the card cost alone, it is expensive (36Eur for 48h per person) but the city management cleverly advertise it as an effective way, huh…by the way, the price is higher in peak season (May to Oct) where more tourist visit! The Salzburg card gives free access to most of the public transport. There is no card swiping needed in buses, showing the card to the driver is enough (belief is vital in German speaking countriesJ). A detailed planning is important to effectively use the 48h of the card to see and go around Salzburg.

We landed by noon and after lunch plus regular hotel check-in processes we started our trip taking the bus#25 direct to Untersberg. It’s a 35 mins travel from Hbf through the Salzburg city center. Once the bus is out of city limits, the Austrian Alps beauty can be admired and the travel doesn’t look long enough to reach Untersberg. The bus stop is just opposite to the Untersberg Mountain cable car. The cable car cost is free with the Salzburg card! Within 10 minutes from the lower terminus at 456m, we reached an altitude of 1,776m i.e. 1.3kms upward travel in meager 10mins. In between, the gondola was stopped for the opposite one to pass by and for a minute we were hanging in mid-air and due to the wind, the gondola was literally swinging… an experience never to be missed. On a wonderful clear day, the views will be amazing but we weren’t that lucky. Nevertheless, we enjoyed our time and returned after an hour. The last trip from top is at 17h and shouldn’t be missed at any chance ;-)

While returning from Untersberg, we scanned the Salzburg card pamphlet and found the Salzach Schifffahrt (Salzach River Boat Cruises), as the weather was not cooperative for us (rainy). We caught the last ferry drive at 18h; just have to collect the ticket by swiping the Salzburg card. The captain was jovial and entertaining, he spoke good German and English and detailed few history on the old city (as we understand both, we could compare his narration). The explanation of the river depth and the boat were good and cruising in the shallow water opposing the strong current was a nice experience.

The 40mins cruise ends up with a waltz around, four quick circling on both directions, which was a bit fun! A display showing New Delhi at 7422kms, reminded us the distance we are away from our India! This cruise tour is not a must to do at Salzburg, but when the weather is not good + you own a Salzburg card + 1h to spare go for it! Salzburg is a city where they close most of the attractions by 18h, so a better planning is needed. After our ship tour, the weather got better a bit and we roamed around the old town catching up eat outs for a nice dinner.

We planned our next day entirely for Salzburg site seeing. As the weather was forecasting rain for the forenoon, we visited the Haus der Natur, with the Salzburg card, it’s free. The aquarium was big and informative.

We especially enjoyed the care they take to breed rare fishes and the new-born baby fishes. The section that were informative for us were: Christian Doppler Exhibition, Space Hall, journey through the human body. It’s a nice place to spend a day when you go with kids (to teach/show them). With several other attractions in Salzburg, I won’t say it’s a must. If you have the Salzburg card and ~1-2h time to spare, please visit in for a good informative experience.

Just round the corner, there exist a toy museum (with the Salzburg card, it’s free), we just peeked into it but was not that attractive for us. Came out, weather was improving and took the Monchsberg Lift (with the Salzburg card, it’s free) for the spectacular panoramic views of the fortress, old town & new town. Although we did not go, a museum and restaurant are there as well to explore.

We walked towards the Kapitel platz to go to Fortress Hohensalzburg. As the name says (hohen means high) it is a beautiful high point for wonderful panoramic views of Salzburg and the Alps. Before taking the cable car, at the Kapitel platz watch out for the giant golden ball, it is to replicate the Mozartkugel (Mozart ball is a small, round confection made of marzipan, nougat and dark chocolate). Mozart is everywhere in Salzburg, the city takes much pride of him! A funicular behind the Dom took us up to the castle. Salzburg card covers the funicular and the castle entry.

There are two ways to explore the castle – A & B. We took the A option for the exteriors walking and enjoyed the four view points of the beautiful medieval castle. At one view point, we saw a field below to find only one house in the middle, the executioner's residence. I recollected that once it was believed to live anywhere near the executioner was bad luck!

We enjoyed the time up the castle, especially the inner courtyard and surroundings. Luckily the Sun peeped out just in time for us to enjoy the beautiful panorama of Salzburg and Alps.

We had a quick look into the marionette museum where we saw puppets showcasing events of Salzburg’s regional history, such as the peasant uprising, shipping in the days of the archbishops and mozart’s extensive travels. There was a devils door which when opened created a scare and was really funny to play with it.

Came down with the funicular and tasted a home made vanilla dumpling at the Kapitel platz. It was really tasty and the seller shared the info that its a a family run business for four generations. We remembered our Indian way of family run business and customer approach. Wherever you go, the local market in the world doesn't change much whatever be the globalization! Strolled towards the old town and caught the bus #25 towards Hellbrunn palace. It is on the same route to Untersbergbahn, but we couldn’t combine yesterday as the last water trick show was at 1730h. Nevertheless, it is not a long travel to worry about!

With the Salzburg card, the entry to Schloss Hellbrunn & Wasserspiele (Hellbrunn Palace & Trick Fountains) is free. It is one of the must to do while visiting Salzburg. The water tricks bring so much fun and I am sure the childhood inside every adult is brought out. We got the English speaking tour with a waiting time of 45mins. It’s a good idea to pick the tour ticket and use the same to go around the palace while waiting for the tour. The palace is not that big, with the audio guide one can tour it in less than 30mins. The park is also nice to relax a bit before the water trick tour starts.

The tour guide explained that the fountains and water jets are almost exactly the way they were intended 400 years ago. It is a 40 mins tour whereby we walk across wells, fountains, ponds, five artificial grottos, sculptures and statues. It is a Baroque Disneyland, created for the sole purpose of entertaining the immensely rich Prince Archbishop of Salzburg and his guests. There are hidden jets of water around every corner and for sure everyone in the tour group will become wet or drenched as the water jets comes out suddenly from the invisible  nozzles. Tip: watch out for the small copper coloured nozzle and try to stay away from itJ. The most interesting for us (out of many) were the

Roman Theatre: a marble table with seats that are part of a hidden fountain. When the Prince Archbishop hosted a dinner in Hellbrunn Palace, nobody was supposed to get up from his or her seat as long as the Prince was still seated - which explains why his chair is the only one not targeted by the fountain

Bird Call Grotto: ten different bird calls are heard from several niches in the wall coating, all created by water flow!

