In conclusion...

We are currently sitting in the Admiral's Club in London waiting for our flight back to NYC.  It was another successful trip.  We had decent meals everywhere but did not try any particularly unique food.  Butch did have some octopus in Prague. He hated it.  The only new alcohol we had was the Becherovka in the Czech Republic.

The flight from Vienna was bumpy but on time.  The Vienna airport security is slightly different from other airports. Like most airports out of the US, you have to look at the board to see which gate to go to for checkin.  They have passport control for a bunch of gates but then they have security per gate.  So we went thru passport control and then went to the lounge.  We did not pass through security for our gate until it was almost time to board.

Here are the awards for the trip

Best Hotel: Four Seasons in Prague.  It is hard to compete with the Four Seasons. They excel in every category.  They also get bonus points for having tucked in sheets and proper blankets.

Best Breakfast: While there were buffets at each hotel, The Grand Hotel Pupp had the best one.  Most variety and best omelet bar.

Best Meal other than Breakfast: Dinner at The Four Seasons.  For the curious, the Pupp was the worst meal.

Best Dessert: Four Seasons.  Other than the price, the $20 Strudel in Munich was nothing to write home about. The Sacher-Torte gets points for presentation and history but it was not very good.  Second place was the alcoholic hot chocolate at the Sacher Cafe.

Favorite City: Vienna by a hair.  We enjoyed them all and would return to any of them.

Favorite Activity Per City: Prague - The Castle, Munich - The Fairy Tale Castles, Vienna - Spanish Riding School.

Best Beer: At Nurnberger Bratwurst Glockl am Dom in Munich

Best Hotel Lounge: Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten Kempinski, Munich.  Lots of activity so best people watching.

Best Pool: Grand Hotel Pupp. The only other hotel we stayed at with a pool was Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten Kempinski and their pool is nice but no comparison to the Pupp.

Friendliest People: Munich.  People stopped to give us directions when we looked lost and chatted with us at dinner.

That's it for now.  Stay tuned for the next trip to Antigua in late January.

File this under "Things never seen before or not seen in a very long time"

Seen at The Four Seasons, Prague.  Is this a seat in the elevator?  After being stuck in the elevator in Minneapolis, Butch and I are both a little skittish about using them and will often choose to climb the stairs.

Seen at all the hotels.  The tab on the tea bag has a little notch to keep it secured to the handle.

Continuing in the tea category.  Seen at the Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten Kempinski, Munich. This tea pot stands on end and on its side. I have no idea why.

 
Also, at the Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten Kempinski, Munich.  The hotel spans 2 buildings and the floors don't quite line up so there is one elevator stop for floors 3 and 4 and then there are stairs to walk down and up a half floor when you get to where the buildings join.

And, finally, something not seen in a very long time.  At The Grand Hotel Pupp, is that an ashtray next to the toilet?

Austrian Food

Austrian food is a lot like German and Czech food: heavy and hearty.

Obligatory picture of the famous Sacher-Torte.  Like everyone says, it is very dry. By the way, those are alcoholic hot chocolates.

Vienna City Tour

Today, we saw all the main sights in Vienna and are now officially exhausted.  We can't see another thing or absorb another fact.  We are currently enjoying some pre-dinner cocktails in the hotel lobby.

The other thing in Vienna that I most wanted to see were the Lipizzaner stallions. We went to both the morning workout and took a tour of the stables.  You are not allowed to take pictures in the stables or of the horses performing but here are some other pictures from the tour:

Inside the winter riding school

The tack room. The white saddles are for performing and are custom made for each horse.

The entrance to the stables where some horses have stalls overlooking the courtyard. The horses spend a total of 7 months in Vienna and spend the other 5 months in the countryside.  Only stallions perform since the movements are natural for stallions.

 The Spanish Riding School is part of the Hofburg Palace. We toured the palace and the Imperial Apartments.

Here is a picture of The New Palace part of the Hofburg palace and the balancy where Hitler informed the Austrians that they were now part of the Third Reich.

