Day 37 - Rome, Italy

Today's focus: Art in Rome

We made a morning visit to the church Santa Maria della Vittoria to see Bernini's sculpture The Ecstasy of St. Teresa. Bernini is a Baroque sculptor and architect whose work is all over the city - when in doubt, just guess that it's a Bernini, and you probably have a 75% chance of being right. Then we trekked across the city to the Vatican. Brian was amazed by the size of St. Peter's Square (designed by Bernini and studded with his sculptures).

Thankfully I talked Brian out of getting the audioguide for the Vatican Museums (we had podcasts for the Sistine Chapel and St. Peter's Basilica). We hit all the major works in the museum, including my favorite, The School of Athens by Raphael. Here's a pic of Brian posing like Plato.

Even though it was my third time seeing it, the Sistine Chapel still gave me chills. It was absolutely amazing to just sit in there for an hour, learn about Michelangelo's work, and soak it all in (no pics allowed unfortunately).

St. Peter's Basilica is also awe-inspiring with its huge length of two football fields and dome designed by Michelangelo (it is by far the largest church in the world). Tons of Renaissance and Baroque art decorates the church, including Michelangelo's Pieta and Bernini's Baldacchino. By coincidence we arrived right around 5pm, just in time for daily mass (conducted in Latin and Italian).

We made our way back to Rome by way of the Castel Sant' Angelo, originally a mausoleum for and designed by Hadrian and later used as a papal fort and prison, and then strolled across the Tiber on the Ponte Sant'Angelo (more Bernini statues). For dinner, I had the Roman specialty Bucatini al'Amatriciana - yum!

We finished the day by making a special trip back to the Trevi Fountain for some very special gelato. While we took in views of the fountain, we sampled what is claimed to be the best gelato in Rome (they only serve it in paper cups so as not to contaminate the flavors)!

Day 36 - Rome, Italy

Today's focus: Ancient Rome

We started the day off at the Colosseum. Contrary to everything we already heard about buying Colosseum tickets ahead of time to avoid the long line (or at least buying the combo tickets at the shorter Forum line), we decided to stand in the Colosseum line and wait for tickets. I still don't know why. I think from the outside it looked short, but looks were definitely deceiving. To make matters worse, temperatures were approaching 100 degrees. Not fun. An hour and a half later, we were finally going through security.

The long wait was worth it. I've seen the movie Gladiator, but now I want to see it again (the scenes where they first enter into the arena take on a new meaning). We had another Rick Steve's podcast that toured us around inside. . . his podcasts are much more tolerable than audioguides (we did the same for the Forum and Pantheon later). The Colosseum is a super impressive structure, especially when you take into account it was built in 80AD. You can see the intricate system of rooms and elevators underneath the floor, where prisoners and animals would be lifted up into the arena. Games were to the death, and the packed houses loved watching it. Over 9,000 animals were killed in the inaugural games of the amphitheatre. Gladiators that were good carried rock-star status in Rome.

Following the Colosseum, we ate lunch, then moved next door to the Forum, which was the hub and economic center of ancient Rome. Lots of cool temples and sights in here. Boy was it hot. Kim and I kept looking for shade as we listened to our podcast.

Once we finished, we strolled through Capitoline Hill, by the Victor Emmanuel II Monument, then we cooled off with some tasty gelato!

In the evening we visited the Pantheon. This was another huge engineering feat for its time. Almost 2000 years after it was built, it is still the world's largest unreinforced concrete dome. Originally it was a temple for the Roman gods. Now it is a Catholic Church.

Before dinner, we decided to try pre-dinner Apertivo, which is something many restaurants do in Rome. This is almost equivalent to a Happy Hour (i.e. cheap drinks) except that the restaurant also gives you lots of free finger foods to eat. I'm a big fan. We sat outside in Campo de' Fiori, sipped on some cocktails, and ate lots of finger foods. Food and drinks for both of us totaled only 10 Euros (a bargain for this hip area). . . we were almost full and we still had dinner coming up! We ate a late dinner at another restaurant in the same area, then called it a night.