Mechanical Theater: 18th century life style is shown by means of water-driven puppets. A total of 141 mobile and 52 immobile little figures demonstrate all manner of professions and trades of that period, again all driven by water mechanism, amazing!!

After the fun filled 40 mins tour, we were left out at the park. After strolling around we returned to Salzburg by catching the #25. There is a zoo nearby (again covered in Salzburg card) but we were not interested and also didn’t have time to spend. As said earlier, most of the attractions were closed by 18h and hence roamed around the open old town, residenzeplatz, getreidegasse (most exclusive shopping lane in Salzburg, while window-shopping, don’t forget to notice and admire the old style signs of profession outside each store).

Time for dinner and per TripAdvisor recommendations stepped into L'Osteria (Dreifaltigkeitsgasse 10). It was typical Italian restaurant and as we haven’t reserved, we couldn’t find a nice seat. As the weather was good, we picked delicious pasta and walked just across the road to the river side to have a wonderful scenic dinner. I have never seen such super large Pizza (XXXL size) and to try that booked a table for next day! After our river side dinner, walked-in to enjoy the desert Sachertorte at Café Sacher. As we enjoyed its rich taste at Vienna few years back, it was a nostalgic feeling to taste it once again treating the fantastic day at Salzburg.

On the next day, the plan was to cross the border, back to Germany from Austria to visit Salzbergwerk Berchtesgaden (salt mine) and Königsee (Kings Lake). Salzburg is just 14 km away from German border and due to the EU regulations you don’t even notice that you crossed a country border. We took the Bus 840 from Salzburg Hbf (the bus stop is a bit outside, so watch out and verify beforehand) to Berchtesgaden. The Salzburg card is unfortunately not valid for 840 as it goes outside Salzburg jurisdiction. But after bit of browsing, I decoded that buying a Tageskarte (All Day Pass) for 11Eur per person (the trip to Berchtesgaden covers 5 zones from Salzburg: 2400, 2405, 16, 20, 22) is economical as it also cover the local bus to Königsee from Berchtesgaden hbf. It was a clever decision and I would recommend to check at http://www.svv-info.at/en/tickets-and-fares/casual-riders/regional-fares for all the info and plan appropriately. The Bus 840 timings are not regular and hence a good planning is necessary to define the time to spend at salt mine and Königsee. Otherwise, there is a train to return from Berchtesgaden but the Tageskarte won’t be valid. So better plan properly for this day trip from Salzburg!

We got down at Berchtesgaden Salzbergwerk (4 stops before the Berchtesgaden hbf). It’s a short walk to Salt mine entrance and again it was a good plan to go first in the morning that helped us not to wait for a long time in queue (when we returned after the tour, we saw a waiting time of 2h). The entry ticket gets a 20% discount with Salzburg card and thereby we used it for the one last time as our 48h validity got expired by noon!

While visiting Salzburg, a tour of one of the salt mines is a must. Salzburg gets its name from the abundant mountain salt (salz means salt in German) export done for several centuries. Salt was considered precious and termed as middle age’s white gold (salt  was the only means to keep meat fresh at that time due to no electric refrigeration techniques) and it helped to raise the economic power of Salzburg and surrounding region. The famous salt mines are at Berchtesgaden, Hallein and Hallstatt, a trip to one of the three is very informative and also memorable. The specialty of the tour is to wear a miner’s jump-suit/coverall (as in photo) to get the full effect. It was exciting to enter the underground mine where they maintain the temperature constantly at 12°C. The tour route is well organised which starts with a beautiful underground tunnel train drive for 650m with instructions not to poke legs/hands out to prevent injury! After a 5mins ride, the tour guide explained the history about a salt cathedral built more than 250 years ago and a laser show shows how it would have been to be completely filled with water up to the ceiling. And then comes the best part: a 34m wooden slide, it is exactly the same as how the miners will slide in their daily work life! It was fun and thrill and we enjoyed it. Then the tour shows a short informative movie to learn more about the mountain salt along with the standing model illustrating current mine stage and how salt is extracted. Taking samples by drilling ascertains the minimum rock salt content. After confirming required content, the salt is extracted using so-called "wet mining". The freshwater is fed into the mountain, which dissolves the salt from the composite rock in a period of time and produces brine (salt water with 26.5% salt) which is pumped out to industry to produce mountain salt. The informative film informs that several million years ago ocean water was trapped between the hill formations and turned into a big salt basin within the mountain rocks. They estimate a 1.5 km salt reserve with proven deposit depth of 500m below the valley floor and presumed deposit depth of 1km below the valley floor.
The salt content in the mountain is approximately 50%. Mountain salt is rich in its nutritional profile as it contains a high number of essential minerals. While tour walking (all underground) tasting the salt from the tunnel rocks (that are of different colors) confirmed the high salt content!

After a short walk, we reached the multimedia room, to read and understand a lot about salt and its importance. Then another wooden slide about 40 m down to a beautiful mirror lake. The lake shows the model of how an artificial hollow space is developed to store fresh water in the mountain which gets converted to brine later. The ceiling reflection on the water surface resembles as a mirror and a short drive on it with a wooden shaft in pitch underground darkness was memorable.

The 1h tour ends with a direct elevator moving 23m up to the land surface. The tour is memorable for us as we learnt a lot about mountain salt. The German engineering is mind-blowing to know: In 1817, the first Berchtesgaden brine ran in the wooden pipes to Bad Reichenhall (20kms away) and from 1905, a 14 ton pump (made ​​entirely of bronze) running without any disruption till today!

After the wonderful tour, walked back and caught #840 to Berchtesgaden hbf. The bus#841 to Königsee is also not that frequent and hence plan to catch it accurately, otherwise there is nothing much to do at the small at Berchtesgaden town centre. After a 10mins bus travel, we reached the Königssee. It is a tourist hub drawing more than half a million visitors every year and hence we saw scores of souvenir shops. The lake was not visible initially and after a 10 mins walk, a sudden turn to the right, we saw the lush-green-transparent-cleanest lake of Germany!

