Op-Expat

An American friend of mine who also lives in Vienna, found a fabulous day spa right on the Austrian/Hungarian boarder. We American gals miss our day spa visits, especially manicures and pedicures. In the U.S. a nail salon is right around the corner, and for a reasonable $20 you can get a manicure. Here in Vienna, you’re looking at €40. No way!

The day spa in Hungary is fabulous because of its price. A spa manicure costs €16! Massages €25. Price wasn’t the only positive. Other great aspects were the modern facility, extreme cleanliness, and the other clients. Both men and women of high fashion were swinging the doors of the place as they rushed in and out for appointments. Also another great point. The place is open on Sundays. A great way to prepare for the work week if you ask me.

The only downside of the spa was its business-like efficiency. I was efficiently shuffled from one treatment to the other, with no extra trims for pampering. If you are looking for extreme luxury when going to a day spa, this isn’t the place for you. Also, the staff doesn’t speak English. Almost all of them speak German, but if not that, then you are stuck using hands and feet to communicate.

Overall though, I think the place is fabulous and I intend to go back again and again. Best thing to do is grab a couple of friends to split the gas cost, and jet off for a Sunday.

Men, if you are looking for a gift for the upcoming holidays, the lady in your life will probably appreciate a trip here.

http://www.wabi.hu/

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At least living in a desirable location tempts friends and family to come visit. My parents, brother and his wife, and almost all of my friends have come to visit me. Despite living here, I always struggle to put a daily sightseeing tour together for my guests. Finally I just put it down on paper, and whip it out whenever people show up. I include days of the week because some places in the city are better during the week or weekend. I also group sights together according to location to avoid zigzagging through the city.

Weekday – Tour of the Inner City. Start at Karlsplatz and walk down Kartnerstraße. Remind your guests to look up to see the beautiful architecture. Enter Stephansdom and tell your guests to make a round of the cathedral. Then tell them to go to the top to get a good view of the city. Walk Am Graben and explain the statue in the middle is a tribute to surviving the black plague. Check out the pretty Peter’s Church. Tell them about the underground bathrooms Am Graben and encourage them to take a look. Walk your guests to Café Central for a break. Then head on over to the Hofburg and encourage them to take a tour. Grab a streetcar that circles the Ring and explain all the buildings. At Schwedenplatz get out and take the U1 to Donauinsel. Let your guests see the mighty Danube. On the way back, get out at Praterstern and have your guests ride the Riesenrad. Jump back in the U1 to exit Karlsplatz again and eat anywhere in the Inner City (example: Palmenhaus) so your guests can see the Inner City at night.

Saturday – go to Naschmarkt to see the Fleamarket as well as the food market. Go to Schönbrunn and encourage your guests to take a tour and walk the gardens. Take a break either at the Gloriette or Dommayer café. Go to the Technical Museum if you have male guests, they seem to like that kind of thing. If you have female guests, go to Mariahilferstraße to go shopping, they seem to like that kind of thing.  Go to dinner at a Heurigen. Apologize to your guests when they have digestive problems from all the greasy food. Or just tell them to drink more to burn the fat away.

Sunday – Choose either the performance of the Spanish Riding School, see my post about that here, or the Vienna Boys Choir. Go to Kunsthistorische Museum and encourage your guests to take a tour. The guides are awesome. If the weather is nice, choose a pretty garden to walk through and sit comfortable in a coffeehouse.

I think that sums Vienna up, unless you have other suggestions.

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I flew back to L.A. in July to attend my brother’s wedding (it was beautiful). Getting a direct flight from Vienna to L.A. is not possible, so I had to stop over in Frankfurt, Germany. Things just worked out that I spent a night in Frankfurt, giving me time to tour the city. So here it is, a post about Vienna versus Frankfurt.

Frankfurt – the people are most definitely friendlier. The women are more fashionably dressed (a much needed break for my poor abused eyes in Vienna). The city is cleaner. Sightseeing in Frankfurt is minimal. Having spent a day in the city, I saw all that I needed to see.

Vienna – poor Frankfurt can’t compete with the glory of Vienna’s Inner City. Vienna is stunningly beautiful. Frankfurt is functional. Also the sightseeing possibilities in Vienna fill four full days easily due to the wonderful options of palace tours, museums of every kind, coffeehouses, gardens and so on.

To sum up really quickly the difference between Vienna and Frankfurt: Throw a stone in Frankfurt and you’ll hit a bank. Throw a stone in Vienna and you’ll hit a church or a palace.

My conclusion: Skip Frankfurt and just use the airport to get on your next plane to Vienna.

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The Spanish Riding School in Vienna is one of THE top attractions of the city. Getting tickets usually requires booking up to six weeks in advance. Every guidebook makes a big deal about seeing the famous Lipizzaner stallions during their performance. Though the horses and riders are stunning in every way, the performance was forced into boredom because of the unnecessary length of the show.