Additional thoughts/notes:

- Picture this: You are in Rome, Italy enjoying a romantic outdoor dinner for two. A man approaches. He plops a stuffed animal dog dressed in a Christmas outfit on your table. He presses a button, and the dog starts gyrating and singing some random Shania Twain song. What do you do? What can you even say to this? You can't leave your table and you can't just ignore it. Mind you, it is the middle of August (not Christmas time), and in addition, the song is not holiday music. Well, this happened to us tonight. I kept telling the guy we didn't want the dog, but the guy was super persistent. At one point he even tried the Jedi mind trick on me, "You WANT this dog." But I didn't fall for it. The whole time Kim was doing everything she could to keep from laughing. We loved the guy's last ditch effort. He said, "But look at his ears." He gets the dog dancing again and points out that the dog's ears are moving up and down with the music. So to sum up, I previously didn't want the dancing dog dressed in a Christmas outfit singing a Shania song I had never heard of, but the ears almost pushed me over the edge. I wish I could convey in words the absurdity of the whole situation.

Day 35 - Rome, Italy

Getting there

This morning we departed from Amalfi and drove back to Rome. It was another white-knuckle drive. Instead of going back the way we came along the scenic coast road, we went the "direct" way, which happened to be straight over the mountain. For the first 30 minutes, it didn't seem like we were making any progress toward Rome, as we were winding back and forth on the narrow cliff road . . . straight up! We got so high that Kim just closes her eyes. I told her not to worry... they don't call me "nerves of steel" for nothing.

Once we got to Rome, we inevitably got lost. All we had to do was fill up the rental car gas tank and return it. However, we were searching around for the Hertz place so long that the fuel light came on, so filling the tank up became an immediate concern. Finding a gas station should have been an easy task, but as it so happened, this was a holiday and most gas stations were closed. We eventually found a gas station in the middle of nowhere. The attendant couldn't just "fill 'er up". . . he needed me to pre-pay. And, oh by the way, he couldn't give me change if I overpaid (all I had were big bills). I had him put 20 Euros of gas in (only 1/3 tank) knowing we'd have to fill up again at a normal gas station closer to the Hertz. Well . . . once we found the Hertz in town, we couldn't find an open gas station anywhere, so we eventually drove all the way back to this one again! After filling up, the guy owed me 30 Euros in change for the gas I pre-paid, but said I would have to come back later to get it, which would have been a tough task being that we were about to return the rental car. Long story short, I didn't leave without my 30 Euros change!

Once there

Once we got settled in at our hotel, we headed out to see a few sights while it was still light out. Our first stop was the Spanish Steps, then the Trevi Fountain. We actually had a 20 min Rick Steve's podcast about the history of the Trevi Fountain loaded onto our iPod, so we sat there, listened to the podcast, and took in the awesome scenery.

For dinner, we headed to Piazza Navonna, briefly walking past other historic sites along the way, such as the Pantheon. Piazza Navonna is a huge open area of shops/restaurants, with a famous Bernini fountain as its centerpiece (Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi).

At our outdoor table, we were serenaded by a number outdoor performers. We must had heard Sinatra's "My Way" played at least ten times on the accordion (not sure what is so Italian about that song, but I suppose they are just catering to the tourists).

On our way home, we stopped by Campo de' Fiori (Rome's hip bar area), then we called it a night.

Day 34 - Positano, Italy

Today we hopped on a ferry and visited Positano. It had nice beaches, shops, restaurants, etc. The cliff goes almost straight up, so the houses are built almost on top of each other. There is basically only one main road, so to get anywhere you have to walk up and down stairs (Kim and I are used to stairs by now). It is more of a tourist destination than the other Amalfi cities, and we definitely noticed it. But the town itself is picturesque, especially when viewed while coming in on the ferry.