It resembles a fjord set in the Bavarian Alps. The lake Königssee is 8km long, 1.25km wide and lies 602m above MSL. There is a dedicated sightseeing boat service. The boat goes to Salet with in between stop at St. Bartholomä. As I planned, got the return tickets to Salet and got down at St. Bartholomä. Since 1909, all the boats are powered by batteries; this preserves the cleanliness and silence of the lake!! Keep in mind that ONLY the trip from Königssee to Salet (via St. Bartholomä) and back lasts about 2h. The boat travels in appreciative speed, but the distance makes one way travel approx. 1h. We enjoyed the lush green water ferry and before reaching St. Bartholomä the boat stopped at a silent location which is surrounded by sheer rock walls. The captain then played a trumpet to demonstrate the echo which is heard to reverberate up to seven times. The trumpeter played along with the returning sounds so it sounded like as many as seven players, really an amazing experience.

St. Bartholomä was so beautiful with a charming church tower, steep ice covered mountain and green clean water! We strolled around the banks of the lake and relaxed by appreciating the nature’s beauty. After a wonderful time, we caught the next ferry to Salet.

There were numerous waterfalls, which brings all the water from the melting ice from the top and the views were really amazing. From Salet, we made a 15 min walk in the dedicated path to Lake Obersee for a deep tranquile view of a 470m high Roethbach waterfall at the background! In 1978, this area was declared as national park and hence plants and animals are protected in their natural environment.

Took back the ferry from Salet to Königsee at 1710 (note that the last ferry is @1740, no idea why so early) with so many tourists trying to enter at St. Bartholomä and they were stopped to enter due to overcrowding. It was good to plan a direct trip from Salet to Konigssee to avoid the last return rush. After doing some shopping at Königsee comfortably caught the #841 and the last bus #840 at 1815 (@ Brechtesgaden hbf) to Salzburg. Actually, I wanted to cut short sometime at Königsee and wished to go to St. Sebastian Church (at Ramsau, seems photographers love to click riverside church), but couldnt do it due to the mesmerising beauty of Kings See. There is always a next time though!!

Brechtestgaden alone may need 3-4 days to properly explore and enjoy. Not to pack all in one day, we skipped the other places of tourist interest (Nazi Dokumentation Center, Eagle's Nest, Sommerrdelbahn Slide (wish to do it one day), Jennerbahn Mountain. At Salzburg our restaurant reservation was ready and enjoyed a beautiful Italian dinner to finish a lush-green-mountain-salty day!
The penultimate day is another special day of driving a rental car in the Salzkammergut (means estate of the salt chamber) region. With its numerous lakes and mountains, the Salzkammergut offers the best relaxed vacation spots and beautiful scenic drive routes. I booked a rental car at SIXT (at the Airport). A very helpful and friendly front desk accepted my request for an upgrade and I was delighted for the chance to drive a Mercedes-Benz SLK-Class -  sportlich (sport), leicht (light) und kurz (short).

Enjoyed the drive in Austria autobahn and no big difference than German ones! This link will be of immense help, if you plan a day trip from Salzburg to Hallstatt by car/public transport: http://www.tripadvisor.com/Travel-g190441-c194495/Salzburg:Austria:How.To.Get.To.Hallstatt.From.Salzburg.html though the whole journey shouldn't take more than 1.5h, we took several breaks enjoying the wonderful views of the Alps and lakes and finally arrived at Hallstatt after 3h.

A visit to Hallstatt would be mesmerizing on a good, clear day. Also, Hallstatt is prettiest in the morning, after midday some of the mountains are in shade and indistinct. It is a very small place so if it's raining we will run out of things to see and do quite quickly. Our day’s weather was not rainy/low clouds (unfortunately not with a sunny blue sky), but we had several interim bursts of sunshine to enjoy with. Hallstatt is a car free small village which is another big Asian tourist hub at Austria. Out of the 10 tourists we saw, 7 were from Asia and it showed how the village is advertised by the Asian (Chinese mainly) tour operators! As I planned, I parked the car at the south side parking and went to the small island to get the complete view of Hallstatt.

Other than the village, ice cave, 5 fingers, salt mine are worth a visit. To cover them, it needs a full day at Hallstatt and as we decided to enjoy more nature views, we skipped them for another trip with bright blue sky! A walk in the village shows the richness and ancientness of the place. I read that the salt trade made this an important village dating back to 800 - 400 BC.

Had a short break enjoying the local dishes at the village prettiest main square. The ferry terminal (that brings in tourist using the public transport from the other shore by a ferry) is nearby and had a quick visit to the bone house. The bone house is collection of elaborately decorated skulls with the deceased's name, profession, date of death inscribed on them. As there is so little place for cemeteries that every ten years bones used to be exhumed and removed into an ossuary, to make room for new burials. The waterfalls in the middle of the village and its sound added charm to the moment. After such wonderful time, took the car and planned the GPS to Gosau!

It was 20 mins drive from Hallstatt but absolutely fantastic driving experience. Several zigzag mountain climbs with a speed limit of 80 and 100kmph. Enjoyed driving the SLK in perfect mountain road. Before reaching the southern end of Gosau, we paused on a greenish valley, never seen such a picturesque valley and paused (was not planed at all, that was the benefit of car to break the trip anytime) to enjoy the views.

The Vorderer Gosausee is a a lake with a scenic view of the Dachstein (second highest mountain in the Northern Limestone Alps). The reflection from the ice caped glacier on the lake was spellbound. Also, the early summer green growth reflection added the glamour and I wanted more time to spend, enjoying the nature. There were very few tourists and it added more value to the moment.
Enjoyed a lovely evening coffee at Gasthof-gosausee with a painting like view from the window. The weather was not pitch perfect for us but to visualize how it will be on a sunny blue sky day, enjoy the panorama view at the site https://www.panorama3d.at/gasthof-gosausee/panorama
Got a chance to test my German skills with an old local man at the restaurant. Managed to maintain the communication, though there were several Bavaria phrases. He shared his experiences of visiting the glacier and the tough temperature conditions. We discussed about Mt.Everest too and was exciting to know from the local on Austrian mountain expedition.
Thanks to the coffee at the restaurant which kept me alert for the return zigzag drive back. As planned we then reached St.Wolfgang. Its a small town that faces west and enjoys the afternoon sunshine. Even though it was not sunny, but bright, we enjoyed the glorious views and had real fun in watching the entire village in front.

