Being terrible tourists in Singapore!

Upon leaving Garsten we were supposed to head to Zagreb, Croatia to kick off a road trip along the Dalmatian coast. Instead we finally made the hard but necessary decision to return back to Australia so I could consistently see the same doctor, do some further tests and figure out what was making me sick. By this point I had been sick for around 6 weeks and although we dearly wanted to head to Croatia (and Bosnia and Turkey and Sri Lanka!), it wasn't to be.

Instead we took a train to Vienna were we flew to Zurich and then Singapore. We decided to break up the absurdly long flight back to Australia with 4 nights somewhere in South East Asia. We opted for Singapore, a new country for both Rob and I, and the only island city-state in the world! Although it would likely mark the end of our overseas travel, we were excited to be heading somewhere new for a relaxing end to the trip.

Rob crossing the bridge to find our Air BnB apartment

Singapore didn't quite turn out as planned. Aside from me being "normal sick", we both got colds, had issues adjusting to the change in time zone and the overwhelming humidity, heat and smog. We had huge problems sleeping at anytime before 3am. This left less time for sightseeing and we turned into pretty terrible tourists! However, importantly, we did utilise our Airbnb apartment's wonderful pool and did some reading.

Sleeping and pool time were high on our agendas

From what we did see, and barring a few less enjoyable things (humidity, air quality challenges), Singapore seems like a great place to live. The city has done an amazing job at urban planning and seems to be prioritising gardens and active lifestyles. We went to the Singapore City Gallery which shows the transformation of the city over the last five decades. It is astounding the changes they have made over short periods to neighbourhoods, building and lifestyles.

Not a bad view from our metro stop

Singapore model at the gallery

New meets old in Singapore?

Older style buildings with skyscraper neighbours made quite a sight

Singapore is a lovely town to wander around, especially in the evening when the heat has lifted. We enjoyed the atmosphere around the river and found lots to see. The city buildings are quite spectacular at night. I'm not really sure why but part of the cityscape reminded me of Melbourne. (Of course I don't recall a soccer field floating on the Yarra but I haven't been home for 10 months!)

Singapore turned the lights come on

Floating soccer (i.e. using the land you've got)

Love these statues. Reminded us of similar ones we saw in Santander

"Play it forward" Piano's under a bridge for the public to enjoy

We were there! 

Interesting helix bridge near where we had an AMAZING ice cream sandwich

Our "final" day in Singapore was quite the experience! In the morning we enjoyed the beautiful botanical gardens. The National Orchid Garden was just fantastic. The orchids were so varied and very colourful. 

Paphiopedilum Hybrid

Rob enjoying the lovely mist garden

Worth battling the humidity!

Fountain and flora near the entrance

After the gardens we met up with Rob's old neighbour, James, and his wife Dora and two boys for a brief but lovely catchup - shamefully, WE FORGOT TO TAKE A PHOTO! 

In the afternoon I started to feel worse for wear. Long story short, hours before our flight I ended up at the airport medical centre where I was deemed "unfit to fly" due to having also contracted gastro. We had to book new flights for the next day which wasn't great news but at that point we were just pleased to have seen a doctor. Needless to say our (actual) final day in Singapore was low key. 

Our flight home consisted of less than an hour sleep between us but we were still smiling and happy to catch up with family and friends at the other end. (And plotting to keep the 2015 travel dream alive...stay tuned!)

Garsten and Steyr

We were lucky enough to stay off the more typical international tourist track in Upper Austria and even luckier to spend time with Rob's friends, Ulli and Flo and their three gorgeous kids. Our timing was a bit poor as it coincided with illness in the family as well as my own continuing health problems. However, it was great we were able to spend time together over a weekend and it was lovely to be in such a nice family environment. We weren’t long in the house before we were treated to a dress-up parade that included Spiderman, a medieval outfit and a firefighter!

Garsten is a lovely village in Upper Austria, located on the edge of a town called Steyr. It is around 2 hours west of Vienna by train and, like much of the country, has the advantage of a lovely mountain setting. On the Saturday we had a relaxed morning before taking a walk up a mountain to Schosserhütte. We were a bit unlucky with a fog obscuring what is usually a wonderful view (for great views of what we couldn't see, visit here) but it was a nice walk and we were rewarded at Schosserhütte with a tasty, warm lunch. Schosserhütte was nice and cosy, as I imagine a lot of places in Austria need to be come winter! After lunch the kids played in the teepee that stood next to the hut and Jinti, the families beautiful “Nepalese mountain dog”, also had a fun time digging about the place. On the way down the fog lifted ever so slightly, giving us a view of some colourful Autumnal trees. 