Additional thoughts/notes:
- (Kim) After two years of high school Spanish, Brian believes he can speak Italian. He simply says the word or phrase in Spanish, and sometimes throws in an extra vowel or two, and there you go - perfect Italian. Or so he thinks. Most Italians laugh at him, but they usually get the jist of what he's trying to say. He's pretty entertaining to watch in action.
- (Brian rebuttal) Actually, many Italian words/phases are the same or similar as Spanish. For instance, "How are you?" is "Como estas" in spanish, but "Come sta?" in Italian (pronounced comay-stah). If you say it fast and in spanish, no one can tell the difference. There are plenty of other examples. Case in point: I saved our butts when we were trying to find a restroom. We kept asking for "restroom" and "bathroom", but the lady did not understand. Finally, I whipped out the spanish word for bathroom, bano (pronounced ban-yo), which coincidentally is also the Italian pronounciation for bathroom (bagno). To our delight, the lady instantly understood and directed us accordingly.

Day 33 - Ravello, Italy

We started off the day with a mid-morning gelato in Amalfi. Kim’s philosophy is, and I quote, “No time is the wrong time for gelato.” We then visited the neighboring town of Ravello. Ravello is perched high in the cliffs above Amalfi (waaay up there). Needless to say, we elected to take the bus to spare our nerves the drive.

Ravello was absolutely beautiful and had awesome views! I can’t describe it. And unfortunately, we forgot the camera battery today so we didn't get to take any pics!! Bummer. In any case, here's a stock photo we snatched off the web showing the view:

This charming town has a large faction of musicians and hosts a large music festival every summer (the orchestra plays on the edge of the cliffs . . . unfortunately, there was no show today).

When we got back, we decided to cool off at the Amalfi beach. Great decision.

Additional thoughts/notes:
- I think I can capture the typical male Italian attire with the following description: White walking shoes (no socks), bathing suit shorts, unbuttoned polo shirt (extra credit if you pop the collar), and over-sized sunglasses. Solid.
- The maid services at Italian hotels go above and beyond making the bed and cleaning the bathroom. They put your belongings in the “right” places and fold your pile of clothes, like Mom would. Whenever we came back in the afternoon, it was like a scavenger hunt to find which drawers were housing our belongings. In a way, I like it, but in another way, I now feel guilty about wadding up a shirt and tossing it on the floor.

Day 32 - Amalfi, Italy

The following is a ranking of the top 3 most nerve-racking roads I have ever driven on:

#3 -The Road To Hana (Maui): Drove this windy cliff-ridden road on our honeymoon in a convertible. However, the Road To Hana is like a relaxing Sunday drive compared to the following two entries in the rankings.

#2 - The Pacific Coast Highway (California): Hwy 1 is another windy road perched on cliffs overlooking the ocean, which isn’t bad in and of itself. However, I drove it in a 30 foot long RV. This multiplied the intensity factor by 10. Still, this doesn’t hold a candle to the top entry on the list.

#1 - The Amalfi Coast (Italy): Take the Pacific Coast Highway, narrow it, multiply the curves by 10, make the cliffs higher, remove guard rails, add scooters zipping all around, and you have the Amalfi Coast. In addition, now I am driving a stick, which is not my normal comfort zone.

Today, we departed Sorrento and headed to Amalfi. It was about an hour and a half drive, but very nerve racking (as mentioned above). There were lanes for some of it, but for the rest, you might have had inches to pass cars coming the other way, so you had to pass with caution, or just wait patiently at a wider section of road. It was funny… just when we though we had seen the worst curves and hairpin turns of our life, we saw a sign that said “Caution: windy roads next 3 km,” as if the previous 20 km weren’t windy! There was one point when a bus was coming up the hill toward me, and we realized there wasn’t enough room to pass each other. We both sat there for a few seconds in a virtual stalemate, but I knew I was the loser in this face-off. With a line of cars behind me, I then attempted to reverse my car uphill in my manual, stalling out a few times and barely avoiding some parked cars. I believe Kim may have even yelled out a few expletives in the process, which helped to further calm my nerves. She also thinks I scraped the car against the cliff wall, but the car was pretty dinged up when we got it, and I’m pretty sure those were existing scratches.

The good news is we made it to the hotel safely. The lady at the hotel had me parallel park the car on a steep uphill cliff road. There’s nothing more fun than parking a manual on a steep curvy road. Kim and the lady watched as I stalled out and struggled to park the car for about 5 mins (the lady kept saying I wasn’t close enough to the wall). After I finally parked it correctly, she then told me I couldn’t park there! I thought she was kidding at first. Needless to say, I was not a happy camper.

