I guess this time the train journey didn't go past small villages, since they opened the new high speed track. Any special plans for Vienna?
@FerretAfros How long are you going to stay in Vienna? I'm asking, because tonight our national broadcasting company is hosting the Long Night of Museums - ORF Lange Nacht der Museen. With one ticket for 13 Euros you can visit all participating museums. Tickets are available at all museums.
We saw signs for the late night museums yesterday, but already had tickets for a concert of Mozart's Requiem and were pretty tired from a long day of touring. We left the Albertina as it was getting ready to close, and there was a huge queue of late night guests waiting to be pet in We did take advantage of the free entry to the Wien Museum on the 1st Sunday of the month today. There was a long wait to get in, but most people were there for the temporary exhibit about sex, so the permanent collection was pretty empty In our 2 days here so far, we've visited Schoenbrunn Palace, Stephansdom, walked through the old town and Ringstrasse, Albertina, Mozart concert, mass with the Vienna Boy's Choir, Sisi Museum and Hofburg, Opera House tour, Wein Museum, and an evening at the Prater My friend's flight leaves tomorrow morning, and my train to Zurich is tomorrow night. I think I might do the Belvedere in the morning, and check out Therme Wien in the afternoon, before heading out on the overnight train
Wow, what a comprehensive programm!! I hope you enjoy your time in Austria. I didn't know that there's a "Therme" in Vienna. Belvedere is worth a visit.
Austria has been great! I really enjoyed the country during my first visit about 17 years ago, and have tried my best to return as often as possible. I still have a couple days in Bregenz this weekend, so I'm not quite done with Austria yet, but I'm finished with the main tourist areas for this trip I really enjoyed the Belvedere. It was smaller than I expected, but that made it easy to navigate and see everything. It was just about the right size to feel like it was worthwhile without being overwhelming. I also stumbled upon a restaurant nearby that I stumbled upon in my last trip, with great Schinkfleckrl. I found a Campbell's soup recipe that's close enough to make at home, but nothing beats the real thing! The Therme was fun, but seemed overpriced for what it was. It was basically a bunch of lukewarm swimming pools; I guess maybe I had the wrong expectations. They had an extra-cost sauna, which definitely seemed worth it. I'm sure I screwed some things up as a first timer American, but it was a great adventure, and I think I got close enough on most of it!
Yes, I'm in Bregenz for a marathon that starts in Lindau (Germany), crosses Austria into Switzerland, and returns to Bregenz for the finish I got to Bregenz late yesterday and picked up my things for the race, and am planning to do a little sightseeing today if the weather holds up. After being in Switzerland where everything is insanely expensive, it's refreshing to be in a non-tourist area where everything is pretty cheap Do you know why there are so many Italian restaurants here? I occasionally saw them in other cities, but it seems like half of the options here are Italian. It works for me, since I need to carb load for the race, but it seems odd
All over Austria and Germany there are many Italian restaurants. One reason is, that during the 60s and 70s many guest workers from Italy came to Austria and Germany and so many Italian restaurants opened here too with the better ones still open today. Most of them are family businesses. Another reason is that the economy in Italy was and is not as strong as in Austria or Germany. There are still many Italians coming, which is no problem anymore thanks to the EU, and surprisingly many still open restaurants. And especially from Bregenz the border isn't far away.
That makes sense. I was just surprised that it seemed like there were so many more here than in other places I've visited I've also noticed a ton of Doenner places here, which I tend to associate mostly with areas near a lot of bars and nightlife (though I guess this is a popular vacation place during summer), but I suppose it could also just be a reflection of the local population
I've only been to Bregenz once for a weekend trip and that was during winter time. I hardly paid attention to the restaurants, but you could be right with reflecting the local population. In that area many immigrant from Turkey and Italy settled down. How did you do in the races in Bregenz and DLP?
