So, as most of you know Carlo and I had a quick road trip up to Austria this last weekend for a work conference for Carlo. I guess one of the perks of living in Europe and not working too much is that I can accompany him on some of his trips!
We left Thursday morning and drove up past Venice and headed north straight to Vienna (Wein in German) and made it there in about 8 1/2 hours. The drive was relatively easy and beautiful, although it snowed the majority of the way and was hazy so we couldn't see the extensive alps too much. When we got there we checked into our accommodations which was actually a really nice apartment. Considering I had no idea when I was booking it where it was in relation to the Vienna sights (I really knew nothing about Vienna) the location turned out great!
Once Francesco and Giovanni, Carlo's work associates, got there we set out to have dinner. Of course it was already past 8pm, right on par with the Italian eating timetable. Got lost looking for a particular restaurant, wondered around in the freezing cold for over an hour and then found the schnitzel of all schnitzels! Delicious!
Next day the guys had to go to work, so I set out on foot and spent the whole day looking at cool old buildings! Stopped for an awesome lunch and then later in the afternoon stopped to rest my dogs with a glass of Austrian red wine and a slice of Sacher Torte! After a long day of walking and touring met back up with the guys and proceeded to go to dinner.
Now dinner was interesting. We were invited to attend a dinner with one of Ralco's customers and joined 22 other Italian for dinner in what else but an Italian restaurant! So there were 25 Italians and an American.......course after course was delivered to the table and glass of wine after glass of wine was filled, of course punctuated at the end of the meal with an espresso. While dinner in and of itself was strange enough, it became comical to me as we left dinner to go to an Italian cafe for yet another after dinner drink. Now, the "Boss" of this other company is from southern Italy and was very neatly dressed and groomed with a long winter coat. While we were walking none of his workers would pass him, and since he was a slow walker, there were about 15 of us trailing slowly behind him. I could not help but start chuckling to Carlo that if I didn't know any better and was passing by, I would swear it was a mafia boss with some of his people walking down the Viennese promenade! I continued to chuckle even after we arrived at the cafe and everyone proceeded to sit around the boss like we had an audience with him. After that, a small group of just six of us went out for some beers, and of course the men were impressed I could/was drinking more then just one beer!
Next morning Carlo took me to the oldest coffeehouse in Vienna for breakfast, wandered the streets some more and got some street food for lunch and headed to Salzburg.
Don't really have too much to say about Salzburg. It was cold, beautiful, and we were there during their off season on a Sunday. Mostly everything was closed, but it was a enchanting riverside town with fantastic maze of meandering walkways and we did hike up to the castle to tour it!
All in all a great trip to Austria! Don't think they've gotten the message that smoking kills because everyone seemed to smoke and they even still allow it indoors- we have to launder everything we had with us!
Ciao Ciao!
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