A bit of Vienna in New York

So after the initial panic had subsided and I realized that the doctors at New York-Presbyterian probably knew what they were about (they were after all rated as the 6th best hospital in the nation by U.S. News and World Report, and Dad's doctor is apparently a bona fide superstar in the thoracic surgery realm), I calmed down a little. The nursing staff gently pried me away from the bedside as visiting hours closed, and left to my own devices in an over-heated New York, I decided to seek a little comfort in a Viennese Eiskaffee, iced coffee with cream and a goodly dollop of vanilla ice cream.

I haven't had a good one since we went to Vienna three years ago, but through a Percoset-induced haze, my Dad informed me that Cafe Sabarsky at the Neue Gallerie on 86th has a terrific Viennese cafe--the real deal. I had no other things on my agenda, so I headed on over. Of course, when I got there, there was a line out the door and down the hall for Cafe Sabarsky.

(Side note: I have now decided that the reason that New York is such book-reading town is that everyone has to wait on such LONG lines that they have to bring along books--lengthy books--to pass the time. I saw a guy reading Dickens in line at Whole Foods, and you could probably finish Atlas Shrugged while waiting to pay for your soy milk and frozen raviolis at Trader Joes. This, I have decided, also explains the density of New Yorker magazine articles: just long enough for a wait on line at the new Balducci's.)

ANY-way, I'm not big on patience, so I headed downstairs to Cafe Fledermaus, which is admittedly less glamorous, but has no line and the same menu. I ordered some summery spaetzle with corn and peas, and my blessed Eiskafee and sat there with my New Yorker for a little escape from the summer heat and craziness.


New York was uncharacteristically rainy for July, but I like that, especially in the hot weather. The droplets steam off the molten pavement and for a moment everything seems breathable. This whole escapade and the stifling heat made things feel a bit surreal, in fact, as if I were drifting around the city with only a moderate sense of purpose.

Outside of the Neue Gallerie I headed for the 5th Avenue bus and spotted this lonely looking balloon on the sidewalk. I've been a big fan of Lamorisse's The Red Balloon since I was a little kid and the image struck me as particularly appropriate to the wistful way I was feeling at the moment.

Vienna: Do & Co.

02--Schonnbrunn gardens

Eric has a brief review of our final dinner at Do & Co:

Ahh, back to Do & Co and we can’t wait. This time we add desert and actually eat more, but the bill comes out about 40 euros less than the first time! Both times the total with wine comes to less than 200 euros for the three of us, an incredible bargain considering the quality of the food and the helpfulness of the staff (Eric’s German is, shall we say, weak).

Right off the bat we order the same Gruner Veltliner we had the first time, a 2003 Emmerich Knoll, designated “Reid Loibenberg” vineyard from the Wachau region (write it down). All of the Gruners we’ve tried this trip have been extremely versatile-- have gone with fish, meat, and asparagus—and each one has been vastly different from the others. This is a truly fascinating grape.

We start with foie gras on a toasted brioche and the best cole slaw ever! Ms. Eats goes for the rack of lamb (again from Uruguay) in an olive crust. Excellent! The lamb is cooked just right, pink in the middle, juicy and with a slightly wild taste, like the lamb was actually grazing on a hillside somewhere. Better than the filet of the first visit!

Dad gets the signature dish “Skipper Do & Co,” grilled Irish salmon, monkfish, and loup de mer. We have no idea what loup de mer is, but it seems to be a white fish, skin crisped up from a well-executed high heat searing, but without drying out the flesh. Fishtabulous! And I get the “Kalbsbutterschnitzel.” Did you get that? No? Well, it’s essentially two veal meatballs with mashed potatoes and roasted onion chips. Sounds plain and simple, but the sauce had to have been produced with the assistance of 6 young virgins and at least two pacts with the prince of darkness. Really, the sauce was that good.