The Lipizzaner are horses that are born dark brown/black and turn complete white over the course of their first ten years of life. They are beautiful creatures that are paired with the best horse riders in the world to show off the strength and perfection of both the horse and the rider. It really is breath-taking when a rider without stirrups convinces a white stallion to rear up on its hind legs and jump two feet off of the ground. The horse and rider also perform difficult steps, jumps, and other moves to classical music from Mozart.

The only problem is that the show was set up with too much detail. It was a gruelling hour and a half. After 45 minutes, the audience was sighing, shifting in their seats, and having a hard time paying attention. Don’t get me wrong, when the horses and their riders did something stunning, the audience broke out in appreciative applause as one should at such a display of perfection. But the show needs to be cut shorter. An hour and a half is just too long. 45 minutes would have been fine. Appreciation turns to boredom and an audience member like me comes away from the experience thinking, well that was just too bad.

So here’s a shout out to the people that organize the Spanish Riding School’s show. Cut it shorter, let the horse and rider show off their gasp-inducing stunts, and let the audience go to a coffeehouse while they are still babbling with excitement about the Lipizzaner and their riders.

Rider and Horse jumping

Part of the show

Mom and Baby

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Last night I went to dinner at a place called the Schweitzerhaus. I was informed by some locals that this was a sort of institution in Vienna.

There were many things I didn’t know about the Schweitzerhaus. First off, it is located in the garish Wiener Prater. I simple don’t know why people are so wild about the Prater. It is a never ending carnival amusement park of hell. Loud music blaring from every ride and mixing together in a shrieking mass of noise. Neon lights flashing. Rides looming over you with a feel of desperation cloaking them. I haven’t been to the Prater in almost three years, and yesterday, I sure remembered why.

It seems that the Schweitzerhaus fits right in with the Prater. What a scummy dive. When I arrived at my table, it was sticky with sloshed over beer from the occupants before me. My chair was crammed right up against the person sitting behind me, so I had to hunch over in my seat so as not to bump heads with her. And of course with my luck, the people a table over were heavy smokers. I had a constant halo of cigarette smoke floating around my head for the duration of my stay.

The food was mediocre, the service rough and drunk, and the noise level of intoxicated people yelling at each other unbearable. I couldn’t wait to get out of there.

So here’s a tip. If anyone ever mentions the Schweitzerhaus, slap ‘em upside the head.

I for one need to settle my nerves after last night’s experience. You’ll be seeing me at Hotel Imperial’s restaurant, Which is my secret little get-away, sipping a cappuccino in the air-conditioned, cool, and quiet coffeehouse of elegance.

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One of the greatest pleasures of Vienna is the fact that the city is almost 50% green. There are forests, parks, gardens, and trees everywhere.

Since everything is closed on Sunday, except for eating establishments and museums, going out to enjoy the green parts of Vienna is ideal. Yesterday my husband and I went for a walk at the Lainzer Tiergarten.

Lainzer Tiergarten means zoo, but there are no cages here. The animals that are natural and wild to the Vienna woods are free to roam here in the over 6 acres of land that is reserved for the Lainzer Tiergarten. Can you image! In a major city over 6 acres of land is reserved for wild life and nature. It’s really incredible.

The clean, easy paths that you can follow really take you deep into the woods. You see only forest, creeks, and the wild chirping of all kinds of birds and crickets. It was perfect for a city girl like me. God knows that I do not own a pair of tennis shoes, let alone hiking boots. My little ballerinas were just fine for this walk. I got to enjoy nature while still keeping my shoes clean! Now that’s practical.

Different paths take you different places, but the one we took was a little over an hour walk in one direction to get to a restaurant. There we could rest ourselves, have a snack and a drink, and then continue back to where we came from.

This was a really relaxing Sunday for us. We got out of the apartment, drove for 10 minutes to get out into the wild nature. It was hard to believe that we were technically still in a city. I would definitely recommend the Lainzer Tiergarten for a wonderful Sunday stroll. If you are interested, they offer a number of tours as well.

Map of Lainzer Tiergarten

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Biking in Vienna is so easy. There are bike paths everywhere, and when the weather is pretty, it’s a real pleasure, even for a non-biker such as myself.

What’s really great is the city has what is called CityBike Wien It’s a program with over 25 bike stations throughout the entire city which allows you to rent a bike at a very low cost. All you do is find a station on the very easy-to-navigate website. Go to the station (usually near an U-Bahn), register at the station, pay using credit card or ATM card, pop the bike out of its docking station, and you are on your way.

The bike condition isn’t bad at all. I thought they were going to be beat up and abused, but both my bike and Paul’s were fine. We started out in the 12th district, which is more on the outskirts of the city, and rode the bikes into the Inner City.

Finally we have something else to do on a boring Sunday other than just go to a coffeehouse.