Jinti

Jinti walking Rob

Finn, Flo and Jonah sprint/skipping down the road from Schosserhütte

We also took a quick walk up to the ruins at Burgruine Losenstein, which had lovely views and is regularly used as a site for plays.  Finn took the opportunity to work on his climbing.

Ulli booked us tickets for a Night Watchman's tour in Steyr that evening and Flo dropped us off in town. The tour took us through the medieval part of town and to the top of the parish church spire. The tour was in German but the guide was kind enough to tell us the key bits of information in English along the way. Steyr is a very pretty town located at the confluence of the Enns and Steyr rivers. (A useful spot to be when you need to construct a moat around your town!) Steyr has a long history as a manufacturing centre and once produced cars and arms. Our guide told us that at one time it was against the law to manufacture a complete gun in Steyr. This was (apparently) to ensure the working class Protestants would not use the guns to rebel against ruling Catholics!

The beautiful main street of Steyr

View from the church tower

Shopping alley in Steyr

Across the Steyr river

Family/city crests adourning the city streets

You can't make it out from the photo, but each sculpture on the facade
of this building represents one of the five senses

On Sunday we had a restful day for the most part. Rob, Flo, Finn, Jonah and Anna went for a short walk and saw some deer. Rob had a conversation with Jonah about…well, Rob isn’t sure. It was a bit one-sided with Jonah happily telling Rob all sorts of things he had no hope of understanding but he thinks that it was mainly about deer!

Though the kids were probably a bit afraid of us with our odd accents and lack of German, we managed a few games with them across the weekend. Anna, the youngest, was not at all shy and was keen for us to read to her. Rob pulled off the German a lot better than me but I was pretty good at pointing at things she was interested in! By the end of the weekend Finn and Jonah were saying “Good night” to us in English.

It was great to meet Uli and Flo who I have heard so much about, as well as see the lovely life they have created since they lived in Nepal with Rob. We felt spoilt to stay in such a beautiful area for what turned out to be our last stop-off in Europe.

A musical time in Vienna

Music shaped our time in Vienna, unsurprisingly given it is commonly referred to as the City of Music.  We enjoyed a self-guided walking tour of music, Wiener Wiesl - Vienna's take on Oktoberfest - a visit to the Haus der Musik, a concert at Karlskirch (St Charles' church) and relaxing at the famous Cafe Central as a pianist set the atmosphere. We didn't let attempts to find a doctor (one of whom was incredibly rude) disrupt our visit to the city. We admired the architecture (Kat would like to use the adjectives 'creamy' and 'grand' to describe the city) while on our walking tour and we also had a long visit to the Kunsthistorisch (the Art History museum).

Our self-guided walking tour was odd in that we got lost (there's only a small circle of people to blame when you are self-guided) but that this made it a bit of an adventure. There's certainly worse places to be lost than Vienna, with its windy streets, beautiful (creamy) large buildings with the exteriors decorated with such complete and marvelous sculptures and characters.  Places that were home to Salieri, Mozart, Beethoven and Strauss.  The place had a feeling of completeness to it.  

Passed this on the way to Old Town

Grand old Vienna

At Stephansplatz

The approach to the Hofburg palace

Hofburg

Controversial Holocaust monument

On our walking lunchbreak we found a tiny little place serving what the internet tells me is Fleischkäsesemmel.  Sort of like a meatloaf on a simple semmel roll, we thought it was delicious, but the meal was made more enjoyable for the recognisable characters drawn on the wall enjoying their own Fleischkäsesemmel.

Entertaining artwork depicting many recognisable characters munching on Fleischkäse  

More celebration of Fleischkäse

Love and bunnies outside the Opera (note the pedestrian traffic light!)

We found ourselves in Austria in early October, and Kat spotted a sign advertising the local version of Oktoberfest, Wiener Wiesl. It was great we could experience this particular Austrian cultural experience. This meant that I could enjoy a beer and together we could experience the now global sensation that is Oktoberfest. Wiener Wiesl is a celebration of autumn that brings people together in with traditional food, music, clothes and drink.  Although the young'uns probably come out at night, this is not just a weekend bender activity that it might be elsewhere in the world but a celebration for all ages and it is on all through the week with free entry during the day.