03-Croquet house at the Schonbrunn

The veal was as light as air and probably food processed with herbs and spices until it floats, maybe with an egg. After questioning the waitress we seem to think that the veal meatballs were seared in butter, then the butter was probably cooked with a little flour until you get that nutty aroma, and then something with the virgins and Satan.

Dessert is a trio of chocolate mousse with an elderberry sauce (but it didn’t smell like your father). The dairy and butter in Vienna is unbelievable. I can’t describe it justly. Light light light and creamy. Delicious is too soft a word.

All in all the best food in Vienna, maybe Austria. France has a high bar to beat. (When I die I want to go to hell, that demon knows how to eat!)

Vienna: The Gift Shop at the Top of the Universe

The Stephansdom.
Two connections and sixteen hours later, Eric makes it to Vienna. And immediately falls in love with Viennese efficiency on the new CAT airport train. A few misdirected steps around the Stephansdom later, he manages to get to the Hotel Konig von Ungarn, where Mary Ellen and her Dad have been already relaxing in the blessed air-conditioning of their luxury suite (no kidding about that!)

Eric’s going to go for the 38 hour mark, however (go, Eric, go!), and rolls himself into the shower, pulls on some khakis and sandals, and we’re off!

To lunch, because of course, that’s the first thing on everyone’s mind, always. We go in search of a restaurant recommended in the guidebook and can’t locate it (the guidebook, we later discover has a misprint) but we end up outside the old University a couple of blocks from our hotel at a student hangout called Inigo’s. Prices are low, portions are large, beer is cold, everyone is happy.

After lunch we notice we’re opposite the Jesuit church, which looks fairly plain from the outside, but when you step inside, blows your eyeballs out with Baroque gilding and mock architectural murals on the ceiling. As we wander the place, a group of some twenty earnest looking young men pile into one of the pews, pray hard for about five minutes, and then leave. Soccer team? Jesuits priests? Or participants in the new “Five Minutes to Heavenly Abs” regime? We may never know.

There’s a concert of the Schubert mass scheduled for Sunday morning, so already discussion ensues about what musical events we’ll be going to hear.

Stephansdom - The Gift Shop at the Top of the Universe
Our next target -- after changing some euros, making a dinner reservation and most importantly, locating a WC—is Stephansdom, the Gothic monolith of a cathedral at the heart of the Old Town.

Outside, all three of us make a beeline for the poster advertising Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis at the cathedral on Saturday. Unfortunately it conflicts with our plans to hear the Vienna Philharmonic. They are in fact also playing a Gounod mass on Sunday at the same time as the one at the Jesuitkirche. One hour in Vienna and already we have too many musical choices.

A Dominican monk stands at the door trying to sell cheesy booklets to benefit the handicapped children, one of which my Dad buys, and promptly sets down someplace inside the cathedral, saying he did his part. Inside this Catholic cathedral though, things look a little more Protestant than in the Jesuit’s church – less in the way of painting or gilding, or decoration of anything really. We wander through the building which is already overrun by camera-wielding tourists just like us, but Eric decides that he’d like to get high…

Outside there’s a small un-prepossessing door that leads to a man, who is pleased to charge you 3 Euros to climb yourself silly. Of course we don’t realize this at the time and happily pass through the turnstile and start heading up the stone, spiral stairway. The narrow, stone, spiral stairway. The dark, narrow, stone, spiral stairway. Did I mention there was no railing?

About a quarter of the way up, we thought might almost be there, when we passed a woman on the way down. (Did I mention there was no railing and it was narrow? And dark?) Eric bounded ahead like a mountain goat, while Dad and I struggled up the 465th step (about halfway). Did I mention there was no railing?

Admittedly, the views through the narrow slit windows are wonderful, and you can see the tiled roof in all its glory from the stairs.

We arrived at the old bell room (About halfway—okay, two-thirds up.) More stairs. Eric bounded ahead. Suddenly we heard a voice echoing through the stone spiral, “You’re almost there.” Yeah, sure. “You gotta see this!” Uh-huh, puff, puff.

