Category: Travel

Vienna Highlights

On By JC ThrashIn Travel

Day 1:Vineyards

I have always liked Austria, though I couldn’t tell you why exactly, as this was my first trip to Vienna. In college, I visited Salzburg while interning abroad in London (10/10 would recommend Salzburg to a friend, but this post will of course focus on Vienna).

So when our train pulled into Vienna from Prague, we quickly headed to our Airbnb to check in then explore our neighborhood, staying local our first evening.

Our first full day, we wanted to check out the vineyards in the hills overlooking Vienna. We started by taking a city bus (38A) to the top of the mountain – Kahlenberg – a cheap and direct route to witness beautiful views of the city. It’s a windy road; if you get motion sickness, be warned, and grab a spot near the front! There is both a fancy restaurant and café here at the top, and the option to take the same bus back into the city, but what I’d recommend is taking a hike.

It’s about two miles from Kahlenberg to Grinzing. Grinzing is a neighborhood of Vienna and is the heart of Vienna’s wine scene. You can reward yourself (as we did) following the 2 mile hike with a visit to a Grinzing restaurant or Heuriger (wine tavern).

Some of the smaller Heurigen have limited hours, and we passed many of them during our hike down the mountain. They spread dozens of picnic tables out across their patios or grassy areas, but unfortunately for us, many are only open on weekends outside of summer. So we settled for one in the area of Grinzing that had weekday hours.

We started our hike a bit later in the day than we should have done, and as the sun began to set the woods got a little dark. We didn’t have cell service, but fortunately, everything is well marked and the very moment we began to worry, a sign pointed us in the direction of Grinzing. We took that last bit along the road to have light, but not before capturing this gorgeous picture of the sun setting over the vineyards.

On our second day, we rented the city bikes. You will need to register an account on the first day, which we did a week membership for a whopping 1€. When you pick up the bike, the first hour is free. From there, it’s only 1€ per hour.

Vienna is a biker’s dream. With mostly protected and/or off-road bike lanes, you are wildly free from worrying about get hit by a car. You do want to look out for pedestrians, as, especially in the city center, many tourists are confused and walk in the bike lane instead of the sidewalk reserved for pedestrians… I could go onto a rant about it not being that hard, signs for bikers vs. pedestrians is pretty universal and do not require proficiency of German language, but – I’ll just leave it at that.

When our free hour was up, we docked out bikes and found this cute English pub that doubled as a library bookstore. This is what we had been hoping the “book bar” place in Prague would look and feel like, and this pub was comfortable and delightful.

While in the city center, we also indulged in the notorious Austrian cake, the sacher-torte, a chocolate cake layered with apricot preserves. Accompanied, of course, with some Viennese wine.

At the recommendation of Rick Steves, we headed to Trzésniewski, famous for its open-faced finger sandwiches. It lived up to the hype! With each one being just a couple of bites, and only 1€, we were able to try plenty of flavors. I’d recommend getting at least one that sounds a little wild – you may love it! And don’t forget to order a pfiff: a pfiff of beer is 0.2L or, about 6oz. Just enough to wash down your lunch! (But of course you can always get more! The beer is light and refreshing!)

On Day 3, we headed out to Schonbrunn Palace, but it was a beautiful day, so we didn’t pay for a tour inside. Instead, we explore the grounds, which are expansive – and free! We wandered for about 2 hours, but could have spent a whole day out here. How they manipulated the vines to create a canopy… it was wild. It was an autumn wonderland.

On on fourth full day, we picked up the Vienna city bikes again and explored the Danube trail. We biked only to the edge of the city and back, but for those who want a bigger biking experience you can go all the way to Germany, or to Bratislava, and onward! In fact, we had initially planned on doing a day-trip to Bratislava, but we loved Vienna so much, we couldn’t justify using one of our four days for a day-trip.

Resources:

Many of the places we went were recommendation of Rick Steves, particularly restaurants we went to. His stuff is a great starting point, and we use it to map out recommendations that are close in proximity to maximize our time.

Vienna Lez-Travel rating:

Vienna was a delight, and a place my wife and I always felt safe. Pride flags flew in many places, and we were far from alone, both in the touristy areas and otherwise.

Highlights of Prague

On By JC ThrashIn Travel

On the morning of our first full day in Prague, we shake off our jet lag and hustle by foot to the city center to meet up with our tour guide. Sandeman’s New Europe tours take place in many cities across Europe and are completely free. The tour lasts three hours and, in my experience, the tour guides are friendly, knowledgeable, and engaging.

