26 - 27th April 2010 -Central Europe – Vienna Austria

This is another 6 pointer leg of the competition. At present Lily and I are in first overall in the competition but we are only ahead by 1 point which will not save us in this leg. This leg is where we are given 100 odd challenges and 5 days to make our way across Europe from Vienna Austria to Paris France. We have to be in Paris by 10.00am on Friday. Bill does not mind how we do this but we cannot use an airplane or a private car, no car rentals, no helicopters and we must travel between cities by public transportation i.e. bus or train NOT by TAXI.

When he handed out the booklets in Austria he put a limitation on us and said we were not permitted to start scavenging until 4.30, we had to sleep in that hotel that night. We could not check out of the hotel before 8.00am and we had to have a photo of the clocks behind the reception area to prove we had left after 8.00am. We didn't check out until midday so it was a moot rule for us but we still had to take the photo if not he was docking 300 points. We wait until the required 4.30 pm and set out to find a guide book and a train map etc. We took a TAXI down to the city centre by St. Stephens Church, we werfe suppose to visit either the bell tower or the catscombs but both were closed. The guide book said they closed at 6.00pm but they actually shut at 5.30- zero points. Then we went to Secession museum – closed. The Museum Café – closed in fact it had gone out of business. Then the Kunsthauswein which stated it closed at 7.00pm- you got t it was closed as well. We begged and begged but to no avail. In there was so different it had wavy floors and walls that were covered in bright mosaic art work. The people there were so rude. The problem was that all of these things were mandatory so if we didn't do them we couldn't get the points.

We decided to go to the Fairground nearby which has a giant Ferris wheel, similar o the London eye, called the Riesenrad. This was built in 1897, weighs 430 tones and takes 20 minutes to make a full circle. The cars that you sit in look a lot like train cabooses and the view of Vienna was outstanding with the river Danube running through it. It evidently became famous after the movie "The Third Man" was filmed on it.

We headed back into the city centre and manage to find another mandatory called the Ankeruhr clock. This was very unique created by Franz von Matsch in 1911. The clock does not have hands that tell the time, across the top turns a wheel which carries Roman Numerals and those depict the time the history of Vienna is told by the moving figures that change every hour. Evidently at 12.00 noon all the figures march around and the organ plays. We only saw it change on the hour of 7.00pm. It was very neat.

We called it quits after this because every single thing we tried to do was closed and we were only spinning top in mud. We set out to find the Naschmarket. This is a mile of restaurants so we decided to do our eating challenges there. We had .wiener schnitzel which is a breaded and fried piece of veal (this use to be Zoe's favorite when we use to go and ski in Lech as children) and a non alcoholic drink called Almdudler which is a washy washy tasting drink that is a cross between ginger beer and lemonade.


That ended our frustrating day and we decided to call it quits, head home to bed and start again in the morning. I forgot to tell you guys that we have only been given 3 scavenges a day to do with another team on this leg so Rainy and Zoe and Lily and I are going to scavenge the city until 12.00pm separately and then meet back together to catch a train to the town of Linz. It felt so good to get into bed and know that we could actually sleep without worrying about a wakeup call.

We got up had breakfast and set out at bout 7.30am. Lils and I started by going to the Brunnenmarket which is a Turkish market. It was supposed to open at 6.00am but it was most certainly still being set up while we were there. It had stalls of cheeses, spices, Turkish candy, flowers, breads etc. We had nowhere else to go that early that would have been open so we hung around for awhile and then took a train back to the town centre.

We took our ride on the tram that was a challenge and went back to the Secession to try and get in to see Beethoven's frieze, we were a little early so new sat and waited. About 9.30 we saw some ladies putting up a sign on the top step and went to ask some questions to discover that the museum was closed for renovations and it was not going to open. This was big trouble for us because the clock was ticking and this was one of the mandatorys. I talked and talked and talked to the lady and begged her to let me in. Finally she did and boy was inside a mess of ladders, paint tins, carpet padding etc. She took us down to the basement and showed us where the frieze was but it was covered for its own protection during the renovations. She wrote us a note verifying that we had been in and downstairs. Thank goodness now all our other points will count.

From there we went to the Haus de music. What a wonderful place. It is an entire museum of hands on things for you to play with and make music. We spent "too long" there just having fun. This is a place that Lily will never forget. She got to "conduct" the Austrian Viennese Orchestra. She messed up the first time but actually completed the entire song on her second try. We saw Bill there and he was impressed with her effort as well. I also tried conducting as the below photo shows....

We had to visit to visit the Kunsthistorishes museum and find the painting in room XI to do with Good Friday. It was a painting of the Lamintations, it depicted Mary holding Christ after his body was removed from the cross. It was painted by Casper de Crepe somewhere between the dates 1649 - 1656.

We scurried around and saw a couple more museums; we walked miles to accomplish this. During our walk we came across the discovery of a Roman city that was buried beneath the city of Vienna. How does an entire city disappear and diapper to the point where another whole city is built on top? I find this fasciating.

Then we hailed a taxi and hustled back to the hotel by 11.30 to meet up with Zoe and Rainy to take the train to Linz. They were running a bit late but we still managed to make the train.
We had so much fun and Vienna is really beautiful.