As we came up the last of the 1035 steps, we found Eric sitting gnome-like on the doorway of…a cheery, brightly lit gift shop. At the top of the spire. At the end of the Universe. Struggling for enlightenment? Trying to get closer to God? Well, folks, thereÂ’s a postcard and rosary shop at the end of your pilgrimage. Did God and redemption await when the Crusaders got to Jerusalem? Or maybe just cheap slides and T-shirts?

The thing that got us thinking was that, someone – maybe the novice monks?—had to carry all that crap up the stairs. The cards, the rosaries, the slides, the postcard rack, the cash register, AND the telescopic binocular machines that afford you a view over Vienna for 1 Euro. No T-shirts that said “I Climbed Closer to God and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt” though, danke schon.


The gift shop at the top of the universe
Well that was enough of that.

We went back down – enough to make you nauseous going around the spiral, let me tell you! – and headed for our first cafe down the Graben.

Cafe Hawelka and the discovery of Eiskaffee

A few steps from the dom, hidden down a little side street called Dorotheergasse, there was, just as described in several books, a quiet, slightly musty-looking place called Cafe Hawelka. Also as promised, at the doorway, Leopold, the founder, who is now at age 90-plus, sits on a stool, greeting everyone with a “Gruss Gott” as you enter.

We sink into one of the striped overstuffed couches opposite a little cafe table and take in the atmosphere, which is circa 1930’s, wood paneling with well worn booths and tables, that look like they’ve served everyone from Kafka to, well, us.

In the book I read about something heavenly called “Eiskaffee” –made with coffee and a scoop of vanilla ice cream. You can get it “mit schlagobers” (which would be whipped cream) or “ohne schlagobers” (which would be without whipped cream.) Definitely “mit.”

There are tourists like us posted in various corners of the room, but also people who look much more attuned to cafe pacing who are reading the newspapers and writing. It’s a pretty far cry from Starbucks, although I do feel they could benefit from wireless access if they want to keep the young writers coming here.

We suck down the eiskaffee with unearthly speed. Ooops. So much for the tradition of lingering for hours over your drink. But we do hang out for at least half an hour, at which point it’s obvious from our heads, which droop like fading wildflowers, that we need to go back to the hotel for a siesta.


We went back to the blessed air-conditioning of our hotel, figuring God can always find us there if He needs us. We’re planning on instituting the siesta in the afternoon.

Dinner at the Restaurant Slightly Lower Than the Top of the Universe, But Which Has an Elevator
Do & Co.
First night in Vienna and our first restaurant from the Let’s Go book recommendations is a big hit. Do & Co is above Stephansdomplatz in what is surely Vienna’s Fisherman’s Wharf. It’s a bustling tourist filled shopping area right around Stephansdom, in the heart of old Vienna. All in all much more interesting than the Wharf, what with the combination of a huge gothic cathedral intermixed with street performers painted silver and barkers trying to sell you tickets to a “Mozart Concert” in which all the musicians are dressed up in powdered wigs and they play “The Blue Danube Waltz” and “Eine Kliene Nacht Musik” over and over.

Well, up the elevator to the 7th floor and a table outside overlooking the platz, it’s dinner time.


The view from our table on the balcony at Do & Co.

This meal started with white asparagus, or “spargel,” with a small boat of hollandaise sauce to drizzle over them. I now understand why this veggie is such a big deal here. Unbelievably creamy, sweet and vegetal, this is not anything like asparagus I’ve had in the U.S. (though you can find white asparagus at Whole Paycheck or other fine stores, it doesn’t even come close to the Austrian kind).

Next we pulled the cork on what has become my favorite Gruner Veltliner so far, a 2003 Emmerich Knoll, designated “Reid Loibenberg” vineyard from the Wachau region. This wine is crisp like a Riesling, and has the body of a good dry Chardonnay. It also accompanied everything on the table. More on Gruners later.

