6/1 Saturday
AH! It’s a beautiful spring day!
We’re going to walk to the Danube. It’s a trek through the city streets, along
the Danube canal, where there’s some impressively artistic graffiti on the
walls, then to the island park along the famous river, which is flowing pretty
greenish brown today. The boardwalk park is obviously a major nightspot, with
party clubs advertising sex-on-the-beach and mojitos everywhere. At this hour,
nothing’s hopping, but it’s pleasant to find a little café for a latte while we
watch the water.
At the next metro stop, there’s the
Austria Center Vienna, a huge business park with dramatic skyscraper office
buildings. There’s a “Space Needle” tower to visit, but it looks like it could
be closed today, so we don’t walk over to it. It’s quiet on Saturday, but
people are enjoying the plaza for biking and skateboarding.
We take the metro back to another
park area, and find ourselves in a gigantic amusement park, free admission,
with acres of crazy rides, bumper cars, live pony rides, funhouses, spinning
whirly rides, carnival games, roller coasters, Wilde Maus rides, huge
death-defying swirling vertical snake rides, awesome stuff. AND there’s a
traditional biergarten in the middle of it all. The beer taps are open like a
firehose while the bartenders shove big mugs into the stream one after another.
The specialty of the house is a roasted ham on the bone, and everywhere we look
there are people sitting at the long tables chomping into their hams. We can
hear the crispy skins crackling as the knives cut into the big knobs of meat.
Ham for two? Why certainly, sir. We, of course, sit and have a mug of beer and
sit to marvel at the goings-on around us.
Back on the metro, into the city.
The Rathous is hosting a Blasmusikfest, which turns out to be about three
hundred traditionally-garbed brass horn players lined up on the Rathous steps
blaring away. Tubas and French horns and all kinds of other horns playing to
the plaza full of people, and to all the people in the surrounding parks. Of
course, there’s more beer to be had. Then, it’s just nice to sit on the park
bench with everyone else drinking their beers and eating their wursts. After a
while we head to a café to work on our notes and video. George Michael playing
in the background, Guilty feet have got no rhythm...
Back in our neighborhood, we look
for the little Italian spot we had on our first night here, but instead we’re
drawn into a small Balkan grill, maybe we can get a lamb doner. There’s a nice
young Serbian guy working, and he tell us there’s no lamb left, but he has
pork, so we ask for some for two, not too much, we say. I grab a couple of Lav
beers (Serbian) from the cooler & we sit at one of the three little tables,
dislocating one of the locals who makes this his home, apparently. Our guy brings
us an enormous plate of roast pork, with ribs and bones and skins included,
then a bowl of red peppers and cucumbers, and some puffy, twisty rolls of
bread. So we’re all set. Dinner is pretty delicious, in the way
we-shouldn’t-be-eating-this food always is. We top it off with a piece of cake
that’s full of whipped cream. Oh, yeah, we’re both gonna die. Happy.
2 Videos Included
June 1st, Vienna Danube Part 1
June 1st, Vienna Danube Part 2
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