Then we drove to Mondsee to watch another beautiful lake in Austria. Mondsee is one of Austria's last privately owned lakes till Aug 2008! We then drove back to Salzburg after a wonderful one day road trip in the famous Salzkammergut region. It would have been more fun, if the weather would have been more sunny and cooperative. Nevertheless, no real regrets, there are few moments in life that cant be planned to perfection, and enjoying those unexpected moments makes life more interesting!

On our last day at Salzburg, we had few hours to spend before departing to Airport. As the weather forecast was excellent (finally), I planned it for the colorful Mirabell gardens. The entry to the gardens is free and its a horticultural masterpiece and popular backdrop for photographers. With the Sun shining, enjoyed some colorful moments at the garden. Its better to go early in the day to avoid the tour groups. Once they invade from Asia (a group has min 30 people), the whole opportunity to enjoy the colorful arrangements with castle in alignment gets muted!

After spending 3 hours, returned to hotel and picked our luggage to catch the bus #2 back to Airport. The weather was so good, bright blue sky and we could even see the cable car wire hanging to the Untersberg and the cross at the top of the hill from the Airport entry. It probably was an invitation from nature to visit Salzburg with the blue sky weather and enjoy it again!
If you plan for a Salzburg trip, Sound of Music (SOM) tour will be the first one to pop up. Being a non-Hollywood follower, I was not that fascinated on it, but was curious to know what the film SOM actually portrayed to bring in so many tourist. Watched the trailer in YouTube, and Tamil movie Shanti Nilayam came to mind, who copied whom is another blog story ;-) point is: if you haven't heard about SOM, don't go for it! Proper planing per your wish and likes is key to visit Salzburg and surroundings, otherwise you will end up seeing a small Austrian alpine town without appreciating its real beauty. Thanks for reading till the end and dont forget to add your comments. Enjoy every moment of life, take care!

Vienna, Austria

Its a fantastic feeling to write (again) after a gap of two years! 100% true that life's priorities changes after marriage, I felt it, time shrinks but enjoyably!! Even then, after every trip in the past two years, somewhere in the corner of my heart, I was longing to write :) and it was catalysed by a good friend's request, and here I start writing again...
I am happy to mention that Austria is my TENTH country visited in EU!! When I was studying Geography in schools, I had a wish to see these countries/cities: to see the people, understand their culture, taste their food etc., I should thank God for fulfilling the wishe(s) and its a wonderful feeling!
Vienna (Austria) was on the list to visit for a long time but couldnt find a right opportunity to do it. For a change, this Vienna trip was not a long planned one. Even a week before, we were not knowing that next weekend is going to be at Vienna. On Monday, casually browsed for offers in DB (German train system) and found a cheap offer and booked it right away. Even the hotels were cheaper (I was expecting the hotel costs to be higher due to late booking) and  found a 4 Star hotel with good tram connectivity with 10mins city center travel. The downside of the cheap train ticket was a travel time of 9.5h from Hamburg. Even though it is a InterCity Express (ICE), German's fastest trains, the distance of 1150kms (via Passau) took 9.5h (calculate yourself the speed of the train). I took a day-off to feel Vienna better, frankly, two complete days weren't enough but still not worse! Austria's official language is German and hence there was no language problem in this trip. Nevertheless, the German spoken by the locals were much different than that of in northern Germany, though, Austrian were more comfortable to switch to English.

Reached Westbahhof by early evening and directly checked into the hotel. Unlike most EU cities, Vienna doesnt have a central railway station, it has different stations at west, south and middle with the new Vienna Central Station planned to open in 2014. After a quick refreshment, reached schloss schoenbrunn (castle with beautiful garden). The name Schönbrunn means "beautiful spring", and it matched to its definition. After visiting 3 castles in Europe (including the much famous Bavaria's Neuschwanstein) frankly I lost interest to visit an european castle. These castles are luxurious from a western point of view, but nothing when compared to Indian palaces. Hence, we roamed the gardens and the Gloriette.

The garden axis points towards a 60 meters higher hill, which is crowned by the Gloriette structure. The Gloriette is dedicated as a Monument to 'Just War', that led to peace. Read about 'Just War' at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_War, I am sure you will be surprised that Indian Epic "the Mahabharata" is referred for it!! Lately, I started loving symmetric huge scale constructions. The castle, garden and the gloriette structure were designed in complete symmetric and it was a wonderful opportunity to try some good photographic angles. We climbed the hill and reached the Gloriette for where we had a magnificent view of Vienna.

The beautiful romantic garden was vast and it will take at least half-a-day to cover entirely. We cut short the plan and visited the rosarium and one section of the garden to spend the evening quite relaxed! The calmness and greenery of the garden was soothing and we enjoyed it.

Left the gardens to the city center and decided to taste the famous Austrian pastries and cakes in their famous cafe shops. The first target was the cafe sacher to taste the world-famous Original Sacher-Torte (torte in German means cake). Franz Sacher in 1832 created a palatable dessert for high-ranking guests and later on a large scale to the general public. The Sacher-Torte is a soft and fluffy chocolate cake with the tasty apricot jam under the icing and probably considered as most famous of all cakes!!

Once we were at the Hotel Sacher, I recollected that this is the same place where they prepared a a single cake diametered 2.5 meters in 1998 and entered into the Guinness Book of Records. Another interesting info at Wiki says 'The recipe of the Hotel Sacher's version of the cake is a closely guarded secret. Those privy to it claim that the secret to the Sacher Torte's desirability lies not in the ingredients of the cake itself, but rather those of the chocolate icing. According to widely available information, the icing consists of three special types of chocolate, which are produced exclusively by different manufacturers for this sole purpose. The hotel obtains these products from Lübeck and Belgium'. Now, I should say the cost of one cake piece (refer picture), it was Eur4.9, costly but equally tasty ;) After the delicious and high calorie retreat, we roamed the Graben, the famous shopping street of Vienna and started collecting few of the souvenirs for remembrance.
The next day started with a wonderful breakfast at hotel and we energetically went to the city center. Visited the St. Stephen's Cathedral (Stephansdom in German). It is the tallest church in Austria with a height of 136.4m, and the roof was beautiful, never seen a church with such beautiful roof design. No building can be built in Austria taller than St. Stephen's Cathedral, this is similar to the rule in Madurai, comparing with Meenakshi amman tower. Really interesting to understand the kind of respect which is globally followed.
The historic centre of Vienna is rich in beautiful architecture, including Baroque castles and gardens, as well as with grand buildings, monuments and parks. The city center can be covered by walk casually and found this colorful steps for a museum.

