Vienna

After Melk it was on to Vienna for the final leg of our Oktoberfest trip. As you can see we'd fully recovered from Munich and were ready to have tasty beers again...



We spent most of our time in Vienna doing walks suggested by the guidebook that Casie had checked out of the library. It was a great way to see the city. There is no shortage of fantastic architecture and sculpture and it is all easily reached via foot (and sometimes using the subway). We had some fun with some of the sculptures as you can see below.



On our last day Vienna decided to give us a sunny day in the park, just as the trees were turning. We had a lot of fun just walking around and seeing everyone who got out to enjoy the day. If you ever visit Vienna and it is a nice day be sure to check this park out - I believe it is called Prater park.

Edinburgh - out of order!

Please excuse the confusion... In our rush to catch up on posts we forgot about Edinburgh (pronounced Edin-brah), which we visited after Linlithgow. We were very keen to get away from London on that particular weekend because it was during the Notting Hill Carnival. Although we had fun last year, we'd also had enough of the loud whistles out our back window so thought getting out of town would be a great idea.

Once a year Edinburgh hosts an Arts Festival which includes art galleries, plays, music as well as a "Fringe" festival which is mostly stand-up comics and funny plays. We sampled a little bit of both and had a great time. In the same day we saw "Tony Blair the Musical" and our first opera. We also saw a violin performance about the last days of the Titanic and a sculpture that was a house made out of books. Edinburgh itself was great fun - it is a beautiful city with an amazing castle sitting on top of a rocky bluff. If it wasn't for the weather we'd have liked it even more...

Melk, Austria

After 3 days of Oktoberfest, we decided it would be best to detox in a town called Melk, about an hour and a half northwest of Vienna. Melk is a small historic town that sits right on the Danube River. It has a huge monastery that sits up on a bluff - see the picture below. We had a lot of fun walking around the city and relaxing. The highlight of our stay, though, was a bike ride we took along the Danube through vineyards and apple orchards.

We were a little over-ambitious on the ride (43 miles total! on heavy rental bikes!) so sadly we weren't very good at walking the next day. But the fields, meadows and small towns we passed through on the ride definitely made it worth it. We also managed to stop halfway through for some good sausages and local wine, and had a big dinner when we finally returned to Melk. Austrian food has never tasted so good! P.S. - Please check out how ridiculous we look in the last picture. Yes, those really are gardening gloves on our hands - it was the best we could find!