If you love history, Vienna is one the cities in Europe you wouldn't want to miss because it is so rich in history. You name any profession, any specific subject, Vienna has a museum for that. When I was working at the Lab, we developed the PL/I compiler for the S/38, predecessor of AS/400, now called i-Series. We had two assignees from Vienna because the IBM Lab there already developed the PL/I compiler for another system, the 8100. One of them was a bachelor and the other had kids. That was the first time I knew that Vienna's native is crazy about classical music. He was in my team and his very first question was where he could buy or rent a good piano for his kids. Perhaps in the deal with IBM Toronto Lab, cost of musical lesson and quality piano rental for the kids was included because he didn't care much about cost. Now I understand it much better why he was so 'crazy' about music. They are all like that :-). You would also understand if you know that waltz was invented in Vienna.
I am not that keen in learning or knowing about history but one interesting observation was about churches in Swiss and Austria, neighbouring countries. Cecilia and I checked a couple famous churches in Zurich and they looked bare because they had become Protestant churches. Yes, Zwingli was a native of Zurich. You go to churches in Vienna and they would still look 'catholic' :-). If you are Christians I am sure you know what I mean. You go to a Catholic Mass and if the homily or preaching is boring, there are so many other things that you could enjoy :-). The stained glasses, the sculptures and the statues, the painted ceilings, the hundreds of 'dust catchers', oops ornaments. Now you know why Catholics like to go to Mass :-).
May 15, Wednesday, was our second day in Vienna. After taking the free shower, feeling so happy, I prepared breakfast. We brought the instant-coffee, Nestle's three-in-one, from Toronto and this also lasted till we were in Salzburg. I cooked fried rice a la Vienna, left-over rice from dinner the day before with egg and sausages. BTW, Austrian sausages are delicious. Cecilia joined me or woke up as soon as breakfast was ready :-). Don't tell me she is smart. With the Indonesian style or rice breakfast, our energy for the day was enough to do the city tour ourselves, hopping from trains and buses to trams, vice-versa. At around lunch time, having spotted a Chinese restaurant near our campground, we decided we would treat ourselves with oriental dishes a la Vienna before our siesta. The cost of that buffet luncheon was not that bad. Including beer and tips, it cost only 18 Euros for both of us. "The food?," you asked. It was heavenly, compared to my 'Indomie goreng' or instant fried noodle we brought from Toronto.
We had a small surprise when we came back in the evening after a whole day sight-seeing. There was another small tent at one side of the campground. When we arrived and I was ready to prepare for supper, an oriental looking lad approached us. He introduced himself as 'Tony' and asked whether there was kitchen facility. I said I didn't know, it didn't seem so because the guy at the reception office didn't tell us about it. I told him that if he needed to warm-up food or did small cooking he could use my stove. He told me he was going to cook pasta. I said, I was going to prepare dinner and will share some with him. So we chatted while Cecilia and I cooked. He was a student at U. of Victoria in B.C. and was touring Europe. When he told us his itinerary, we thought he was a millionaire or a relative of Korean President Kim Dae Yung. He planned to travel Europe for 70 days! He explained to us however, that he was using the cheapest fare one can tour Europe, a student bus package fare to some number of countries, I believe less than 200 Euros. He had just finished his under-graduate study at U. Vic. and will be returning to Seoul, Korea. If we admired his guts, looking at how young we were and knowing that I just retired, he also became our fans. Knowing we had two children, this Korean boy dared asking if any of them is a girl :-). Indeed, I and him exchanged a few jokes with me making fun of his politicians. I forgot to tell you that as soon as he learned we are Canadians, he moved his tent next to us, only a feet or two apart :-).
We woke up quite early the next day because we wanted to secure the free bike that visitor to Vienna could get. They were scattered in some number of places inside the inner (old) city. After making some effort, we were fortunate to get two bikes in perfect condition, one had a pink colour and the other blue. They perfectly matched our cycling outfits. I didn't know how many people in Vienna that saw us on that day bought Nokia cell-phones. Yes, at the back of the bike, covering the whole rear-wheel on both sides, was a big advertisement of Nokia. After about an hour cycling and checking whether it was worth it to visit Sigmund Freud's museum (pricey :-)), we took a break in Sigmund Freud's Park near Votivkirche. Lo and behold, we saw Tony approaching us from a distance. He probably didn't believe that we do not have any daughter :-). He was amazed seeing us, either he couldn't believe that we were being employed by Nokia or he didn't understand how we could get matching bikes and outfits. :-) Till the next episode where I will share with you the experience of a lifetime when we camped in Salzburg.