We missed the start of the tour, but after running up to another guide, she was able to point us in the right direction for us to catch up. The tour took us through major landmarks of the Old City: the Astronomical Clock and the Old Towne Square; Church of Our Lady Before Tyn; view of Prague Castle; the old Jewish Quarter and Jewish Cemetery and more. Prague has a fascinating history, the the guide covers the Bohemian history, Austro-Hungarian Empire, Nazi occupation and WWII, the Velvet Revolution and fall of communism and Soviet influence. The tour was incredibly interesting, and a great introduction to both the history of Prague and beautiful sites around the City. A great day one activity!

Petřín Gardens

The area of Petrin Hill is basically a massive park full of gardens. You’ve got the Seminary Garden, the Rose Garden, Kinksy Garden, and more. An outdoorsy nature-lover could spend a whole day wandering here (and we about did). To top it off, there is the Strahov Monastery and BREWERY. Beautiful park, and I also get to drink delicious beer outside? Am I in Heaven?

After enjoying your beer, you can also walk around the grounds and inside of Strahov Monastery, which is also pretty incredible. You’ll have to snag one of the handouts to read about the artwork and displays in English, as the signs in side are in Czech.

In addition to enjoying the nature throughout these many gardens, you’ll also be heading up a steep hillside, so don’t forget to look around to get the occasional stunning view of the whole city (and wear comfy shoes).

I couldn’t choose just one picture of this area, so… here are several.

Speaking of the beautiful outdoors and beer, this brings me to Letna Park and the beer garden.  Overlooking the river and the city, this outdoor beer garden is lively with tourists and locals alike. The whole park is worth enjoying, too; you’ll see other tourists but mostly locals with their dogs.

View from Letenský Beer Garden

Prague Castle

In the evenings, admission into the Prague Castle grounds is discounted, and definitely the way to go. For my wife and I though, we spent most of our time exploring the Royal Gardens. There are tram routes, but if you want to walk to the castle, prepare to get a good workout and enjoy some spectacular views! Here is one from the walk up to the castle.

View of the City from the walk up to Prague Castle

Better than Prague Castle is Vyšehrad, Prague’s “other” castle.

Vyšehrad has large grounds that are lovely to explore, especially in the fall. If you luck out with good weather like we did, you may spent all day in the area! From the top of the fortress wall, we enjoyed breathtaking views of the city, and it is totally free to explore the grounds.

We did pay a small fee to explore the hidden passageways and underground corridors, complete with a huge underground hall with monuments (how did they get those in there?!) – I believe it was about $3 per person, and the tour lasted around 45 minutes. Pretty cool to see, as this fortress dates back to the 10th century.

View from Vyšehrad
a little beer break at a café on the Vyšehrad grounds

The Food

One of Prague’s signature dishes, Svíčková was the most incredible meal… one which I probably had, in some version, nearly each day. The vegetable cream sauce was always a little different, and the quality of the beef and bread dumplings (knedlíky) varied slightly, but from the large, crowded restaurants to the small, dark pubs- it was always damn delicious. The creamy vegetable sauce was always the best part, and as I’m writing this I’m drooling and determined to find some in the States as soon as possible.

Prague Lez-Travel Rating:

As I wrote in “Color of Prague”: Two rainbows. Though, our experience did vary based on location we were in. We did a beer crawl in the Vinohrady neighborhood, a younger, hip, and not too touristy area, which probably would have earned three rainbows. In general, we’ll go with two. The only funny looks we got were, I believe, from other tourists (of course from the guy in the Bama hoodie), but we didn’t see much example of gay pride or gay culture.

prague pub crawl

On By JC ThrashIn Travel

The day of the Vinohrady beer crawl, we slept in, got a late breakfast and espresso, and hopped aboard the tram to head to Prague’s neighborhood: Vinohrady.

It was a quick ride on the tram to get a few neighborhoods east. Though previously in a more touristy part of the city, we found ourselves surrounded by young Czech people in a vibrant town square.

Our first stop was the Prague Beer Museum. Perhaps a bit of a tourist spot (first time we paid more than two USD for a beer!), but had 30+ Czech (or elsewhere) beers on draft. Here, we experienced more of a variety than anywhere else (if you read ‘Color of Prague’: you definitely couldn’t walk in and say “two beers please” without a lot of clarifying questions).

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Lost in an alley

On By JC ThrashIn TravelLeave a comment

Getting lost is the best way to see a city.