Once I was parked, the lady escorted us down 300 steps to our hotel (yes, 300 steps). The hotel was nice at least, and had a great view of Amalfi below.

We cooled off in the pool, then headed down to Amalfi for the evening. Our 2 options for getting down to Amalfi: Walk back up the 300 steps and wait for the bus OR walk down 700 steps to the town! Well, this is a no-brainer. Walking down is better than walking up and waiting. And to get back, we take the bus back to the top and walk down the 300 steps. So it is 1000 down-steps round trip, but at least we avoid having to walk up any steps.

Amalfi has a vibrant atmosphere, and though there were lots of tourists, the town was still very Italian. We had a pleasant dinner in the square where we could people-watch, then followed up our meal with some gelato.

Additional notes:

- Kim: There are lizards everywhere in Southern Italy, scurrying about and scaring me all the time. I am haunted by a story my parents told me from when they went to Italy - they ended up with a lizard in their bathroom and the hotel sent a guy with a broom and a dust pan to "take care of it." Now, everytime we go to open the door to our room, I make Brian wait while I check for nearby lizards, then I give the word and we run into the room. No joke.

Day 31 - Capri, Italy

After a 30 min ferry ride, we landed on the Island of Capri (emphasis on the 1st syllable). Once on Capri, we decided to visit the Blue Grotto, which is a cave where the water is an unbelievable electric blue color. To get to the Blue Grotto, we took another boat. Once we were outside the cave, we had to hop in yet a 3rd (smaller) boat to fit inside the cave.

After this, we sailed around the entire island to see the “craggy” cliffs and beautiful sites. For the remainder of the day, we hung out up in Capri Town, which is a short funicular ride from the harbor. Capri Town is pretty posh and is home to numerous upscale designer shops. We had our best meal yet in Italy at Ristorante di Gemma – Ravioli alla Caprese (delicious!). We followed this up with tasty pastries in town.

Day 30 - Sorrento/Pompei, Italy

Today we ventured up to Pompei (via train). Mount Vesuvius "destroyed" this once thriving city of 25,000 in 79 AD. The residents were not killed by lava flow as I had once thought, but instead, were suffocated and buried in 25 feet of volcanic ash. In addition, the city was not actually destroyed. The volcanic ash acted as a preservative which allows us to see life as it was the day before the eruption. Most of the destruction seen today is from past excavations and looting.

The city consists of 66 acres, and you can walk through the old homes, markets, forum, theatres, brothels, etc. Thankfully Kim convinced me to pass on the 6 hour audio tour, and instead we got a tour guide who showed us the highlights in 2 hours.


The most popular attraction in Pompei seemed to be the brothels, as the lines to get in were over 20 mins. Inside, there were frescoes on the wall depicting a “menu” of various positions one could choose from. We snapped some photos of the “menu”, but they might be too explicit to post on our PG-13 blog.

This evening, we walked around Sorrento. For dinner, we ate our first authentic Italian pizza. Kim was the happiest camper I’ve seen in a while (look at that big smile).

Day 29 - Sorrento, Italy

Today we flew to Rome, picked up our rental car and drove to Sorrento (4 hours south of Rome). The rental car is a manual, which means only Brian can drive. The process went fairly smoothly, and we found the hotel with only one wrong turn. The hotel is situated high up on the cliff, which gave us a great view of Sorrento and across the bay to Naples and Mount Vesuvius.

This is the first hotel that had laundry machines for us to use, so we finally got a break from washing our clothes in sinks. After all of our clothes were clean and folded, Brian called it, “Our New Beginning”.

Days 26, 27, and 28 - Prague, Czech Republic

Prague is definitely a great city to visit (could be my favorite so far). The architecture is beautiful, the city is not too large, but not too small either, and it definitely has a lively spirit.

Some of the sites we visited in Prague were Old Town, Prague Castle, the Astronomical Clock, Josefov (the Jewish Quarter), Wenceslas Square, Wallenstein Gardens, the Municipal House, Powder Tower, Franz Kafka's birthplace and house, and the Charles Bridge.

