have you been to the Opera in Bratislava, Four4? there was nothing on, sadly, the one night we were there, but it has a very good reputation.

Fourfortravel, thank you. Hope your holiday is going smoothly.

Friends, it looks like I won't be getting something else up tonight as we have an early morning flight. I may do some writing on the plane and post another installment tomorrow. This trip has been everything we expected and more. Thanks to several of you for answering my questions as I was planning and made it happen.

What a wonderful and timely report. We leave Dec. 8 for 7 days in Vienna. Can't wait to see those markets. Thanks for all the useful info.

Julie, you're welcome.

Just returned home but didn't want to keep my friends here from waiting long. Here goes:

An Artful Day

We spent much of the day on Thursday admiring some of the art that calls Vienna home. We started off at Belvedere Palace, an one-stop ride on the S-Bahn from our hotel. Occupied by Prince Eugene of Savoy, the Belvedere is comprised of two palaces, an upper and a lower, that is connected by fountains and gardens. We began at Upper Belvedere Palace, admiring the baroque architecture of the building as well as the art of display. From there we visited the Christmas market in front of the palace before wandering through the gardens to the Lower Belvedere Palace. The two palaces hosts a large collection of works by Gustav Klimt along with a good variety of religious art.

After a full morning at the complex we walked along Rennweg and made our way to Karlskirche with its Christmas market. Unlike other markets the Karlskirche market seemed to be visited by more locals than tourists and concentrated on arts and crafts. We made some purchases here of ornaments as well as woodcarvings. The church was also well worth a peek. Even though the front facade is under scaffolding the access to the dome more than made up for it. Due to the restoration there was a temporary elevator installed that allowed visitors to get up close to the frescoes that adorn the beautiful church; what a treat!

From Karlskirche we hopped on a tram to the Kunsthistorisches Museum, where we spent a good three hours of our afternoon admiring the European art found on the first floor. My favorites were the rooms filled with works from Caravaggio and Brueghel, especially the David and Goliath and the Tower of Babel respectively. We barely had any time touring the rest of the museum other than a quick glance at the Egyptian collection. We could easily spend several days here.

Just outside the art museum at Maria Theresa Platz is a lively Christmas market. We enjoyed our time browsing before moving on to the small market at MuseumQuartier (there were not much there other than a few stalls / lounges serving alcohol) and the Spittelberg markets. Spilling out across several streets we absolutely loved this Christmas market. It has much more of a neighborhood feel and I appreciated the variety of goods, from food to crafts, on offer.

The Spittelberg neighborhood is home to several restaurants that appealed to us. We chose to dine at Glacis Beisl for the evening. The food was very good. The pumpkin soup was delicious and my wiener schnitzel was perfect. The beef goulash was good too. When we come back to Vienna next, we would love to stay in this area of the city.

More to come soon...

tripplanner001, what was your impression of the Baroque Baroque exhibit at Belvedere?

annhig, admittedly we are not really into opera, and so we haven't tried all that hard to take in a performance in Bratislava (or in Vienna). We also do not smoke and are not into skiing, either, and joke that it's surprising we haven't been asked to leave Austria. :)

Franked, are you here to provide good information or is that just a guise for your advertising of apartment-hotels-Europe?

annhig, admittedly we are not really into opera, and so we haven't tried all that hard to take in a performance in Bratislava (or in Vienna). We also do not smoke and are not into skiing, either, and joke that it's surprising we haven't been asked to leave Austria. >>

good grief, Four4, what do you find to do there then?

it's funny, when we used to live near London, people were always asking what plays and shows we'd seen and now we live in Cornwall they expect us to have been to all the beauty spots. of course we don't have time, like you, we're too busy living!

annhig, you are funny! If there is one ex-pat myth that should forever be dispelled, it is that (most of us) are not bon bon-eating slackers. We, too, are busy with school and work and volunteer activities, not to mention obligatory lunches and dinners and whatnot. The ex-pat life is not entirely one dinner party followed by a coffee morning and embassy lunch, either. Most days, regardless of whatever else is on the calendar, I still have to head to the markets and collect provisions to put supper on the table! I am just thankful that in my previous life I was a research scientist, and can map my days systematically!

