Exhibition of Lower Austria 2011

Since I am quite grounded this weekend - Pharingythis; with pain killers I am okay, but without it is not so nice; still today it is Stefan walking the kiddos and not me, I am mean!! - I thought I might recommend something to you.

We visited the NÖ Landesausstellung/the Exhibition of Lower Austria 2011 in late Summer a couple weeks ago and it was definately fabulous. I thought, why not make a little advertisment for this fine exhibition in Lower Austria? So, if you are in the area, I recommend it as a must-see.

http://www.noe-landesausstellung.at/noel-en Here you will get the exact details. The Landesausstellung is a combination of two places, the archeological park Carnunthum and the Hainburg culture factory. Please check the HP for details!

Carnuntum, in the 6th century a.d., was a military camp and later the capital of the Latin province Pannonia. It turned out to be a huge ancient setting, Roman Emperors lived there, and of course it was a great place to defend the Roman Empire against the German tribes. The Danube was the borderline between the Roman Empire and the German area that was never overrun by the Romans.

The archeological park of Carnuntum is the place where you see lots of excavations if you are interested and where you actually find the Roman times come to live. You see zillions of age-old excavations, walls and streets, if you want to - Carnuntum was huge, 50.000 people where living here at its heyday, so there is plenty to dig out and plenty to explore. http://www.carnuntum.co.at/

But the great thing they did here: They re-built some houses as they were. So for example the spa area, the house of a rich person and the house of a middle-class person. You see the house, the furniture, the murals AS THEY WERE - and the best thing: They only built what they had scientifical proof for. So if you want to experience how the Romans felt right there at Carnuntum 2000 years ago - that is the place.

First you get the see a 3D-map of the whole area 500 years a.d. It shows you the real dimensions of the place, it was enormous! And afterwards, after a little walk down into the park, you see the buildings they rearranged.

The first place our tour visited was the spa area. From my point of view a very political place - for the price of an entry was "an egg - or the equivalent". People went there every day, to keep clean and to keep warm, and of course when people are warm and comfortable, there is no need to revolt against the Empire.

This was the entry to the spa area. What I liked best: They only used the same colours people used back then.

This was the entrance hall to the spa area. In the olden days people met here to talk and warm up and discuss. And then they went from the cold to the warm to the hot tubs.

If you are interested in Roman daily life you should read "SPQR" and its sequels by John Maddox Roberts, he was one of the first to write ancient crime stories. Well, you know that I am not the least interested in crime stories, I just don´t care, who did it - but John Maddox Roberts also tells a lot about Roman daily life, and it is really funny, e.g., when he tells about the Romans trying to be brave and sitting in cold water "as if it was the normal thing to do" and then escaping into the hot tub.... Do not bother reading any other ancient crime stories, Roberts is the best!

 Incredible, the Romans had floor heating at that time too...

I especially recommend the folders you get at the entry point. They explain a lot about the area and the buildings.

Now we switch to the triclinium of the rich person ."Triclinium" comes from "tricline" which was the kind of sofa people bedded themselves on before a great meal. This room is perfect - even though there are no triclinii, as you can rent the place for meals, and which is why they put recent tables and chairs there. Again: There are frames at the walls with no pictures inside, the reason being that scientists don´t know which pictures have been inside, and how they made the colours.

Now this is the kitchen of one of the middle-class people. The slaves, who basically where used like we use kitchen tools nowadays, slept whereever they found some space. Oh gee, I love my bed-room....

The place definately looked quite modern. But especially now when Winter comes, I am really happy to live my modern life with warm water coming out from the tub...

If you feel hungry, there is a cantina there, but it is zillions of people, and the quality might not be just as you like it. So I recommend to go to Carnuntum after some nice breakfast and then find yourself some nice place for some early dinner.

Afterwards we went to the exhibition in Hainburg. You see a lot of exhibits there, but Carnuntum is the even better place to go.

We felt hungry afterwards, so we were lucky to discover the http://www.donaucafe.at/. You get lovely burgers there, and of course lots of other things too, and you have a stunning few on the Danube.

It was a perfect day, and I just can recommend it to any of you. Now back to bed and one of my favourite books "Jane Eyre". We have to read it for the next unit of "Colonial and post-colonial literature" - if I just knew why....

Birthday weekend, part 2

The birthday festival continued of course - and what is better than an afternoon downtown when one feels adventurous? So we hopped into the car, and just a short while later we were at the very Viennese heart, which is the Stefansplatz and the "Steffl".

St. Stephens Cathedral is the landmark of Vienna. Zillions of tourists visit "him" (in Austrian thinking "he" is male) every year, and also Austrian people like to come here and enjoy the special flair around our most important dome. Most of the time you find scuffolding on one end or the other - seems, when they restaurated one end the other one is falling apart again - but still we all love our good old Steffl. Its main bell, the "Pummering", welcomes New Years every year on the Austrian television. No other bell would do, that´s for sure!

On this beautiful warm day the main door (the Riesentor) of St. Stephens was wide open and the sun streamed into our favorite dome. Reminder: Need to take a guided tour there - it has been too long.