We spent most of our first day at Prague Castle, and we also paid for an audio guide. The audio guide was probably better than normal free audio guides, however, it once again sucked every ounce of energy from us by the end. Kim has since banned us from doing audio guides (to my chagrin).

We ended up seeing a concert our second evening, that included works from Vivaldi, Bach, Dvorak, Mozart, and Smetana. The harpist played a pretty phenomenal solo version of Smetana's "My Country."

Just like Vienna is known for its coffeehouses, Prague is known for its pubs. When we needed a break from sightseeing, we would find the closest pub to grab a cheap local brew. Some pubs had just one or two beers on tap, so in most cases we just needed to sit down and say “2 beers.” The server brings the beers over from the bar overflowing out of the mug, lays a piece of paper on the table, and marks 2 dashes to keep a beer tally. Whenever they notice your beer is getting low, sometimes they just bring out another (they assume you want another), so if you are done, you better tell them so.

On our last evening, Kim organized a “pub crawl” for us. Among some of the pubs we visited was The Golden Tiger, where Vaclav Havel took Bill Clinton in 1994 (below is a picture of some friendly/boisterous Czechs and Romanians we hung out with at that pub).

Check out this 360 degree panoramic Kim took in Old Town (click to make larger):

Days 24 and 25 - Dubrovnik, Croatia

For the remainder of our stay in Dubrovnik, we basically just enjoyed Old Town. We sat at outdoor cafes, took in some of the shopping and views, ate ice cream, and drank cheap Croatian beer. We also toured some museums (saw the 3rd oldest pharmacy in Europe in the Dominican Monastery) and did a walk on top of the city walls, which is a must if you come to Dubrovnik. The stay was a completely relaxing and awesome time.

Here are some pictures we took during our walk on top of the city walls:

Click on the panoramic photo below to make larger:

Here is the view from our balacony:

Here is a video of one of the cliff-side cafes, hidden on the outside of the city walls:

Cliff-side cafe - Dubrovnik, Croatia from Brian Burns on Vimeo.

Day 23 - Dubrovnik, Croatia

Today we got up early and went sea kayaking around the island of Lopud in the Adriatic. The kayaking was supposed to be for beginners. However, the first question one of the Norwegians in our group asked us was, “So, how many years have you been kayaking?” We immediately knew we were in trouble. We’ll call this Norwegian Bjorn Borg, since we later found out he wears Bjorn Borg boxer shorts (we know this because he changed his kayaking gear multiple times throughout the journey). He’s also a fisherman in the shrimpin’ business, kind of like Forest Gump (as he put it). Bjorn informed us that he kayaks 3 to 4 times a week. This intel solidified our decision to do a two-person kayak (the thinking was that maybe two of us could keep up with one of him… though there was a huge flaw in this logic, as we found out later).

At first, Kim and I had some trouble steering the kayak. After some time, our guide noticed the rutter wasn’t working, so he just took it out of the water for us. We’ll call our guide “Chief Sungazer”. He stares directly at the sun for nourishment. His plan is to eventually be able to stare at the sun long enough so that he will never have to eat again. Sound crazy? Well apparently this is a big diet movement (go ahead and google “sungazing”). Nevermind that the science behind it makes absolutely no sense.

The first half of our journey around the island from then on was better, but we still had some minor steering problems. The weather was nice and the water was calm. Meanwhile, Bjorn was kayaking circles around us (literally). Bjorn also went back to tow his dad’s kayak a few times. Unsurprisingly, Bjorn towing a second kayak holding his dad was faster than our combined paddling efforts in one kayak.

We stopped halfway around the island for lunch. Bjorn was itching to teach us kayaking safety rules, and I was having fun with it (he was so hard core). I would casually say something like, “So… how do I get back into a single person kayak if I capsize?” He would be so eager to show us that he would immediately throw his kayak into the water from the beach, swim out, and demonstrate. As humorous as it was, I was actually appreciative because Chief Sungazer gave us absolutely no safety tips.