OK, now the real fun. I had a filet of Uruguayan Veal with mushroom risotto, and crispy vegetable tempura. Excellent creamy risotto and the veal was coked moist and just pink, in other words, just right. We don’t see Uruguayan beef much in San Fran, but they sure raise good beef there. Dad had giant prawns in a decadent butter sauce, a little paprika and a few other mystery spices. Big fat juicy succulent prawns -- a plate full. Eric tackles monkfish and green asparagus (hey the stuff is good here) in a curried lobster sauce. The sauce was so good we wanted to swim in it, all the fish was fresh, and the beef moist and grass fed. Our meal was so good we vowed to come back, and we did, on our last night in Vienna.

Walking off dinner

After the fabulous meal at Do & Co, we needed a walk, and so we strolled down the Graben, the large mostly pedestrian avenue that leads away from the Stephansdom. I was fascinated by the tidbit of information that the Graben was originally a ditch where all the bodies of plague victims were thrown. There’s an enormous memorial column in fact, known as the Pestsaule, that marks this history in the middle of the street, but it was under renovation when we were there, although a very informative display surrounded the scaffolding, replete with disturbing images of the plague years.


It’s off the Graben that you can find Dorotheergasse where lurks Cafe Hawelka and also the famed Trzeniewski sandwich shop that we plan to hit the next day. This time, though, we continue all the way down to Kohlmarkt at the end of the Graben and turn down the street, just wandering randomly.

Along the way, we pass Demel, a konditorei which is the home to the some of the fanciest confections and desserts known to humankind. The window display looks like a sort of sugar version of Cartier’s, with elegant arrangements of meringues and chocolates that make it easy to believe this place used to supply the emperor. Luckily they’re closed, so our willpower is not tested.

We continue on to the impressive looking Michaelertor, where a looming stone edifice of a gateway leads into the Hofburg Palace. There are monumental statues depicting the labors of Hercules spaced out along the front of this behemoth, and our guidebook informs us amusingly, that the statues once inspired Governator Arnold Schwarzenegger and beloved son of Austria to new heights of bodybuilding bulk. Seeing them, I can well believe it.


In front of the place is a rounded pit in which you can see the remains of a Roman encampment, apparently where Marcus Aurelius once sat. It just reminds you of the vast swath of history that Vienna, which was called Vindobona in Roman times, encompasses. It also makes me giggle a little at the memory of signs you see in America “Established in 1972,” which seems pretty pale in contrast with “Established in 15 B.C.”

The square (or circle, or sort of half circle) of Michaelerplatz has some other interesting buildings around it though. Adolf Loos’s modernist -- and therefore to our eyes, much less fussy – building stands to one side. This was the building that Loos – a Moravian architect– created, and standing as it does, opposite those heavily ornamented and overwrought sculptures, you can see how it pretty much embodies the principles of his manifesto “Ornament and Crime.”


We wander into the Michaelerkirche, a lovely unpreprossessing church that faces the gate on the other side of Michaelerplatz, which houses a spectacular organ. After reading the article about the mysterious “Organ Leprosy” that is sweeping Europe, I can’t help wondering about the state of health of every organ we come across. The crypt, which promised open coffins was unfortunately closed, but we decided that that was probably… okay.

It’s still light out – I often forget how much further north everything is, and how late it stays light. We often found ourselves still wandering out at 10:30 pm thinking it was perhaps only 8:30 or so. The air is so pleasant though, without the heat of the day, and everyone else is also walking about, so it seems more normal to be “flaneur-ing” our way about the city than it ever does in San Francisco, where you scurry through the fog huddled in a full leather jacket to get back to a warm cup of tea at about 10 pm.


But this is Vienna. Strolling down Herrengasse, to one side of the gate, we happened upon Cafe Central, which is quiet, but still inviting, with a lovely golden hued interior in the evening light. We stop in for a cafe melange and lounge in what feels like splendor with all the chandeliers and other ornamental crimes hanging about. It’s getting late though and so reluctantly, after a nice rest, we decide it’s time to head back to the hotel.