The other major sight in Vienna is St. Stephen's Cathedral.  It suffered major damage during WWII.  It seems as if the tour of every sight includes details of how locals preserved it during the war and how it was reconstructed after.  In St. Stephen's, the pulpit and tombs were bricked over and the stain glass window was deconstructed and moved to a safer location.

I did not realize that Austria was occupied after the war and the terms of its independence included it being forever neutral.

Some additional pictures from today

The Opera House

Our hotel, Hotel Sacher.

We did very well on this trip in terms of picking well located hotels.  All of our hotels were very close to all the major sights so we walked to almost everything.  Vienna is also easy to walk around except that the bike paths are on the sidewalks so you have to pay attention.  Crossing the ring road is best done at a slow jog as anything slower will leave you stuck in the middle waiting for what seems like an eternity for the light to change again.

This was another full day of touring.  As I said, we are exhausted.  I should mention that most things on this trip should not been seen by the faint of heart.  We climbed a lot of stairs.  Fitbit says we've walked over 45 miles in the last week.

Is this a new trend in hotels?

I previously described the horrible bed at The Grand Hotel Pupp with the 2 child sized duvets.  Well, the hotel in Munich also had the 2 duvets instead of sheets and blankets.  These were regular sized but still not tucked in.

Here's the room in Munich

The Hotel Sacher also has just the 2 duvets.  I don't like this at all. Is it just something found in this part of the world?  I hope this is not a trend to be found in all hotels.  I don't like it all all.  Not one bit.  

Hello Vienna

We drove this morning from Munich to Vienna.  The entire trip was just over 4 hours.  Buying the toll sticker was easy. We went to the first gas station on the highway and bought it right at the counter.  For those readers planning to drive through Austria, it is called a vignette and the minimum is a 10 day pass for 8 euros.

Overall, the Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten Kempinski was fine.  The location is great for seeing the sites and the wifi is really good; I downloaded Season 2 of "Scandal" to both of our tablets.  

We are staying at the Hotel Sacher is Vienna.  This is the hotel famous for inventing the Sachertorte.

After checking in, we ate a quick snack and then headed over to the Belvedere Palace, home to one of the largest collections of Gustav Klimt paintings. The Klimts are one of the things I most wanted to see in Vienna.

 
Gustav Klimt and the Belvedere have been in the news due to the recent movie "Woman in Gold."  I do plan to see that painting when I return to NYC.

The grotesque character heads of Messerschmidt are also a favorite at the Belvedere.

Tomorrow, we plan to follow the Rick Steves' Vienna city tour. The Cafe Sacher is item #2 in that tour.  We can skip the line since we are staying at the hotel.

The Belvedere Upper Palace

Is that Germany or Disney World?

This morning we drove south onto the famous Romantic Road through the heart of Bavarian farm land to visit the famous King's castles, Hohenschwangau and Neuschwanstein.

Hohenschwangau is the smaller castle where "Mad" King Ludwig grew up as a boy.  This castle is still owned by the Bavarian royal family.

Neuschwanstein is the larger castle sitting in the mountains above Hohenschwangau and was built by "Mad" King Ludwig over 20 years while he was King.  It was not finished in his lifetime and work stopped on it after his death.  This castle is famous for being the inspiration for the Disney castle and infamous for being one of the major places where the Nazis stashed stolen art during WWII.

The castles are amazing and we're glad we saw them but the experience itself is not fun.  The tickets for the tours have a timestamp on them.  You have a 5 min window at that timestamp to start the tour. If you miss the window then you miss the tour.  No exceptions.  This leads to quite a lot of wasted time as you wait by the gate so you won't miss the window.  The tours are 30 minutes each but we were at the castle site for 5 hours with all the ticket buying, walking the grounds and waiting around for the tours.

Here are some tips for anyone planning to visit the castles:

1. Buy your tickets in advance online. You have to do this at least 2 days before you want to visit.
2. Park in Lot #4. It's past the tourist village
3. Walk up to the lower castle. It's about a 10 minute walk.
4. Take the bus up to the upper castle. The bus stop is above the castle so you have to walk down the hill about 10 mins to start the tour.
5. After the tour of the upper castle, walk back down using the road that the horse carriages use. Don't take the path since it ends near the other parking lots
6. Don't plan on eating there. The food is horrible.
7. Bring 0.50 Euros for the toilets by the ticket office. The toilets at the castles are free and cleaner.