After lunch, the wind had picked up and the water was much rougher. Kim and I were all of a sudden having major problems steering. Chief Sungazer, seeing that we were not making much progress and were getting frustrated, offered to switch spots with me (I would take his kayak, he would hop in with Kim). I took him up on the offer. Things were great for a while. We were up against a head wind the entire back side of the island. Every time I’d look over at Kim’s boat, Chief Sungazer was doing most of the paddling and Kim was all smiles again.

Things went downhill quickly when we turned the corner for the last stretch home. We suddenly faced gale-force winds and huge waves, and for the first time I started feeling slightly fearful (for my life). As we continued forward, the waves grew more intense, and all of a sudden all of the safety rules Bjorn had taught us started cycling through my head. I was quite sure that if a big enough wave broke over my kayak, I would definitely flip and be a goner. I was so thankful Kim was with the Chief Sungazer at this point. I had no doubt they would make it in safely (besides, Bjorn had informed us earlier that two person kayaks rarely flip). So, for the next 45 minutes I did everything I could and used all my energy to make it into a beach (any beach) without my boat turning over. The waves pushed me to a neighboring beach, but I was thankful to make it in safely.

When I looked back out at the ocean, I couldn’t see Kim’s kayak. A little later, Bjorn made it into shore and told me that Chief Sungazer and Kim were just spinning in circles somewhere out there. Apparently Bjorn had offered to tow their kayak, but Chief Sungazer refused to be towed. Great. When we saw their kayak in the distance, we could see they were still struggling. Bjorn said his arms were dead, but he would go back out and rescue them. I was very appreciative, as there was nothing I could do but watch. I also knew Kim had to be dead tired (Kim – tired is not the appropriate word. I had blisters on my hands, bruises on my arms, and could barely lift my left arm at all). The waves ended up pushing them in close enough before Bjorn got out there, so no towing was needed. We noticed that Kim and Chief Sungazer were paddling the kayak in reverse the whole way. This was apparently the only way they could get the kayak to go straight.

Chief Sungazer later said to me, “Yeah, now I know what you guys were going through. That kayak had a steering problem.” He also informed us he had never been in a two person kayak. Excellent. As we left he was preparing for a 20 minute sungazing session. We chose to skip that. By the time we got back to Old Town from the ferry and bus, it was 9pm. We ate a hearty pizza dinner at Mea Culpa, took some Advil, and then went straight to bed to rest our achy muscles.

Day 22 - Dubrovnik, Croatia

So we woke up at 4:30am and caught a 30 min cab ride to the airport (public transit wasn’t fully running at 5am). We arrived at the airport to find our flight was delayed until 10 (and later was delayed even longer). We are now 2 for 2 with Sky Europe in long flight delays. What should have been a full day in Dubrovnik with a 9am arrival turned out to be a partial day with the mid-afternoon arrival.

All of the pictures you see of Dubrovnik are of Old Town. It is a small city surrounded by huge fortified walls on the coast (like a huge castle). The city is entirely pedestrian, and to enter the city, you must walk through one of two castle drawbridges. The city got shelled heavily in 1991 and 1992 by Serbian war ships and artillery, however the city has rebuilt itself and gone through an astonishing resurgence.

We chose to stay up on the hill just outside of Old Town so we could have a view of the city and Adriatic Sea below. It was a 3 bedroom house owned by an old man named Josep. The only downside – 250+ steps to climb to get to our place! We both thought we were going to faint while climbing all of those steps with our luggage in the heat. Once we got there, Josep greeted us with welcome beers in our fridge (however, all we wanted at that point was water!). The view was sweet . . . seeing the city below from our balcony was quite the site (we'll post pics from the balcony in a later blog post).

We were quite tired from our early morning wake-up and the climb, so we briefly toured the town, snapped some pictures, and sat down for a seafood dinner outside in the square before heading to bed.

This is Placa, Dubrovnik's main street for processions and festivals, as well as for shopping and strolling:

Day 21 - Vienna, Austria

Today it rained in Vienna. Thankfully we had seen all the outdoor sights we had wanted to already. We started off the day with a melange and snack at Cafe Central. This cafe is famous for being the place where Trotsky played chess.