We visited the Hofburg palace that is the former imperial residence until 1918. Today it is the official seat of the Austrian Federal President. It also encompasses six museums, a chapel, the national library, the famed Winter Riding School, a greenhouse, and a park. It was so big and I guess it will take two days to thoroughly see the place. We had a general overview of the palace and went to our attraction: Butterfly house created out of greenhouses built from 1901-1907.

Its been another long wish to go inside a butterfly house and we made it at Vienna. It was a memorable experience to see many butterflies passing around you, so freely, bringing a smile on everyone's face!! The only constraint inside the house was the size was small when compared to the price they charge, but the first-time-experience was worthy!!

During my quick review of Vienna, I read about the fiakers, a two-horse-drawn carriage, for many tourists, a ride with the two-horse carriage is one of the highlights. The cost for a short tour (approx. 20 min. through the centre of the Old City) is Eur55 and for a long tour (approx. 40 min. through the Ringstrasse and the Old City) is Eur80. Having enough experience with horse drawn carriage in India, we opted out of this tourist-must-do and preferred to see the city center on our own.

Walked down to Nasch Market, which existed since the 16th century, the oldness was vivid along with colorful crowd buying fruits, vegetables and various delicacies from every country. We bought some exotic dried fruits like liche, papaya, lots of varieties of nuts and sweets and had deliciously spicy lunch at DR. FALAFEL (Turkish style restaurant).

Walked back to Karlsplatz (city center area) and took tram to Hundretwasserhaus (Hundertwasser House). The Hundertwasserhaus is an apartment house in Vienna, Austria designed by an artist Hundertwasser. You may ask, why to go to an apartment house but the uniqueness is that it features undulating floors, a roof covered with earth and grass, and large trees growing from inside the rooms, with limbs extending from windows!!

Within the house there are 52 apartments, four offices, 16 private terraces and three communal terraces, and a total of 250 trees and bushes.

It seems that the Hundertwasser House is one of Austria's most visited buildings and has become part of Austria's cultural heritage!! But the Hundertwasser House can only be viewed from outside (per this instruction posted at its entry). TIP: near to the house, there is a book store which sells books on the artist Hundertwasser and there is one book depicting all the inside views. Scroll through it and its fun! It was so different to all the grand palaces & fine buildings of Vienna. The place has a character and brought a smile to our face!!

Opposite to the house is a Hundertwasser village, where his crazy and uncanny constructional designs can be enjoyed, the souvenir shop was cheaper than that of the city centre!! The only difficulty I faced was that the tram map was not elaborative but doesnt detail the trams running towards Hundretwasser house. It needed few enquiries to locals, ofcourse killing, sorry speaking,  the German language and getting a reply in English, as they see I am not a German ;)
Came back to the museum quartier, it should have been a good relaxing place on a sunny day but when we reached it rained and we lost interest to spend time there. Its true that, when the Sun shines, the charm in the location increases, you feel happy, relaxed, at the same time, when the weather is worst, the beauty vanishes. Always plan a visit to Europe under good weather conditions!! But the rain was a passing and we roamed a beautiful garden between the Art and National museum buildings. The two big buildings and the nearby old constructions reminded us of Brussels and Paris, no memories of WW-2, it all escaped!

Near to that was the parliament house of Austria and Vienna's Rathaus (Legislative assembly). When we casually walked near the parliament, my wife came across this commemoration which states that Austria's republic day is my birthday (Nov 12th), interesting isnt it?
The film festival on Rathausplatz was on and there was more people and food from different countries. This film festival is quite famous and this was the 22nd time! Its a festival that shows selected famous classical music concerts on a open theater setup. Spend sometime roaming the food court and tried some chinese noodles. Couldnt wait for the show (as it gets dark at 8PM) and strolled out to city center. Sudden urge to taste 'one-more-time' the sachertorte came up and directly went to the hotel and enjoyed it :) to end a very beautiful day at Vienna!
After a wonderful breakfast at the hotel and left to The Belvedere. It is a historical building complex that includes two Baroque palaces: the Upper and Lower Belvedere seperated by a beautiful garden. I read a recommendation to enter the garden from the lower bevedere palace (from the südbahnhof entrance), take the nice lake reflection view and move down on the gentle gradient which had decorative tiered fountains and cascades, Baroque sculptures, and majestic wrought iron gates towards the other end of the museum (upper belvedere). With the weather being good and less tourist around due to early morning time, the garden walk was romantic and beautiful with nice water fountain flowing around. The symmetrical french garden setup was beautiful, really liked it.

 The lower palace houses an extensive collection from the well known artist Gustav Klimt, that includes the Kiss (read more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kiss_(Klimt_painting)). 2012 being the 150th anniversary celebration of Gustav Klimt, I came to know about him a lot while roaming Vienna. Being an art introvert, I never know him, but after this trip, was really impressed on his works! Due to time constraint, couldn't enter the museum of his works, but spend sometime at the museum's souvenir shop, which almost had all his famous work!!

One point was vivid for me is that the city is getting modernized!! Vienna just got introduced with Schnell Bahn (S Bahn or speed train) and many of the U bahn stations and tram stations are under renevation. Even one line, U1 was completely stopped for major work. Hope they don't loose the baroque architechture for the sake of modernisation. I would rate Vienna a people friendly, nice and beautiful city to visit in Europe!! Its a heaven for museum and art lovers, nevertheless people like me who love nature and photography are also entertained!!

Reached Westbahnhof and started the journey back to Hamburg!! Once reached reading here, I should thank you for reading through, hope my writing (after years) havent changed! with the expectation of your encoraging comments, let me sign off with a smile! Have fun and enjoy the life's precious moments!!

Moving on to the life's next stage...

Yes, its time to proceed forward to the next phase of my life. In the recent past, I had some hot and casual discussions with my friends and colleagues on the topic "Arranged Marriage Vs Love Marriage". Especially, with my German friends and colleagues, it was tough to explain/support the arranged marriage concept, as its almost history in their culture! Nevertheless, I always accepted that the arranged marriages are a little more difficult to deal with. Choosing the right partner is a challenge in itself and the biggest decision in one's life. Recently, I was again lucky to face a sweet challenge to take a wonderful decision.

