Travelog for: Jade

This weekend I have been to Rotterdam to get used to traveling. A trip in my homecountry. I stayed in a hotelroom with typical walls. I have seen the feetprints of Gloria Estefan the idol of my mum. The well known Erasmus Bridge was very beautiful. And if you near the Erasmus bridge you have to visit Hotel New York for a nice dinner. But after a nice weekend it was time to go home

I am in Dieren and in english you will translate the village as animals. Wow and I met some friends at Claudia & Robins place. They have three cats and I made two friends and I have a boyfriend! Look at this handsome red one. It's a pitty I have to leave I would love to stay forever with this handsome guy.

I finally arrived in Vienna, Austria now. I had a warm welcome from my host family: Mum, Dad and 3 little boys. I guess I'll have a funny time here

I also got to knowmy toyvoyager mates which are staying here for a while, too. There is Frankie, a little giraffe who comes from the netherlands, too, then there is Decker, the friendly little lion from the UK and Cassiopeia, a very colourful turtle from Germany - so I'm really in good company

Helloween isn't celebrated so much in Austria I was told. A few years ago nobody cared about it at all but during the last years it became a bit more popular. But my hosts made some nice decorations and a pumpkin lantern and we even had a little party here because Leonhard had his 6th birthday and celebrated it together with his friends on Oct. 31st.

I've only been to Austria for a couple of days but I already saw sooo much of Vienna.

On Wednesday there was All Saint's holiday and since we didn't go to the cemetary our host decided to have a walk through the city center instead.

We started at Hofburg, the castle where the Habsburg family used to live as long as they were on power. Can you also see the carriages with the horses? In former times people really used them for transportation I was told - nowadays they are only there as a tourist attraction. Oh, what beautiful gates Hofburg has, don't you think so? I especially like "Michaelertor" with the golden cupola, but "Heldentor" is nice, too. I tried to translate what there was written in Latin... But, you know... I never was so good in Latin....

Then we continued our walk to the very center of Vienna where we saw St. Stephen's Cathedral. I was amazed to see a very modern building just next to it and my host told me that there were many discussions about it before it was built. But I must admit it is beautiful and it's nice to see the dome like in a mirror there. And myself, too

When we walked down Kärntner Straße, the most popular (and expensive) shopping street in Vienna, we met this funny guy making various creatures from balloons. Have a look! I would have liked one, but my host said, I'm funny enough myself, so it wouldn't be necessary to buy one...

We passed by the opera house and reached another church then, Karlskirche. It is very special with the 2 little "towers" next to it telling a story from the bible on the relief. Just next to the church there was a beautiful subway station in "Jugendstil" (which was very popular in Vienna, there are many buildings in this style). Beautiful, hm? Another building in "Jugendstil" we found when we just walked a little longer: Secession. It's a museum I was told and in the cellar there you can find a large fresco of Gustav Klimt.

Our next stop was the "Museumsquartier", a laaarge building full of various museums inside, mainly for modern arts. Have a look what we found in front of the museum! What a funny sculpture, isn't it?

Just accross the street there were 2 other museums: the museum of historical arts and the historical nature museum. They are located face to face and look exactly like twins.

We walked along the "Ringstrasse" the street that surrounds the city center (it was built where the city wall was in former times) and passed by the Austrian Parliament and the Old Imperial theatre until we reached the City Hall. You know what I found there??? People who were already building up the Christmas market! I was very confused but my host told me that it will take only 2 weeks until it opens and she promised me to take me there if I'm still in Vienna at this time. Yippie!!!

Since we walked sooo much we had deserved a little rest then. So our host took us to Volksgarten where we enjoyed all the colourful autumn leaves and had great fun playing hide-and-seek!

While we were sitting there our host told us that next year in June the European Soccer Championship will take place in Vienna. The people are already quite excited about that and we found a watch counting the days, hours, minutes and seconds until the first game starts.

Did you know that Vienna is very popular for its Cafés? We passed by many of them but they were so crowded since it was a holiday and since we had the baby with us our host didn't want to go inside. But we did some window-shopping there and I was amazed what people can build out from sugar, chocolate and marzipan! Even this sculpture of emperor Franz Joseph was made of sugar!!

And guess whom I met just in front of a café? Good old Mozart himself!!! What a pleasure!!

We also visited the big amusement park in Vienna - Prater. What a pitty that it is closed during winter, only the Big Wheel moved, but we had a nice walk alround though...

And I saw Danuebe tower which is the highest building in Austria!

All the family was ill for a while and we couldn't go out much. The boys and we toyvoyagers got a bit bored so we decided to make this pyramide out of yoghurt cups. Great, isn't it?

One day we visited "Naschmarkt", the biggest market in Vienna. It was very impressive to see all the different fruits, spices etc they offered there. We bought alot and had a big fruit salad that evening...

We were sooo busy to bake Christmas cakes! What a wonderful smell there was everywhere in the flat - and they tasted really delicious!

On one of our sightseeing-tours our host also took us to the Belvedere castles. There are 2 of them - the upper and the lower one - and they are both built in Baroque style. The Upper one is the more impressive one and it hosts the Austrian National Gallery with pictures from Klimt, Schiele etc.

We spent a day at the famous "Christkindlmarkt" in front of the City hall. I did a ride on a Merry-go-round, watched all the really beautiful things sold there, visited the crib with the holy family inside and my host was so nice to buy a gingerbread heart for me. That's a tradition there I was told - a very delicious one! Christkindlmarkt is even more beautiful at night but the photos didn't come out...