This coming weekend, for example, our school is hosting the regional Speech & Debate tournament, and we are housing four teenage boys for three nights in support of the competition. That means a full weekend of cooking and chauffeuring very hungry lads. Mere non-expat mortals could never manage the challenge. ;)

The ex-pat life is not entirely one dinner party followed by a coffee morning and embassy lunch, either.>>

oh, four4 - I'm disappointed. I had visions of embassy jollies followed by ad lib lotus-eating not to say Heurige-crawling.

pass the bonbons please.

LOL. If only expat life is as glamorous as they make it out to be on television.

Fourfortravel, the Baroque Baroque exhibit was interesting. The centerpiece is a series of five towers that emit a different color light in the marble hall. The lights cast the features of the room in a different perspective. The colored lights also mixed with the sunlight coming in through the windows to create new perspectives. While the lights were the new element in the room, the artists really focused us on the room's detailed features.

"LOL. If only expat life is as glamorous as they make it out to be on television."

Amen to that! Although I wouldn't change our years in Europe for anything (and we're now permanent residents in Switzerland, when does one officially cross the bridge from expat to immigrant?), work, taxes, housecleaning, all the day-to-day tasks of life continue.

Thank you for the trip report! We've just booked another week in Vienna for next June, staying again at the K&K Maria Theresia, which has become our fav hotel in the city. We love the Spittelberg location.

What were your favorite restaurants and cafes on this trip? We went to Kussmaul several times in March, but are always happy to hear about new discoveries. (however, we don't like Demel, especially after seeing the "paddock" they set up to contain the tourist hordes)

Thank you for the wonderful trip report. I really appreciated all of the details. It's a little early for me to be planning the possible trip next year, but I'll be sure to refer back to it as the time gets closer.

Tripplanner001, thanks again for you wonderful TR! "Vienna is one of Europe's grandest cities". After our Sept. visit, we agree!

In our visit to NYC this weekend, we have plans to visit the Neue Galerie where Gustav Klimt's painting "Woman in Gold" (subject of the recent movie) is on display. If you haven't seen the movie, you might find it of interest.

Of course, our main goals in visiting the Big Apple are to enjoy the wonderful Christmas atmosphere/decorations and take in a few plays.

Glad you had such a great trip!

WeisserTee, you're welcome. Our favorite restaurants would have to be Salm Brau and Gigerl Stadtheuriger.

Chepar, you're welcome. I hope to get the last 2 or 3 installments up before week's end.

Tomarkot, thanks for the tip about the film.

A Day in Gyor

For our next-to-last day we headed back out of the city, this time on an excursion to the Hungarian city of Gyor. We chose Gyor for the opening day of its Christmas market. We also enjoyed our time in Budapest last November and wanted to see another part of Hungary.

The trip began again at Vienna's Hauptbahnhof. We took an EuroCity train bound for Budapest, which stopped in Gyor along the way. The journey was a little more than one hour.

Gyor is a compact little city with a very walkable old town center. The city center is somewhat known for its beautiful Baroque architecture.

Our day in the city began with a visit to the City Hall building directly across the street from the main train station. In front of the building is a nice Christmas market selling the usual holiday items along with clothes and some handbags. From here we made our way down another street of Christmas market stalls before hitting the main town square.

The focus of the town square is the city's basilica church with a beautiful baroque interior. There is also a nice Christmas market in the square selling ornaments and different crafts. Some of the items reminded me of the market at Karlskirche. Also on offer were a couple of stalls selling the marzipan we enjoyed in Budapest; yum!

From the main square we wandered further north towards the bishops tower. Along the way were numerous shops and stores complete with the wrought iron signs hanging above the streets indicating the trade or good the shop specialized in.

The bishops tower is well worth a visit on any trip to Gyor. I really enjoyed the museum in the tower's underground chambers. It told a very moving story about the chambers having served as a shelter for people during the Soviet capture of the town and tower during the end of World War II and ensuing slaughter of those there. In addition to the underground museum is a lookout tower that offers wonderful views of the city.

We also took a stroll along the river and visited a nearby synagogue. We spent the remainder of our time in Gyor revisiting some of the Christmas markets from earlier in the day as not all the stalls were open when we first browsed.