S. Anbu Vidhya, when I heard her name for the first time, there was an unknown pull due to its uniqueness and when I saw her photo, her smile made me crazy. She is a Post Graduate in Power Electronics and working as an Assistant Professor at Shanmugha Arts, Science, Technology & Research Academy (SASTRA), a university in Tamil Nadu, India. Our first meet at her house was on Dec 27, 2009, I still remember the feeling cum excitement on that day and it is to cherish forever. After that meet, my gut feeling told me "Vidhya is the person whom I was raring to share my entire life" and went along with it. After casual discussions, we both were happy that our likes and dislikes seem to be matching and we hope and wish to lead a successful life together. It was indeed a pleasure to think like: "Love (Anbu) with Knowledge (Vidhya) when joins with Victory (Vijay) will sure to prosper our life".

Our Engagement happened on the auspicious day of Feb 19, 2010 under the presence of close relatives and friends. With great hopes and dreams, started counting the days for the marriage scheduled on Jun 21, 2010, book your calendar and you all are invited well in advance.
"Marriage is like a whirlpool, which takes one from a carefree world to a world filled with commitment and sacrifice, with love as its backbone." This quote attracted my attention sometime back and got in as a strong belief. Now gearing up for my next phase with our parent's blessings and wishes from all of you. Meet you soon in my next blog, till then take care, viel spass (have fun)!

Maiden trip to Switzerland

In the month of August, during a casual chat with my friend Balaji over skype, he shared a week office shutdown for him at Belgium in November. He was compelling me to plan a trip. Even in my German office, everyone where started asking "why are u working without a vacation" (Germans have the habit of taking 2 or 3 vacation in a year and spend time out of office regular stuffs), hence decided to have a mega trip and Switzerland was the destination for it. Thanks to bollywood/kollywood and all kinds of "woods" of Indian cinema industry, Switzerland has become the most sought after foreign destination for Indian tourists, specially the nouveau riche. In no country does Switzerland enjoy as much popularity as it does in India. Booked my tickets from Hamburg to Geneva thru Lufthansa Regional and it worked out cheap (100 Euros to and fro). As usual, invested many weekends and week day evenings, doing research and planing the itinerary. Thanks to Skype, Balaji was reachable and he too did his part of planing and associating me. Finally I took off from Hamburg on wednesday (04.Nov.2009) to Geneva.

Switzerland doesnt have their own language, half of the country speaks French (the part near to France) and the remaining half speaks German. Though Switzerland is land locked on all sides and is pretty much in the center of Europe, it is not a part of the European Union and obviously doesn’t use the Euro as its currency. The local currency is Swiss Francs (CHF), conversion during my travel was 1:1 (for CHF:US Dollar) and 1:1.5 (CHF: Euro). It is a country where from one corner to the other corner can be travelled in 3-4hrs, thanks to their extensive rail network. As per our research, we found that taking a 4 day pass for travel inside swiss is economical and user friendly (no need to waste time in ticket counters). We booked our night stay at Geneva youth hostel and Balaji was suppose to reach 3hrs after my landing. I settled down in the hostel, roamed a little in the Geneva city but for taking the swiss saver 4 day pass, they wanted both of our passports and hence I couldnt purchase it. Geneva is in the Swiss-France border and the entire city speaks only French, of course with English. After being in Germany for considerable period of time, a sort of attachment has developed within me for the Deutsch (German) language, whenever I am touring another country (like this), I started missing Deutsch and if someone speaks Deutsch, I felt an unknown liking towards them, after all German too was a foreign language for me before 2009, but now never.

The next day morning after purchasing the pass we took our first train journey to Jungfraujoch. Jungfraujoch means virgin peak (Deutsch to English translation - Jung: young, Frau:Lady, Joch: ridge), pronounced-yung frau yokh. The weather was ultimate, bright sun shine, no cloud cover, blue sky reflection over the lakes. Many of my friends said, November is not the correct time to go to Swiss, eventhen we took this risk and thanks to Global Warming (jovially), we had a summer day during the end of Autumn and beginning of Winter. The journey from Geneva to Jungfraujoch is not by a single train, we jumped 3 trains (@ Interlaken Ost, Lauterbrunnen, Kleine Scheidegg) and the travel time was almost 5hrs. The travel from Interlaken to the top of Europe (Jungfraujoch) was breathtaking with so many tunnels, steep slopes, ice covered mountains, valleys, waterfalls, it was a treat to eyes and enjoyed it. The fact is: The journey from Kleine Scheidegg to Jungfraujoch takes approximately 50 minutes including the stops; the downhill return journey taking only 35 minutes and the entire journey is inside a tunnel. It took 16 years to build this tunnel up to the Jungfraujoch railway station at 3,454 m (11,332 ft), the highest in Europe. Thanks to the the Jungfraubahn cog railways, before arriving at the Jungfraujoch station, the train stopped for five minutes at two other stations, Eigerwand and Eismeer, where the traveller can have a look through the excavated holes of the moving Glaciers!! We roamed the Jungfraujoch using a map (provided in the train) and covered the places like: ice palace, sphinx (astronomical research area), ice walking area. I dont want to write much about our experience at the top of Europe, please visit this site: http://picasaweb.google.com/vijaynov12/JungfraujochTheTopOfEurope?authkey=Gv1sRgCPOlk6byhYSUqAE&feat=email

enjoy the descriptions and explanations below the snaps. We reached Interlaken late in the evening and was tired. We had already booked a youth hostel named BALMERS (very famous one in Interlaken) and enjoyed the stay there. Roamed the town a bit and called the day with lots of memories of the first day at Swiss.