I did well at DLP. I enjoy that the half marathon distance is long enough that it takes some real training, but it's still short enough that it can be fun; no matter how well trained you are for a marathon it's always going to be really hard. It was a really well done event (with a few minor problems, as are expected with any inaugural event) and it seemed like everybody had a good time there. I'm working on doing a full recap for LP, and will hopefully send it off later today or tomorrow, so it should get posted later this week The race in Bregenz was a lot more of a struggle for me. I wasn't fully trained for the marathon distance, and my legs were already kind of tired from 2+ weeks of intensive travelling (with no training runs during that time). I also managed to lose the charger for my GPS watch along the way (I think I last saw it in Salzburg?), so I had do to do it with a regular stopwatch and attempt to convert the kilometer markers into mileage that I could understand and do mental math which is always questionable during a race. I ended up going out a little too fast and really fell apart in the second half. I haven't looked at the data closely yet, but I think my pace for the second half was about a minute and a half per mile slower than the first half That said, the race itself was great. The weather was nearly perfect (the rain held off until after everybody finished!), the course was really scenic and relatively flat, it had great local support, and the bragging rights of running through 3 countries is pretty cool too! I got home yesterday and am back in the office today, which is disappointing but I'm also ready to be back in a regular routine of some sort. I plan to do some sort of summary at some point, but overall it was a really great trip with a ton of neat stuff along the way! I even feel like I remembered a decent amount of the German that I thought I had forgotten years ago!
I can't wait to read about your impressions. As for your struggles with the kilometers and miles, it's about time that the US converts to the metric system
Blech! The metric system is great for science experiments, but it just doesn't come naturally to me for everyday things. And working in a profession that uses a lot of dimensions and constants related to US measurements, the conversion would be a nightmare until I got used to it all over again I think it's easier to just stick with what I know, and hope that I don't lose my charger again!
My race event recap has been posted, if anybody wants to know more about the event: runDisney Goes French: A Recap of the Disneyland Paris Half Marathon Weekend - LaughingPlace.com I'm hoping to have some time this weekend to start going through my photos from the rest of the trip and get them posted to FB, but it will be a long process. Hopefully I'll be able to get it all done before the busy times in December roll around
You should try living in the UK which uses some kind of weird hybrid system that picks it's favorite bits from every other one.
Finally I found some time to read through your Marathon report. I'm surprised that there we some dressed runners. Europeans in general aren't that outgoing, but I guess at Disney even the Europeans get a bit "crazy". As for the spectators, I'm not surprised that they didn't cheer that much. I guess you had the same experiences at other races in Europe. Are you going to post a link to your Facebook photos? Are you a big Tron fan, or is your name really Kevin Flynn?
There's a pretty famous race through wineries in the Bordeaux region (Marathon du Medoc) that is well known for having people dress in costume; from what I've seen, more people dress up for that race than US Disney races. I'm sure it's not very common in Europe, but Disney isn't the first to try it either Yah, this was about what I expected. They were certainly encouraging (I've been at races in the US where spectators just give you blank stares as you go past), but in a much quieter way. I was surprised during my race on Bodensee by how outgoing the spectators were, with clusters every 100m or so yelling "Hopp! Hopp! Hopp!" as we went by, and reading names off of our bibs; they were possibly the most enthusiastic spectators I've ever seen, especially considering how spaced out they were. Part of the fun of running in new places is seeing cultural differences like this It's just a happy coincidence. I really like Tron (particularly the newer movie), but I may be biased because of sharing my name. The year that the new movie came out, everybody in my family got Kevin Flynn action figures for Christmas; I like having fun with it! I just posted my photos from Paris, DLP, and the races yesterday. Hopefully these links work, even for people not on Facebook. It will probably be next weekend, if not later, before I'm able to get to Munich, Salzburg, and beyond. Paris: Paris 9-23-2016 | Facebook DLP: Disneyland Paris 9-2016 | Facebook Races: Disneyland Paris Half Marathon | Facebook