Wandering past the Am Hof, we make our way back up to the Graben. Along the way, an English couple stops us to ask for directions to the U-Bahn and feeling like we're at home already, we send them off towards the nearest stop. For a moment, it feels like we live here.

Vienna: Eric's travel interlude

Airplanes Suck, Air France food is good.

At 4:00 am, Eric’s fifty-five alarms drive him out of the bed in San Francisco. Bill—who was the most important alarm-- also calls, just to make sure Eric really is up.

Already packed, and ready to step out the door, Eric is already missed by the cats, who thoughtfully leave him with parting gifts of an organic nature on the living room floor. Delay number 1.

But, he gets on the road and makes it Bill’s house, where the car is going to be stashed for the price of one bottle of Ravenswood Rhone style Icon wine, and in no time at all, he’s waiting on the security line at Oakland Airport. Around the baggage claim, out the door, down the street… to the next terminal…

On the Jet Blue flight Eric begs and pleads for a front row seat, so he can get a sprinting start to make his fifty second connection to Air France at JFK. It’s an uneventfully crammed flight, though, and our hero makes it through to New York relatively unscathed.

Despite getting on the wrong airport monorail train, and going the wrong direction, he makes onto the flight to Charles de Gaulle with only a few snooty run-ins with their impeccably manicured staff. But when they place glass of wine in his hand and serve up some chicken fricassee with smoked salmon and a wedge of Camembert, he’s mollified…

Charles de Gaulle, considered by some to be the worst airport on the planet, is a living, breathing circus sideshow of design flawed tunnels that go the wrong way and officials with an uncanny ability to ignore you, even when you are begging for help.

Bern to Vienna: Zentrums, Zytglogge and Zurich

In the morning all seems well with the trains. Apparently the Swiss, horrified by the lapse of rail order worked all night not just to restore the power, but also to make sure that everyone has been shipped to his or her destination – even if they had to transport them by rickshaw. They’ve also cleaned the stations, returned all the trains to schedule – basically you’d never know there was a disaster at the station when you walk through in the morning.

We check out of the hotel Marthahaus, and drop the bags in the lockers at the station. Thank goodness we won’t schlep all that around all day.

Zentrum Paul Klee

We’re planning to head out to the outskirts of Bern to see the Zentrum Paul Klee. We have been exceptionally lucky in our timing the whole trip and the zentrum just opened the previous Monday, amidst much fanfare. It’s the largest collection of Paul Klee in the world and had been established at the Kunstmuseum –some 4000 pieces that pretty much cover his entire life’s work. The museum’s already extensive collection has been augmented by the donation of hundreds of works from the artist’s family, which they gave to the city with the proviso that the city build a big museum.

The place they chose is in rolling hills up above the river and the Italian architect, Renzo Piano echoed the landscape with three gently arching semi-hobbit holes into the ground. That sounds like it’s small and cute, but in fact, when you enter, it’s apparent that this is a huge soaring triple space, with an airy café and auditorium for public performances at one end, an enormous permanent exhibition of Klee works in the center, and a library in the third. Downstairs, there’s spaces for more exhibitions, traveling and permanent, and also workshops for educational programs for the kids. It’s so new that the wood floors still smell like they just cut them and the fittings sparkle with even more than the usual cleanliness and the best part is that it’s air-conditioned.

We’re so stunned with the overall effect we almost forget to use our museum cards to get in, and start to pay the admission fees. I wonder how many tourists do that.

The collection itself is immense, laid out in a hangar-sized space and tracing the development of the artist’s work chronologically– which probably would have made sense had we followed it chronologically, but the collection sort of sucks you in organically and you find yourself wandering from painting to painting looking at the oddly dreamlike shapes or attracted over there by colors, or distracted by that one’s geometry.

Throughout the place, there are kids, not lounging around like bored troublemakers in the corner, but rather sprawled on the floors with paper and colored pencils, working hard at making their own interpretations of the Klee designs. Two girls compare fish drawings and giggle. A college-age student sneaks in amidst a group of ten-year-olds while the teacher explains something to them, and crouches down, pretending to be a part of the class, to the kids’ amusement. Everywhere people are pretty much enjoying Klee. Wow, not much like how they go through the Legion of Honor back home.