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Sundays can be boring in Austria as all stores close down. Once the apartment is cleaned, it’s pretty much lay around the place, or go out and look for some adventure. I purchased an Austrian guidebook for this specific purpose.

Two days ago my husband and I got in the car and drove an hour away from Vienna to explore two little towns nearby. Krems and Dürnstein. Our first stop was Krems. It’s a cute little town with not really much to see. We walked around and looked at all the closed stores, then walked up to a church. In 20 minutes we were done with the town. It was a bit of a disappointment. We could have done the same thing in Vienna.

Dürnstein is 5 miles away from Krems so we were off. We took a road that went along the Danube and it was very pretty, as we are enjoying great summer-like weather right now that is between 70-75F. We walked around the town a little and soaked in old European charm. Then we hiked up to the ruins. And I mean hiked UP. It was steep. I only made it because little kids and old people were passing me by, and my pride wouldn’t  let me quit. It was worth it though. The view was so beautiful. Rolling green hills, the Danube, and fertile wine land. Once we made our way back down from the ruins, we felt we had earned lunch. We found a winery that had seating outside with a perfect view of the Danube and its vines surrounding as. Check it out at Alter Klosterkeller

Overall I would suggest a visit to Dürnstein and say skip Krems. Here’s a link for more about Dürnstein

Dürnstein, Austria

Ruins in Dürnstein Austria

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Now this is interesting. BusinessWeek just reported that Swiss coffee giant Nespresso is making a play for the US market. The BusinessWeek article states valid reasons for this move. You can see the article here BusinessWeek Nespresso Article

Nespresso is HUGE here in Austria. The stores are glitz and glamour. They have tasting bars so you can decide which of the 10 flavors you want to buy. The extremely expensive machines are on display like artwork. The catalogs are slick and a marketer’s dream. George Clooney is the spokesperson for Nespresso and you see the commercials all the time on TV. My husband’s 75 year old grandmother has even stated, ‘That coffee guy, he sure is good looking.’

Nespresso is a machine over here. No pun intended.

It makes sense in Austria where coffee is such a big part of the culture. Check out my blog post concerning how big coffee really is Coffee Post

I have to confess. I have a Nespresso coffee machine at home. I buy the capsules. I drink the coffee. It’s good coffee. I mean really good. So good that I won’t drink the American coffee and I sure in hell won’t drink the Starbucks coffee. It tastes burnt to me. My little Nespresso machine chosen in a color to match my kitchen produces smooth, rich, flavorful coffee. Not watery, not burnt tasting. I look forward to my cup every morning. And hey, I don’t have to stand in line for it either!

I’ve invited a lot of people over to my place on a Sunday afternoon to have a cup of coffee and chat. Everyone says the coffee is good. Aunts, cousins, my father, uncle, and friends. That’s a lot of happy, satisfied, impressed people. My cousin actually called me two days ago out of the blue to ask me a few questions. He asked if I was really happy with it and I said yes. He then said that he was going to buy one for his office. And he didn’t mind that he was going to have to order the capsules online.

Keeping the Nespresso machine clean is easy. I wipe it down once in awhile. I put the plastic parts in the dishwasher. Due to the capsules, there is no fumbling with the coffee grinds which usually go everywhere. I just drop the capsule of my choice into the machine, and done. Coffee.

There is one draw back that I really don’t like. The machine only makes one cup of coffee at a time. When I have guests, I make one cup, then run to my first guest and give it to that person, then run back to deliver the second when it is done. I don’t want anyone to drink cold coffee. Also, the coffee could be a little bit hotter. What I do to make up for that though is heat up the milk in the microwave. For those that don’t take milk, I put their cup in the microwave to heat up the porcelain.

I think Nespresso has a shot in the United States. People don’t want to spend the money that they have been at Starbucks anymore. People are pulling back from gathering at restaurants to socialize. What’s left is inviting people to your home to entertain. Entertaining goes well when you have good coffee to serve.

Also Nespresso is a marketing machine. They know how to push their product. As a marketing manager myself, I wouldn’t mind working for Nespresso. It would  be fun.

Nespresso Website

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I have a new favorite restaurant in Vienna.

http://www.palmenhaus.at/ 

It’s a hot house turned restaurant. It’s beautiful! Light and airy because it’s mostly made out of glass. Huge plants everywhere. Hip, trendy, modern, and fun. The service was quick despite being very full and busy. The staff was friendly, which is unusual for Viennese waiters.

I went once for breakfast and they offered a traditional Viennese breakfast. A coffee of your choice, fruit, a roll, and a croissant. The croissant flaked just like it should, which I find hard to get in the United States.

I also went again for coffee on a Sunday afternoon (a traditional Viennese activity and should never be missed when visiting). The dessert was very good.

The crowd was hip and trendy both in the morning and in the afternoon. Heads swivel when you walk by because people are watching people. It was a very high, energetic atmosphere and I loved it.

The location is great so getting there is easy. Be sure to make reservations.

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