We sang and swayed along to songs we had no hope of understanding while enjoying the performance of the band and the happy people who came to dance and eat together.  By mid-afternoon it was a swinging party and we were quite out of place in jeans and t-shirts but I've never had much of a need for lederhosen before!

Is Oktoberfesting a verb?

Starting to get a little rowdy at 2pm

Beer and sunshine

The Haus der Musik was good fun with interactive games and systems (some of which were a little 'tired' on our visit) to teach you about how we hear and process sound.  There were also rooms dedicated to the great composers, sharing elements of their lives, habits, debts and works.  

Trying the Sound of Music out on the keyboard stairs

This visit paved the way for our night-time outing to Karlskirch, a church we had only really admired from afar in our first few days.  We bought our ticket on the day from the venue itself (we had a bit of a run-in with a pushy street vendor who was too eager to encourage us to buy tickets from him).  A grand building with a beautiful dome framed by two towers, brilliantly lit up by night, the church was undergoing some maintenance inside and out but not so much that we could not enjoy both the concert and the art all around us.  We enjoyed a lovely performance in a beautiful church of some of Mozart, Beethoven and Strauss' best known works and were able to wander around before and after the performance to see the church in more detail.  Highly recommended experience, but one of many that you could get to in Vienna, it is the City of Music, afterall.

The ceiling with scaffolding centrepieces

Magnificent altar at Karlskirch just before the quintet commenced

Karlskirch (under a little renovation)

Visiting the Kunsthistorisches was a really powerful experience.  Our favourite part was the Kunstkammer exhibit.  The noble families over the centuries accumulated great arts to celebrate and often demonstrate both their wealth and authority.  These were stored in what was called a Kunstkammer, like a special art room.  Sometimes they were collections of brass sculptures, portraits, and tapestries but only the imagination can prevent you from thinking about what they had in there; mounted nobles with interchangable heads, over-the-top table centrepieces, drinking horns, clockwork frigates and clocks that surprise you with a mooning bum instead of a cuckoo-bird.  Perhaps one of the grandest features was a backgammon set that laid out the dynastic and territorial claims of the Habsburgs, Maximilian I's descendants (Charles V & Ferdinand I), demonstrating their right to rule but also their wealth.  In odd timing, a joke that would have flown past me before made me laugh out loud, through our slight addiction to the show Downton Abbey, a reference came up when the Dowager Countess said "I used to think that Mary's beau was a mésalliance, but compared to this, he's practically a Hapsburg." (The "p" is the Anglicised version). The collection at Kunsthistorisches was big, and it was a kind of fun to see what they collected, what they gave as gifts; it gives you a bit of an idea of the wealth these people once had to throw around.

The cafe of the Kunsthistorisches was lovely, not modern and tucked away out of sight but within the grand building itself, with a great dome rising above and beautiful marble archways on all four sides, hubbub with activity.

We finished off our stay in Vienna with coffee at the famous Cafe Central, a place those more famous than us used as a meeting point long ago; it's been around for more than 130 years.  There we were treated to a pianist who came and went a few times while we indulged on Viennese cake and coffee.

Selection of cakes at Cafe Central 

The pianist at Cafe Central

St Peter's Church at dusk

A Bridge Over the River Inn

Laurel dropped us at the nearby station Thalwil to take our train to Sargans and then Innsbruck. The trip to Innsbruck was very scenic, the homes and fields of the Alps are every bit as beautiful you can expect from stereotypical movies and photographs.

Since Kat was still not well, we changed plans from camping at the nearby town of Natters to an AirBNB room in an apartment near the technical university in Innsbruck.  Our hostess Maria, spoke a little more English than we did German, but not much, so we had some entertaining conversations sharing stories of our travels and families over the occasional coffee.  Most of the time, she left us to our own devices but tried very hard to set us up to watch the AFL grand final, but unfortunately she didn't receive the channel on which it was being televised - we streamed it over the internet instead!