Afterward, we went to the Albertina, an art museum, to see their Modern Masterpieces Exhibit. We saw paintings from Monet to Picasso, and they also had some restored Imperial Apartments on display (where visiting royalty stayed when in Vienna during the Hapsburg Empire). We were thankfully pleased that there was no free audio tour.

For some quick nourishment, we stopped at a Wurstelstand and then bummed around in various shops waiting for the rain to stop. We had our second melange at Cafe Griendenstil and then took the tram to the suburbs for some authentic Wiener Schnitzel. Contray to popular belief (and Brian's), Wiener Schnitzel is not a hot dog, but rather a veal or pork cutlet that is breaded and fried.

Accompanied by some local beers, it was just the thing to fill our bellys on this rainy day. After, we headed back to the hotel to turn in for our early flight the next morning to Dubrovnik.

Day 20 - Vienna, Austria

I will start off with a side rant -

Museums with free audio tours: I'm no longer a fan. Keyword “free.” It seems that when a museum gives you a free audio tour, it does so because the museum wouldn’t be worth visiting without the explanation. In my opinion, you’re damned if you take the audio tour and you’re damned if you don’t. If you don’t do the audio tour, you may as well skip visiting the museum altogether. On the flip side, if you do the free audio tour, you are sentenced to the prolonged torture of listening to filler narrative that drags on much longer than it should (it is something that you could listen to on your couch at home . . . you don’t need to be at the museum). Standing in one place for minutes at a time staring at some old relic you don't care about just sucks the life out of you.

We started today off by visiting Schonbrunn Palace, which was just a few minutes walk from our hotel. About 20 minutes from the city center, Schonbrunn Palace was the summer residence for the Habsburgs. The palace and surrounding parks/gardens are pretty amazing - they rival Versailles in size and opulence. We enjoyed the early part of the day roaming the grounds and visiting the Gloriette behind gardens (you can see the Gloriette in the background of the 2nd picture below).

Next, we visited the Nachsmarkt, which is a large outdoor market (not quite bazaar size, but large nonetheless) with fresh food, clothes, and other goods for sale. We ate lunch at one of the small restaurants here, Mr. Falafel.

Following this, we decided to hit up the Haus Der Musik (the “House of Music” museum). The concept of the museum was pretty cool, with 4 floors of music/sound topics ranging from the Viennese composers to conducting your own virtual symphony (it was tough) to learning about sound and measuring your hearing threshold. There were also a few strange rooms, including one where you hear what it sounds like to be a fetus in the amniotic sac. Overall, I think the museum would be more fun as a kid to visit, but still interesting for us. By the way, the whole 3rd floor was a free 45 minute audio tour about the composers that dragged on and on (see rant above).

Since we had already bought a combo ticket, we headed to the Mozarthaus after this, which was the house Mozart lived in for 10 years in Vienna until his death (his most productive years). We were pretty beat from the Haus Der Musik (mainly due to the audio tour floor), so we took a quick break for some ice cream and Fantas to rejuvenate ourselves. I was really hoping/praying the Mozarthaus was not an audio tour. Well wouldn’t you know it, the whole thing turned out to be a free audio tour (uggghh)! The audio tour was like listening to a documentary with hardly any visuals, except for some portraits and manuscripts on the wall. Just give me a DVD next time (haha). At least we can now say we visited Mozart’s house.

The sad part is, as much as I hate the free audio tours, I will probably continue to do them. I'm badly afflicted with a common condition known as "FOMO" (fear of missing out).

In the evening, we went to the Music Film Festival over at the Rathaus (court house). They have a huge screen where they show different operas/concerts every night. Thousands come to hang out, eat dinner (lots of outdoor food/alcohol vendors), and socialize. It’s basically a big party. Tonight they were showing Carmen. We had seen it before, but fun to see again without the subtitles.

Additional notes/thoughts:
- In Vienna, many people have dogs, and in some cases it seems that dogs have more rights than humans (ex. there are certain green areas in the city where people aren’t allowed to walk on, but dogs are). Today was a first for me. I witnessed a bulldog riding an escalator. He got on the crowded down-escalator right in front of us like he owned the thing (equipped with leash, muzzle, and owner of course). For some reason it struck us as very humorous.