We were terribly hungry, so we could not stay at the Steffl too long. A quick walk brought us to the first culinary stop of the day. "Le Loft" at the new Sofitel Vienna Stefansdom.  Le Loft is the bar/restaurant at the top level of this ****-Hotel, dinner is very expensive there, so I suggest you go there for drink and starter and enjoy this very cool bar and its wonderful view over the rooftops of Vienna. Stefan took me there as a birthday surprise, I had never been there before, and it was brilliant! The food is excellent too - we had a squid salad (him) and a Cesar salad (me), best Cesar salad I ever had.

http://www.sofitel.com/de/hotel-6599-sofitel-vienna-stephansdom/index.shtml

The waiters are extremely nice too. Ours did not mind to take photos from us even though lots of people ask him to do that ever day, and he was very busy pointing out the famous sights one can see from the bar to us (it was really nice and a little bit funny too as he was from Germany and obviously new the skyline better then I did. *gg* Wienerberg City?? What the heck is that??)

Afterwards, with a first light filling in our bellies, we continued back to the citycenter. Our next culinary highlight was our favorite restaurant "Danieli" in the Himmelpfortgasse, close to the Steffl.

http://www.danieli.at/ Basically it is an Italian restaurant - yes, they do serve pizza - that is also a trattoria, oisteria... and it serves the best Italian food (besides pizza) that you can get outside of Italy. If you like meditarranian cuisine and seafood - that is the place to go!

We started with the Mixed starter platter for two, as always, I must confess, and then continued with the Spaghetti with lobster, which was delicious. I don´t eat a lot of meat (only from happy cows and pigs), but sorry, lobster, I love you when you are cooked!

This is one of the rooms in the restaurant, usually it is packed, so to pre-book a table is an absolute must. But it was a lovely warm and sunny Fall afternoon and people were preferred to spend time outside obviously, so for the Danieli this was quite empty. Lucky me!

And then back into the hussle und bussle of the the Kärntnerstraße. Everybody seemed to be outside, enjoying the mild temperatures and the posh shopping miles of Vienna. In the first district you find the most expensive stores, from Adelmüller to Fendi and Dolce&Gabbana, the hotels Sacher, Imperal and all the other luxurious houses are there. But recently the reasonable brands, like Peek & Cloppenburg also start to trickle into the historic centre. I am sure not everybody likes that!

This for example is the new Peek & Cloppenburg flagstore, right at Kärnter Straße. There is a big discussion going on right now if architecture like this fits into a historic city center, and even though the place was packed I have seen more people checking on the facade than on the clothes. But you have to see for yourself if you like it or not.

This, being a bag addict and all, is my favorite shop of course. The only problem is that sometimes it is hard to see any bags because there are hords of Japanese entering the place as probably they feel that they can make a bargain here compaired to Japanese prices. It spoils the fun a bit, when you want to indulge yourself in some luxury shopping and instead are wading in flocks (swarms?) of screaming Japanese women. Oh, and the rich Russians with their bodyguards of course.... *sigh* Envious? Naw.... Right now Louis Vuitton is building a new, four-floor flagstore in the 1st district of Vienna - business must be good!

It is always nice to stroll around the 1st district after some nice dinner. The small lanes are really charming, you just have to get a few steps away from Kärnterstraße, and walking is no problem anymore. Here you see the view on Michaelerkirche, when you are walking up from behind.

And this of course is the back entrance of the Hofburg, the place where the Austrian President has his office. But I guess most people do not come to see him. They rather seek the flair of the Habsburg monarchy - the Kaiserappartments, the Sisi museum and the Treasury for example are situated right here. But the area is huge - you better get a map before you start looking for any of these places!

What a strange address. Imagine living in the Habsburger Gasse.....

Here you see people going to work..... Just kidding, none of us does that anymore, whatever the tourist industry wants to make you believe, honestly. The Fiaker (like jodeling) are a strictly touristic thing - nothing would ever get me inside one. But I love watching the horses and pretending it is 200 years in the Past..... I know, nothing was better then, but we can pretend, can´t we?

Past the famous Pestsäule we slowly made our way back to the car, which we had parked in a garage. Parking is sheer horror in downtown Vienna, so just forget about wanting to find available parking space in the streets - simply surrender and park in a garage. And a few words to the Pestsäule: This one is not the only one in Austria, but it is the first. Erected by the Habsburgs after the Black Plague had left Vienna for good. Many of the Pestsäulen are dedicated to the Holy Mary, because in Catholic believe she is the one speaking for the people in times of need. (Don´t think I knew this before - I had to look it up myself.)

It had been a great day, and now it was time to get back into our green and golden Autumn paradise. I like to get into the city now and then, but it is always so wonderful to get back home. Home is where your heart is, right? Exactly.

And of course we had been expected...

Well, my dears, it was a phantastic birthday weekend! Thank you so much for your good wishes, for thinking of me on my special day and for sharing the memories here on my blog. Birthdays are wonderful if you can spend them like this - I am sure hoping for many more birthdays to come! And all of you out there - stay safe and warm and happy. Take care and see you soon!