The drive through the Bavarian countryside is beautiful.  We were surprised by the lack of windmills until the return trip when we noticed that almost every single barn roof is covered in solar panels.

The Romantic Road has a wonderful bike path running along side of it. 

Tomorrow, we drive from Munich to Vienna for the last part of our trip.  I was planning to stop in Salzburg on the way but I think that city needs more than a few hours to visit.  We have to figure out how to get a toll sticker for the car before entering Austria.  We are told these can be purchased at a gas station as we leave Munich.  

Getting around

As I've mentioned before, Munich is a great walking city but there appear to be no crosswalks.  Biking is very popular here but people just run a chain through the front wheel and frame and leave the bike on the sidewalk.  They don't actually chain the bike to anything.  File that under something-that-would-never-work-in-NYC.

I've already mentioned driving on the Autobahn and driving around Munich has been easy.  The Hertz GPS unit is flaky. It's a good thing we have my phone and Google Maps.  While driving south today, we were on a 2-lane road that would occasionally add a third lane.  There'd be a sign showing that your side of the road was about to add an additional lane and for how long.  It was great to plan when you'd be able to easily pass by the slower moving vehicles.

Here's a few more pictures of Munich

The picture you've been waiting for

We found a beer hall less teeming with tourists, Nurnberger Bratwurst Glockl am Dom, for dinner.  You sit at community tables which turned out to be a good thing since the two friendly guys sitting next to us explained how to order. We were confused by the basket of pretzels on the table.  Here's the rule: you eat as many as you want and then she asks you how many you ate when you pay the bill.  It's a pretzel honor system.  The waitress was dressed as a wench.

You know it's been coming but here is the obligatory picture of sausage taken by all travelers to Germany

These are all pork sausages and that's potato salad underneath.  It was very good.  I'm not sure I can eat one of those white Bavarian sausages.

We returned to the hotel for dessert. Here's the other obligatory picture of apple strudel

The hotel is ok.  It's no Four Seasons.  The food is unjustifiably expensive.  Not St. Regis expensive but tea and strudel was 65 euros.  It was neither the best tea nor the best strudel that I've ever had.

The bathroom in the room gets a C at best.  The bath mat is extra thick but things go downhill from there. The bathroom is dark and there's no light over the sink.  Butch had a terrible time trying to shave this morning.

Hello Germany

Day 4 and we are in our third hotel.  Butch is tiring from the fast pace of vacationing with me.

Our more thing from the Grand Hotel Pupp, they have brass plaques in the front driveway marking the visit of someone famous.

The hotel dates to the early 1700s so some of the dates are quite old.  I think the towels are at least 100 yrs old themselves.

We had no problems driving to Munich.  It took us about 3 hours.  Butch enjoyed driving on the Autobahn.  It was weird zipping along at 100 mph. We used both Google Maps and the GPS unit from Hertz.  Neither one is perfect although you won't be surprised that we slightly prefer Google Maps.  Here's our ride for the week

On the way, we stopped at the concentration camp memorial in Dachau.  It was not on my original plan but Butch wanted to go.  His father fought here and he wanted to see it for himself.  It is a very creepy and disturbing place.  We only made it through half of the museum and could not take it anymore. We took no pictures.  Pictures do not seem appropriate.

After checking into the hotel, we took an afternoon walking tour of Munich.  We followed the tour in the Rick Steves book.  Our favorite thing was Alois Dallmayr, the grocery store to the kings.  We also visited the famous Hofbräuhaus beer hall.

When in Rome and all

This is the church where the erstwhile Pope Benedict was the archbishop before going to Rome. It is being renovated.

No Four Seasons in Munich so we are staying at the Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten Kempinski.  It is a hotel always mentioned in The Conde Nast Gold List. The hotel is on the Fifth Avenue of Munich; Chanel and Dior are directly across the street.

Like Prague, Munich is a great walking city but there are many more places to eat and drink in Munich.

Tomorrow, we are driving just south of here to see the fairy tale castles.