Read More......

When we first arrived at the Venice train station, the local people call it Ferovio, I inquired as to how much was the reservation cost for the night train. After taking two trips and seeing how empty were the 1st class wagons, we decided to take a chance by not taking the sleeping wagon and thus saved 50 Euros. I had once taken the sleeping couchette on the train from Lourdes (Tarbes) to Paris in France. It was crammy and unless you sleep, it is not comfortable. If our compartment could be 'monopolized', Cecilia and I would be able to sleep even better than in a sleeping couchette.
The train for Vienna started quite on time at 20:46 and I took the time to check the two wagons earlier. They had about 30% occupancy rate, pretty safe :-). We forgot that even though it was weekday, we were not the only ones from Italy who wanted to go to Vienna. At every station thereafter, whenever people boarded and entered our wagon, we held our breath :-). We didn't want to arrive in Vienna without having slept at all because it would be in the morning. After several stations and about an hour passed by, we knew that our gamble paid off. We had one bench each in the compartment to snore as we pleased :-).
There were two nuisances despite the comfy 'bed' we had on that night. The Austrian passport officer who dared to wake us up :-) and the train conductor later-on checking again our train tickets. I woke up quite early, as soon as the light from the sun started to creep in. When I glanced outside the window, I had to hold my breath again because it was very scenic. I think it was around Echberg, still in the Alps region as our train was still 1.5 hours from Vienna. The train arrived precisely at 6:27 in Wien's Suedbahnhof (Vienna South-station). We spent about an hour sipping coffee at the station while studying the Vienna's public transportation and how could we go to our campground, Wien West. After the self-study crash-course, we purchased two 72 hours ticket for a total of 21.20 Euros, about US $ 3.50 per day. From the map that we got, we figured out that we needed 2 transfers to reach our campground. First, we had to take what they call the S-Bahn, their rapid transit train from Suedbahnhof to a station called Karlsplatz. Then we had to take their U-Bahn or their subway system to a station at the west end called Huetteldorf. Finally, a bus number 148 or 152 should be there waiting to take us another 3 km to the campground. We became very familiar with all the U-Bahn (there are four lines) as well as the train and tram during our stay in Vienna. In my opinion, it is much more efficient than our poor Toronto Transit Comm. :-). Toronto tourist wouldn't be able with just Cdn $ 5 to do a city tour for 24 hours. The trains and buses frequency also beats ours.
When we arrived at Wien West campground, finally, we were very pleased with everything. Surely it is not a scenic campsite, what do you expect of a campsite inside a city. However, it was very clean, we could take shower for 24 hours if we wanted to :-). The all-you-can-shower camping fee was 13 Euros per night cheap. On top of that, we learned later that we could also use the kitchen facility. We took advantage to wash our clothes here because the dryer was also free and we still knew how to wash clothes by hands. (There was a special sink that had grooves just like Indonesian washing board). As usual, we took an early "siesta" for 1 hour after we cooked our breakfast and thus made our stomach happy.
Not wanting to waste time in this great city of Europe, having mastered the public transportation system, we went downtown. We chosed first to stroll along the famous street in Vienna, Kaerntner Strasze. Like Bahnhofstrasse in Zurich, Kaerntner is also an exclusive street, meaning expensive items sold there. Not too far walking, we came across an information booth that also sold opera tickets. We were told that the cheapest seat for Romeo and Juliette was 120 Euros. We had lots of excuses, we wouldn't be able to understand the German translation anyway and we didn't bring our suits, only cycling short and jersey :-). As dusk fell, we went back to the city after our real siesta at the campground. Even though Wien West is quite a distance from the city centre, because of the efficient public transportation we were not tired going back and forth several times per day. Having been serenaded a few times by the Blue Danube song in San Marco piazza in Venice, we wanted to see that famous river. Upon seeing for the very first time, one of its tributaries near the U-Bahn station Schwedenplatz, we were quite disappointed because the water was very brown and not blue at all :-). The same brown water was there to see when we checked the main river for the second time on the next day. Well, I then realized, had Cecilia and I seen the river after we married for 27 hours and not 27 years, I was sure the river would have looked blue :-). Take care my friends, till the next episode where we will share the excitement of biking around Vienna. Auf wiederschreiben.
Read More......