CENTRAL EUROPE 2011
Day
15
September 16
-Thursday
Budapest to Vienna
We
took a taxi from our apartment in Budapest to the train station. We had a
great train ride in a much better train than we have been riding - it was an
Austrian train. We had a porter help us on the train with our luggage.
My suitcase is getting heavier by the day as I keep buying books on the various
churches.
See map - from Budapest (E) to Vienna (F)
We
arrived about 2:15 P.M. in Vienna. Since
it had been about a week since we had used euros, we first went to the ATM, and
then found a restaurant in the station for lunch. We got a taxi – he
didn’t overcharge us - to our apartment.
Our
apartment is huge and beautifully
decorated. My wife’s comment- “the décor is kinda like visiting your
grandmother’s house. Some stuff is odd a
nd some stuff doesn’t work-but
it’s charming”. We had a large living room, dining room and kitchen, a
separate sitting room or second bedroom and a master bedroom.
After
we got settled, we walked about five blocks to the Volksopera, and picked up our
tickets that we had purchased online for the operetta tonight. On the way
back from the theater, we stopped at a nice grocery about a block from our
apartment and got breakfast food stuff and a frozen dinner for tonight since we
were rushed for a 7:00 performance.
We
walked back to the Volksopera. The
Volksopera is located outside the “ring” and the prices are a little less
than the main opera house; however, from the posters and other information they
have wonderful performances. We
saw Wiener Blut which is a comic operetta with music by Strauss. The next
night was Hello Dolly in German. The
Wiener Blut was one of the 
best performances I have ever seen. There
were English subtitles above the stage for the words of the music, and a few
sentence when the actors were talking. They spoke in German, and we could tell
what the scenes were about. The audience laughed a lot, and we could tell
by the inflection of the words and the movement that it was funny, so we could
laugh along. The music and singing were excellent
- all Strauss music. The scenery was spectacular especially an outdoor
park scene at night with huge ostriches. There was a lot of waltzing and
other special dances. We were on row 13. I could have seen it
again. We walked back to the apartment, stopping for ice cream (gelato) on
the way.