Goodbye Pupp

The bed was not as bad as the Philadelphia AirBnB bed but it was a close second.  Hard as a rock and only a single pillow.  The worst was the blanket or should I say blankets.  We were at dinner when they turned down the bed.  We returned to find 2 child sized duvets and that's it.  They were not even tucked in.

On the plus side, the floor in the entire room is heated.

Dinner was ok.  We went to the hotel casino too.  I won a few dollars playing Blackjack.  This is clearly off-season.  The hotel and casino were dead.

I'm complaining about silly stuff here but the one thing we absolutely hate is the smoking.  No smoking inside was a much welcomed law to me.  However, these laws have not made it to the Czech Republic.  Imagine walking through a haze of cigarette smoke in the lounge of this beautiful hotel.

Ashtrays on tables are something I am glad we don't see anymore.

The hotel rate includes a very good buffet breakfast.  I love an omelette bar.

We are leaving soon for Munich.  Next update from Germany. 

Does that ceilin' ever just make you wanna cry?

Who's seen "The Last Holiday"?

This silly movie is one of Butch and my favorite movies.  When I was planning this trip, I said to Butch "do you want to stay in the hotel from the Last Holiday? We are never going to be closer." One of the things that Butch and I have in common is that we will both do things simply because we can.   So, we drove up to Karlovy Vary to stay in the Grand Hotel Pupp - the hotel made famous by The Last Holiday and Casino Royale.

How's the hotel?  It's old but definitely charming.  Although, we anticipate the bed being the worst of the entire trip.

I'm not sure the pictures will do the hotel justice.  Imagine stately dining rooms, ornate ceilings and grand staircases. The ceilings have to 20 feet high at least.

The spa and pool area is brand new. We spent a good hour this afternoon swimming in the pool. It has various stations that turn on at intervals - Waterfalls, massage pools, separate therapy pools, jets, bubblers, etc.

As Butch and I have been known to just make up things as we go, we went out for a walk in town today.  This is without a doubt the strangest place that I've ever been.  It turns out that this is the largest spa area in the Czech Republic.  I had no idea. We only came here to stay at the hotel. There are a number of thermal springs all over town.  So you'll be walking along and see things like this:

People drink the spring water as it is supposed to have healing powers for the entire digestive system. I'm not making this up.  We Googled the area when we got back to the hotel.

The area along the river goes on and on.  There are shops, hotels and spas for miles.

We are going to have dinner tonight at the hotel.  Tomorrow we drive to Munich.  

Goodbye Prague

This morning, we toured the New Town part of the city before driving to Karlovy Vary.  New Town is not as charming as the rest of the city.  The Mucha museum is the highlight from that area.

I promised more about street food.  We stopped for Trdelnik which is sort of like a cinnamon roll but it's cooked over charcoal so it's smoky tasting.

I thoroughly enjoyed Prague and would be happy to return anytime. It is truly the city of spires and with the richest architecture seen anywhere.  From Gothic to Renaissance to Baroque to Rococo to Art Nouveau; it has them all.

My favorite thing is the St. Vitus Cathedral. Started in 1344 and finished in 1926. Nothing like the plague, various uprisings and a war or two to put you behind schedule.  

Day 2 Food

It is only Day 2 but Butch and I are already tired of the food here.

We ate at a restaurant at the Old Town Square recommended by the concierge.  We wanted a traditional Czech meal and she recommended one of those "modern twist on the classics" places.

I had Svickova which is meat and dumplings in a cream sauce and Butch had goulash.  Traditional Czech goulash has dumplings instead of noodles.

This meal was less than $20.  If you are not eating at the Four Seasons then the food is cheap here.  Mine was basically pot roast.  We opted not to eat traditional Czech desserts and instead returned to the Four Seasons for dessert.   You won't blame us after seeing the picture.

The chocolate one is filled with pistachios.

If we were staying here one more day then we'd have a meal at The Meet Burger.  They have a rabbit burger on the menu.

The street food consists of very odd combinations of things.

In addition to smoked meats, they have potato chips on a stick, corn on the cob and I'm not sure what that last thing is.  We are going to investigate the street food more today so I'll let you know.