A Weekend in Prague, Czech Republic

Whenever I hear the country name 'Czechoslovakia', I at once remember my dad's dictation, it was always a tough name to spell (By the way, from 01.Jan.1993 Czechoslovakia was split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia and hence the word 'Czechoslovakia' is permanently lost). I had never thought I will visit Prague - capital of Czech Republic (the heart of Europe) in my life, but, its fate that I should spend the 2009 Deepavali (Oct 17,18) at Prague (or Praha)!! Life is indeed a beautiful puzzle to solve.... Praha is the sixth most-visited European city after London, Paris, Rome, Madrid and Berlin. Prague suffered considerably less damage during World War II than some other major cities in the region, allowing most of its historic architecture to stay true to form.
I booked my travel from Hamburg to Prague (in Deutch Bahn - German train service) in August and for the first time in Germany, I was traveling alone for a trip. Balaji (my colleague at Capgemini) who at present works in Belgium, joined me at Praha. I was expecting the train travel (6.5hrs) to be boring, but it wasn’t. I had two cute Czech kids with their mom as the co-passengers. The kids spoke English and taught me Czech language too (Dobry den (Dough-bree-den) for Hello, Yokayoo/Dekuji for Thanks and Prosim (Pro-seem) for You’re Welcome). Also, the train line from Berlin to Praha passed through the Erzgebirge mountains, for a couple of hours enjoyed the series of beautiful alpine river valleys, surrounded by rocky escarpments and mountains. Sometimes, it feels good and better to be alone and I felt it at that time.
As always, I invested much time in planning this trip too. The major constraints were the time to spend and the vastness of Prague. Prague is a city which requires minimum a week to admire each and every beauty, I had just 25hrs to cover the must see places and was really a challenge to plan this trip. After few weeks of surfing the internet and reading reviews, I came up with a feasible itinerary. I decided not to visit the world's largest Castle in Praha, as I had visited the famous Neuschwanstein castle and Schwerin castle, it was a tough call but took it for good. Advised Balaji to spend half a day alone at the castle before I reach Praha at 1330. Praha has two central train stations and we decided to meet at the McDonalds near to the Praha Hostivice station. There was no big confusion in finding him and we started our trip taking a 24hrs travel pass for 100 Czech Korunas (CZK). We noted that the conversion rates are pretty low in the railway station and went to Wenceslas Square and converted Euros for CZK (24CZK/Euro).
Wenceslas Square is 750m long and 60m wide boulevard (a wide street or thoroughfare), it was laid out over 600 years ago during the reign of Charles IV. It was originally used as the Prague horse market. Wenceslas Square is where the Czech's come to let off steam (e.g. anti-communist uprisings or celebrations of national sporting achievements). It can comfortably hold up to 400,000 people! Behind St. Wenceslas is the monumental National Museum, and just off to the left is the Prague State Opera. The sides of the boulevard had many important houses, banks, shops, hotels and restaurants. The notable one was our famous brand "BATA shoe" company store, later when I surfed for this blog, I came to know that BATA's founder is a Czech entrepreneur, Tomas Bata!! walked the length of the square and without hassles reached the Old town square.
The Old Town Square is one of the largest and most impressive open public spaces in Europe. The most notable sights are the Church of Our Lady before Tyn, the Old Town Hall Tower & Astronomical Clock and the St. Nicholas Church. As soon as we reached this square, we saw the BIG astronomical clock. The Astronomical Clock consists of the windows with apostles at the top, the Astronomical Dial, the Calendar Dial underneath and various sculptures around. The clock announces every hour with 12 apostles passing by the window above the astronomical dial and with symbolic sculptures moving aside. The Astronomical Dial shows the medieval perception of the Universe: the Earth is the center. There are three circles on the astronomical dial, showing different time: the outer circle shows the Old Czech Time (“Italian Time”), the circle with Roman numbers shows the Central European Time and the inner circle with Arabic numerals shows the “Babylonian Time”: the length of an hour differs there according to the season – it is longer in the summer, shorter in the winter. The Prague Astronomical Clock is the only one in the world able to measure it. We were lucky enough to reach the clock at 1550, enjoyed the clock's performance at 1600. Decided to climb 69.5 meter tall Town Hall Tower (hosting the astronomical clock) and enjoyed the elevated view of the old town. Enjoyed the Prague's view for 45mins and came down to get along with the clock performance (for the second time) at 1700. The fun is to stand under the clock and look at the tourists looking at the performance. It’s really funny to watch about 300+ digital cameras all pointing upward at the same time.
The Church of our Lady before Tyn is an impressive Gothic cathedral. It is located just opposite to the town hall tower, the church's towers are 80 m high and topped by four small spires. The church is Prague's most important gothic sanctuary and is a very impressive sight. Enjoyed this info which I discovered during my trip preparation: A close look at the two spires reveal that they are not symmetrical. This is characteristic of the gothic architecture of the time and is a representation of both the masculine and feminine sides of the world. Also, we admired watching the St. Nicholas Church, the Jan Hus monument situated in the middle of the Old Town Square.
After cherishing the beauty of the old town square, we walked in the Jewish Quarter (Josefov) crossing few Synagogue (the place of worship for a Jews) to reach the Old Jewish Cemetery (founded in 1478), it is the Europe's oldest surviving Jewish cemetery. People had to be buried on top of each other because of lack of space. There are about 12 layer and over 12,000 gravestones. 100,000 people are thought to have been buried here. No idea, the gates to the cemetery was shut, I said to myself 'God doesn’t want me to enter the cemetery so soon :)'.
Traversing the city was so simple, they have three metro lines and numerous tram lines. Traveling in Prague tram, I remembered my travel in Kolkata (the only city in India where tram is still in operation). Accompanied Balaji to TESCO (an international retail chain, the Walmart of Prague). Balaji is a smoker and wanted to save money in purchasing cigarettes in Czech! Wonder why people spend so much for smoke, as I had never tried it, I know, I can never understand it. He did not do his enquiry properly (how much to carry in flight back to Belgium) and couldn’t decide whether to buy 2000 or 400 cigars, finally ended up in 400.
As per our plan we reached the Krizikova fontana (fountain show) to be part of the music-light show carried out to the Beethoven - Symphony No.9. It was a mind-blowing performance for 40mins and I loved to be there. I recollected my experience of the musical fountain show in Brindavan gardens, Mysore. The amazing fact is, a general search of 'Prague's must see places' doesn’t yield Krizikova fontana. as it is in the outskirts of the Prague centre, even the tourist info center guys were not much aware of this place. Don’t miss this show, when you are in Prague! The hotel we have booked was near to the fontana and after the show, we rushed to the hotel. While getting back it was too cold, a perfect autumn weather of central Europe and had a comfortable sleep.
Touring Europe in this part of the year, needs preparation w.r.t weather. Before my trip, I checked wetter.de, it said 6°C (max) and 2°(min) for the weekend. But the Sunday morning was damn cold than expected, plus it was rainy. Good that I had my umbrella and woolen gloves! We checked out the hotel and reached Charles Bridge. The best time to visit the bridge is early morning or late evening to avoid the tourist rush. Charles Bridge is built between the 14th and 15th century, spans the Vltava River with 16 pillars and boasts some 30 statues of various saints. Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV laid down the foundation stone on 9th of July 1357, at 5:31 a.m. It is no coincidence: this date was carefully chosen, because it makes an interesting numerical scale. When it is written in the chronology the year – the day – the month – the time, it makes a scale, going upwards and then downwards: 1 3 5 7 9 7 5 3 1. Strange enough to know that the great Emperor Charles IV too believed numerology!!
The bronze statue of St. John of Nepomuk is the oldest statue on the Charles Bridge. St. John of Nepomuk was a parson (A person authorized to conduct religious worship), who refused to betray a secret, confided to him by Queen Sophia, to the king Wenceslas IV. He was tortured on the king’s demand and then thrown to the river Vltava from the Charles Bridge in 1393. The inseparable attributes of St. John of Nepomuk statue are the five stars, a surplice, a cross and a martyr’s palm tree. The five stars allegedly appeared above the river, after the martyr was thrown there. They are supposed to symbolize the five letters of Latin word “tacet”, which means “silent”. There is a brassy cross with five stars at the place on the parapet, where he was thrown to the river. Its told that if one places his hand on the cross, so that every finger will touch one star, he can wish something and it will be fulfilled. I too did it :). In one of the review, I read an advise to visit Strelecky Island (small island in Vltava River). At the northern end of the island, it was said to have a incredible view of Charles Bridge. When we reached the particular island, the area was cordoned off by Czech police from some crime investigation. Hence missed the opportunity to have a beautiful view of the complete bridge from a distant point.
We marched towards the Petrin Hills. As per my itinerary, we should use the funicular (cable) train to reach the top. Bad luck, it was closed for maintenance. It was drizzling and we started to climb the 327 meter hill. The cold invariably increased as we climbed up and it was a tough experience, I don’t have a handy thermometer, but it must have been below zero. The Petrin hills has number of tourist attractions, we wanted to cover few of them: the Hunger Wall, the smaller replica of the Eiffel Tower 8Petrin Observation Tower) and the Mirror Maze.
Charles IV build the Hunger Wall thru the poor people in the 14th century. He wanted to give some work to those, who suffered from hunger at the time of bad crops. The Hunger Wall is 1178 meters long and about 8 meters high (sort of copycat of Great Wall of China). The Petrin Observation Tower is an imitation of the Eiffel tower in Paris. It is 60 meters high, so it is five times smaller than the Eiffel Tower in Paris. As we climbed the hill, we lost time (as well the energy) and couldn’t climb the 299 steps of tower! I had never entered a mirror maze before and was excited. I know that this is made for kids, but sometimes its nice to become a kid and enjoy!! It was funny to find the way through the mirror maze. I saw my picture in the mirrors all around and felt like there is no way forth or back. It was an amazing experience. Then I entered the other room, which is equipped with variously bulging mirrors and I can see my picture amusingly deformed. It was funny to check out how I would be looking tall or short, skinny or fat etc. There were 14 misrepresenting mirrors in the maze altogether and we enjoyed it.
It was time to catch the train to get back Hamburg, walked down the hill and had a nice lunch at a Subway (I couldn’t taste a Czech beer with lunch (mostly with pork), as I don’t take either of them). I should say that Praha is a cheap European city, I have been. I converted 70Euros and ended up having more than 100 Czech Korunas to spend, even though I expended like an average European tourist!! When I was returning Hamburg, a nice thought came up comparing Praha with Madurai! I lived in Madurai for more than 10 years and the resemblance is as follows:

- Praha is founded in 8th century and not as old as Madurai whose cultural heritage goes back 2,500 years, and the city has conducted trade as far as Rome and Greece since as early as 550 BC!!

- The Praha Castle being the center of attraction, Madurai has the Thirumalai Nayakar Mahal (palace);

- The Old town square is not old enough to compare with Madurai's Meenakshi Amman temple;

- The astronomical clock is as similar to the Porthamarai Kulam (Pond with the Golden Lotus) inside the temple;

- The Church of Our Lady before Tyn has the same architectural galore of Madurai's Aayiram Kaal Mandapam (Thousand Pillar Hall);

- The Praha is situated on the banks of River Vltava, Madurai on the banks of River Vaigai (Vltava faces floods often whereas Vaigai hardly sees water);

- Praha nicknamed as "city of a hundred spires", Madurai is "Temple city" or "Athens of the East";

- Praha has innumerous Synagogue (the place of worship for a Jews),in Madurai you will see a temple in every corner of a street;

- All the streets of Old town of Praha gets connected to Old town square much similar to the concentric rectangular streets surround the Meenakshi Amman Temple, Madurai is built around the temple;

- There are many bridges crossing Vltava, Madurai too has many bridges crossing Vaigai. The view of Praha I saw from Charles bridge is as similar to the view of Madurai from the Aaarapalayam bridge;

- The Petrin Hill of Prague is a nice place to leisure out from the city life, Madurai has the similar Azhagar Kovil (Alagar temple) Hills;

- I can keep going on comparing like these... let me stop sharing with this last thought: Praha is filled with tourism and economy depends on it, interesting fact is 'one-half of the Czech income from tourism is spent in Prague', I don’t have any comparison with Madurai's tourism development :(
I wish to see Madurai as developed as Prague, an European/American should plan himself easily (like me) to visit Madurai, I wonder whether my wish turns true in my lifetime!!! I celebrated 2009 Deepavali as well as my 250th day in Europe (thanks to diary writing habit, it gave me this count, its been 250 days I left my mother(land) ) in a grand style at Prague, one of the beautiful cities of Europe. Thanks for reading my experience, if you are reading this line, you must have enjoyed my narration!!! See you in my next endeavor from Switzerland, till then take care.....