Barengraben: grab those bears

We leave the cool museum and get back on the bus headed for the Barengraben, or bear pits, where two bored-looking troublemakers of brown bears are skulking around in the open pit just across the bridge from the city center. People are staring at them, and they’re staring back, a little sadly, I thought. They’ve got to be dying of heat because I’m dying of heat and I don’t have a thick fur coat on. The bears are a mascot of the city though, and despite some efforts to have them moved to a more reasonable larger exhibition place, the people “love” them so much that they want to keep them right there. In the pits. They at least have a little pool a rock cave thing in the center and plenty of branch-y things to play with, but still, the pit looks pretty small to me.

I don’t much like the pit, and we get back on a bus and head into town. Near the station there’s a old-fashioned tearoom with a confiserie in the front called Eichenberger’s where a lot of older Bernese are sitting having lunch. It looks like fun, so we wander in, and the waitress is very chatty and nice and tells us that the place is world famous for its truffles and chocolates which have been hand-made on site for decades.

We order omelettes and something cold and sit to enjoy the atmosphere. After lunch we get a box of truffles for one of Dad’s friends and he buys a pipe next door.

Kunst, kunst, kunst

We’re not far from the Kunstmuseum, so we pop in there next, and they turn out to have a small but very choice collection of paintings, from early Flemish right into impressionist and modern works. There are a few fine Monets and a Blue Period Picasso, but the great extent of the place’s space is taken up with three floors for traveling exhibitions.

There’s a questionably avant-garde exhibition of Chinese artists since the end of the Cultural Revolution, though it does have some very humorous pieces, including a giant diorama of troops marching through Tiananmen Square. The artist has used plastic toy soldiers and toy tanks, little saluting officials, all painted the same icky tan color, but if you start to examine the parade, at the end you see, he’s started to include waltzing couples, then little alien dolls, dinosaurs, spaceships and the creature from the Black Lagoon, also painted icky tan.

Back to the platzes

We have some time to kill, and figure maybe we can fit in a tour of the Zytglogge’s mechanism, but it turns out that they only do one tour a day, at 11:30. We wait around to see the clock strike five though, beside scores of Japanese tourists.

The minutes tick by and as we get closer, suddenly we hear the little gold rooster crow, and he creakily flaps his wings – it’s so subtle you can barely see them move. We wait, for music, or a parade of little figures or something, but there’s silence.

Then the King sitting next to the rooster, moves his hands slightly, tipping the scepter and raising the orb a little bit. Then nothing.

Then, suddenly the guy up above begins to strike the bell that’s hanging over the clock face. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Then it stops.

The rooster crows again, and flaps wearily.

That’s the show. The Japanese tourists applaud politely, and we all move on.

Subtle, very subtle.

We walk over to the Bundeshaus. This place is so homey and intimate that I totally keep forgetting it’s the capital of Switzerland. It doesn’t seem like a capital. Capitals are supposed to be noisy and dirty and teeming with masses of people.

The terrace behind the Bundeshaus is lovely though, with a view over the river and lawns of sunbathers outside of a large pool. Up near us there are guys playing on the ubiquitous oversized chessboards as we all quietly enjoy the view and breeze from over the river.

Marking time until the train to Zurich, we wander into a Loeb bookstore and collapse onto the couches in the cool basement, and in no time at all, it’s time to head to the station and catch the train to Zurich. Which is right on schedule. These people are amazing.

Zuricher pasta

The trip to Zurich was pleasant – traveling in first class definitely is nicer than when I backpacked across Europe in second class.

We arrived in Zurich, tossed our stuff into a locker like experts and headed on out to the town. It was fairly bold to step out of the train station since we didn’t have a map, and the tourism office was closed by the time we got there, but adventure is our middle name.