I am a planner by nature, to a fault, even. But with our Europe trip immediately following our honeymoon, there was no time to plan in the midst of planning a DIY wedding.

But, it was good for me to break free of my organizer chains and experience the freedom of exploring by getting lost, or pausing to look at our adventure options over an espresso (or a pilsner).

So while winging it on our travels, we discovered a recommended restaurant for ‘authentic Viennese’ that was high-rated among tourists and locals alike. Like fools, though, was how we looked when we arrived.

A table for two, please.

I said in broken German.

Do you have a reservation?

He asked in English, with a bit of sass.

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The Color of Prague

On By JC ThrashIn TravelLeave a comment

Prague is a breathtaking city.

Married two days’ prior, exhausted but high on life, we flew into this magical land of age-old architecture and colorful urban parks in the peak of autumn.

I had hoped to learn a bit of Czech before our travel, but really just mastered a few key German phrases and didn’t quite make it to Czech. For that I felt immensely guilty, dreading being one of those Americans who assumes everyone abroad speaks English.

But they did, for the most part, at least those in our generation. Folks our age learned English in school, but those a bit older learned Russian. (So, besides the time we tried to purchase antiseptic ointment, we got by just fine.)

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Storms: Provincetown, MA

On By JC ThrashIn Bikes & Hikes, TravelLeave a comment

Hoping to spend Memorial Day weekend in Provincetown, MA, we combined our love for outdoors with a desire to save money and booked a campsite at Dune’s Edge campground.

It’s not ideal… it’s very chilly the first night and the campground does not allow campfires due to fire risk in the dry, windy pine forest. What is camping without a campfire?

Campsite: the beginning

But, the visit is to enjoy time in the town during a weekend celebrating young gay women in addition to enjoying nature, so we throw on as many layers as we can find and bike into town.

We lock up and head to JD’s, because, for some reason, sitting outside seems desirable to us in the 34-degree weather (fortunately, they do have warmers). A friend had given me the inside-scoop that one can order Saki sushi from JD’s for cheaper than at Saki!

From our spot on the porch we can see others walking the streets along the main strip of the town. I’m disappointed how few lesbian couples I am seeing, and hoping those numbers were to increase throughout the weekend (they do).

By the time we leave it is wildly frigid. We don our multiple layers and light jackets and bike back to the campsite, shivering.

Campsite: completed

Last time we camped, it stormed overnight. We both woke up to a crack and a thud – but as we soon realized that whatever tree or tree branch snapped did not crush us, we rolled over and went back to sleep.

In the morning, we woke up and pulled on our shoes and unzipped the tent and saw how alarmingly close the massive tree branch was to our tent – about two or three feet from where our heads rest.

So when the thunder and lightning begin at Dune’s Edge in Ptown, this thunderstorm-loving couple got a little more nervous than usual. Fortunately, Dune’s Edge has much smaller trees, so we believed if a branch broke, we would survive its impact.

The lightning, this time, was what was alarming, and the cracks of thunder so loud I was sure no one could possibly be sleeping in the campground. As I had learned as a child, I started counting the seconds between the flash of light and crack of thunder, telling myself we would run to the car if it got much closer.

I asked my wife “are we safe?” and after a somewhat uncomfortable length of hesitation she said yes, she thought we were safe, if the storm didn’t come closer. Well, we did survive the storm, and woke up to a bright and sunny day with a significant raise in temperature, a pleasant 60-degree cape day.

We spent most of our mealtimes at the campsite, grilling steak and fish. Our grill was one of our best wedding gifts, usable at home and portable for camping.

The first night we had steak, and used the leftovers for steak n’ eggs. We have a French press we use while camping for quick and easy coffee.

The second night, my wife made swordfish with just salt, pepper, and lemon as the seasoning. I had not had swordfish before! It was divine on the grill, especially with some roasted summer squash and zucchini.

In the future I can perhaps comment more on establishments within Provincetown; we spent less time in the town than we expected, and more time grilling at our campsite and biking the Dunes. And it’s an amazing place to bike – but not for the faint of heart. Surrounded by ocean on three sides? It must be flat!, one might think… not so. But the paths link the two main beaches to the town, with rolling hills and sand on one side, and a relaxing ride through the woods on the other side.

Lez-Travel Rating:

It’s gay heaven. Every queer person should travel to Provincetown in their life, and be amazed. It’s perhaps the only place in the world (for now…) that gay people outnumber straight people. And it’s magic. To feel for the first time like the majority is a feeling hard to describe.