Innsbruck itself is a postcard town.  Nestled in the Inn valley and straddling the river of the same name, I am sure that in winter, covered in snow it is also magical.  Host to 4 winter Olympics and playing its part in history as a place where rulers could control access through the passes of the Alps, the connection to the mountains is evident through their cable car systems and public transport network. A simple tourist must is taking the STB tram from Innsbruck to Natters (in the south, and our intended campsite).  The winding tram gives beautiful views of the mountains to the north, and cuts through the mountains in the south.

We did that ride on our second to last day (a Saturday), and then walked from the township of Natters to the nearby Nattersee campsite & lake. 

St Michael's Church, Natters

On the way, we encountered a ski jump event for kids.  It is not yet winter, and I have to confess I have always wondered how you train for winter sports without any snow.  The answer seems to be "you just do the same thing, but without snow!"  The kids flew down metal rails on their skis, launching themselves and then landing (we only saw one crash) on a sort of furry fake grass thing that slowed their descent before hitting a bark-laden incline where they stopped.  The place was a lively hub of activity with coffee, cakes and baked goods and parents all around clapping and cheering them on; I shouldn't be surprised, it was Saturday after-all, so it was probably just the equivalent of any old cricket or netball event at home!  

Child launched off the ski jump

Innsbruck's cathedral is striking, even after the damage cause by the war.  From the baroque and intentionally deceptive outer windows to its pretend-domed ceiling the artwork is something to admire (I might have even hurt my neck!).  The gleaming alter and its center-piece surrounding the Maria Hilfer were reminiscient (for us) of the Santander cathedral.  Little wonder that this is another place pilgrims on the Way of Saint James have and do visit on the long road to the Compostela de Santiago.  We visited as part of a walking tour.  Our guide was brilliant, although she had to manage two groups at once, a German-speaking and the smaller Australian-speaking group.  The other Australians were a friendly couple who were on their own 6-week holiday mainly of the battlefields of the Western Front, they were on the tail-end of their holiday, visiting Innsbruck before returning to Münich and then home to Sydney.

The tour was quite short in distance covered, but not on the detail.  It focused a lot on the Roman Emperor Maximillian I, who seemed to manage a lot through his various titles in the late 15th to early 16th century - a period of 60 years. That was a time when country borders looked nothing like today, and where marriages to secure treaties and hold over land were still all the rage.  I actually lost track of all the arrangements he made, both for himself, his children and grandchildren - at one point even marrying Anne of Brittany by proxy (PROXY!)

Regular meeting points, a coat-of-arms is a bit easier when you cannot read!

Max left a big imprint on Innsbruck and built the Golden Roof, a central landmark overlooking the activity of the market in what is now "Old Town".  It sits just by the City Tower, which survived the 22 air raids Innsbruck suffered WWII.  We climbed the Stadtturm (City Tower) which is taller than it looks, and enjoyed great views of the nearby cathedral, town and surrounding mountains (but, really you can see them from anywhere in town).  From here the city watch was to declare the hours and watch for fires, the last city watchwoman only retired in 1967.

The Cathedral from the Stadtturm

The Golden Pavilion from the Stadtturm

Innsbruck has a population of some 130 000, of whom 30 000 are students.  There was certainly a lively feel about the place, and it was so easy to get around by bus.  Actually, one day whilst waiting at the bus stop a woman stopped on her way to offer us plums! Typically Kat had been told not to eat fruit until she was better so had to refuse. I solely reaped the benefits of the mountain plums- well, I have assumed the source of the fruit based on the lady's enthusiastic gestures- and after gobbling one, she offered me another. These are the moments we often forget to blog about, but are probably the ones we will always remember. 

Our best experience (after the plum lady) was on the cable cars and looking down on Innsbruck from Hafelekar station.  Within an hour, you can take a ride on the cable car train from the Congress station past the Alpen zoo to Hungerbergbahn, from there you change cars and ride up to Seegrube and with a final change, ride on up to Hafelekar.  Making a 1600m climb in what feels like no time at all. 

A departing cable car/tram/train/rollercoaster

Once at the top we could see across to Germany, and were free to wander from the Hafelekar station to the peak Hafelekarspitze with a view over Innsbruck but also to walk down to the free ropes course where eager climbers can embark on a 3-5 hours fixed rope climb.  We satisfied ourselves with walking, and learning about the rock formations and how they developed.  

View of Innsbruck from Hafelekar

We picked a windy day, glad for cable hand-holds!

It used to be a coral reef!

Maybe one day we'll be back to see the place in winter!