Up next: our final day in Vienna

what a nice idea, TP, to visit a small hungarian town. WE like doing trips like that too as IMO you get a much better idea of a country than you do if you spend your entire time in capital cities with all their tourists. Nothing against them, but you rarely get a proper idea of a country that way.

tripplanner001, thank you for the Györ Christmas market report. Believe it or not, that is one market we have yet to visit! I'm afraid it won't happen this year, either, as the calendar is full through the holidays.

Ann, usually when we visit a country we like to see a major city, a smaller town or two, and also get outdoors, especially on longer trips. In addition to getting a proper sense of a place it also gives us the variety we crave.

Fourfortravel, you're welcome. Perhaps next year. The way the markets are laid out in Gyor is that you have setups in the main squares and plazas and those markets are connected by stalls along the major pedestrian thoroughfares that connect them. The result is that you can wander through a big part of town just by strolling the markets.

Saturday in Vienna

This was our last day in Vienna and we wanted to spend it in a leisurely way, wandering about the capital city's beautiful streets and visiting a few more Christmas markets.

We began at St. Stephen's Cathedral and walked around some of the back streets between the cathedral and the Danube Canal. We didn't really have a specific destination in mind other than to see another part of the city. It was a quiet morning and we felt like we had the streets to ourselves. We stopped along the way to admire some buildings and monuments and walked into a couple of churches.

We wandered for about three hours before heading to our first Christmas market of the day, at Am Hof square, where we settled down for lunch. We enjoyed some delicious sausages and spaetzle.

From Am Hof we wanted over to the nearby Freyung market. Most of the time was spent browsing the wares on offer. I did pick up a couple of last-minute buys here.

Our visit to the markets continued at Palais Niederosterreich, thanks to the tip from Fourfortravel. The former government building for Lower Austria hosted a very cozy and intimate Christmas market. In the courtyard were stalls selling mostly food and beverages while the interior of the building hosted vendors selling everything from Christmas ornaments to local wines, meats, and cheese. It had the air of a farmers market that we frequent here in the States mixed with the revelrie of the Christmas markets outdoors, and in an ornate setting no less. One room off the gorgeous main hall was converted into a Viennese coffee house. We sat here, enjoyed a couple of cups, and listened to a live band play for quite a bit; it was a perfect way to spend a late afternoon.

From Palais Niederosterreich we wandered down to Hofburg Palace for another stroll on the palace grounds before settling for an earlier-than-usual dinner at Gigerl Stadtheuriger. This is our third trip to Vienna and we still haven't managed to visit a heuriger. Given that it is past the season and the early nightfall we didn't venture out to one on this trip. We did though want to sample some of the fare on offer, and found out about Gigerl during our research for this trip. Located steps away from Kartnerstrasse, Gigerl had an informal and rustic atmosphere. The four of us opted for the sampler option on the menu, which was perfect. We had the opportunity to sample a few delicious appetizers followed by a main course potpourri of wiener schnitzel, chicken, roasted pork, potatoes, vegetables, and sauerkraut. The meal was topped off by two different types of streudel, sweet cheese and apple, drizzled with warm vanilla custard sauce. The wines were also very good.

We went back to our hotel after dinner and packed for our journey home the next day. We flew British Airways on revenue economy class tickets, connecting via London Heathrow. The flight from Vienna to London was uneventful except that there wasn't a place for us to land. This caused us to get into London more than 30 minutes late and a scramble to make our connection to DC. Fortunately BA decided to hold the plane for us although it meant we delayed everyone else's journey by 30 minutes. The ride to DC was very comfortable, on an A380. Immigration at Dulles was quick, using one of the new kiosks. However we had to stand in line for about 45 minutes getting through the customs line, given that this was the Sunday after Thanksgiving when everyone seemed to be returning and there were about seven or eight international flights landing.


Capping Off

Our trip to Vienna was everything that we hoped it to be and a little more. We knew we would enjoy the city from our prior visits. The holiday air lent the Austrian capital something of an additional magic. And the Christmas markets - our primary draw - failed to disappoint. We were very fortunate to have experienced several markets and have taken away something different from each. Special thanks again to Fourfortravel for the advice and tips before and during our trip. And thanks to the rest of my Fodorite friends for sharing your own experiences and for following along. May the holiday season bring you much joy and happiness.

Lovely finish, tripplanner. Glad that you liked the market at Palais Niederösterreich; it is one of my favorites. Overall, which market was your favorite?

A wonderful holiday season to you, as well.