Actually this entire trip I’ve noticed has begun to revolve around the food – how do we find it, how do we get there and when is the next meal? I’ve decided that if I ever had any advice for travelers in foreign lands, it would be, plan lunch and dinner, then plan the rest of your day. Oh, and also figure out where your nearest bathrooms will be.

We walked down a promising pedestrian zone street directly away from the station and found a nice Italian restaurant though, where the waiter was willing to let us stumble along in German. The food was unexceptional, but sitting outside was quite nice with more of a breeze in our faces than we’d had in Bern.

Late night trains

The hardest thing about rail travel though, is that overnighter train trip. Whether you’re a backpacker or you’re going first class, you still have the exhaustion of being out all day sightseeing and marking time until you can reasonably think about moseying back for your train, which in the case of overnight journeys, is often at 11 or 12 midnight. And often you’d rather have fallen prone on a bed at 10.

The hotel train or Euronight costs about the same as a night in a hotel, which I think is why Rick Steves, the travel expert, pushes the couchette system. Couchettes are the reclining easy chairs that you can get cheap reservations for in an open style train car instead of a compartment. You throw your luggage in the overhead rack, secure your moneybelt around you and push back for the night.

In some ways I can see the appeal, because the actual private compartments give you the illusion of being in a room, but it’s a room that’s about nine feet by nine feet, whether it’s for one, or for two or even three people. Everything is cleverly design to fold away, or swing aside, but let’s face it, in a double which is set up like bunk beds, one of the two of you has to have the agility of a monkey to get to that upper bunk, stash away your suitcase and change into PJ’s. And no matter what, only one person can really stand at a time. I couldn’t imagine three people in one compartment.

Still, if we felt a little cramped and uncomfortable (“Are they kidding?” my Dad says on seeing the room, “Is this made for midgets?”) A walk through second class, which is NOT air-conditioned, and always has three bunks to a compartment, quickly makes us grateful for the space we have. I do notice that there are luxury “suites” available in the upper level of our hotel car, which seems to mean you get a desk as well as beds, and it’s a little more roomy, but frankly, as I said, one might as well just take away the illusions – you’re all getting to Vienna at the same time, and everyone is going to need a shower when you get there.

I clamber up into my top bunk though, and feeling slightly nauseous from the swinging of the train and trying to check off my breakfast choices on a card written in German while traveling backwards has made my head explode. Dad and I tuck into bed as soon as possible, and actually sleep quite nicely all the way to Salzburg.

In the morning, we wake up and politely negotiate who will stand up first. Somehow we manage to get dressed and I signal the porter, a nice guy, who has been helpfully telling me about festivals in Vienna – apparently there’s one called Insel on the Donau canal—and he comes in to fold away the beds and pop out the bench and table. Now this I love. The beds just fold up and swing out of the way,and then the compartment seems actually quite luxurious for two.

We had asked him the previous night if we should go to the restaurant car for breakfast, and he gave us the “rabble in the restaurant car” kind of “no.” So we opted to be served – this felt kind of pleasantly silly – and sipped coffee and had our croissants as the countryside went by.

Arriving in Vienna, we had no trouble locating a taxi, and got straight to the hotel to relax and clean up before Eric arrived.

We had gotten in a tad early and the reception desk guy seemed a little non-plussed and told us our room wasn’t quite ready –but then gave us, I think, a nicer suite than we had reserved, for the same price.

The Konig von Ungarn, or King of Hungary, which I’d chosen mainly for its location – “right behind the Stephansdom in the heart of Old Vienna” – but also for price and recommendations, turned out to be, I think the nicest hotel we’d ever stayed in. It was very old world classic, in a building next to where Mozart composed the “Marriage of Figaro.” The rooms we had were a “family” apartment, with one room upstairs and one downstairs, but common bathroom, and entrance area. Both sets of rooms though, had a TV and radio and little sitting room, and we quickly flowed into and spread throughout the place with luggage and carry-ons.

I could have been the King of Hungary as I got into the sparkling shower, then collapsed on the 400 thread-count duvet to wait for Eric to arrive…