lauren feels the heat while owen remembers how to smile

Vienna is Hot. Vienna is an attractive city, filled with buildings baroque and art nouveau. It has a historic city center lined with cobble-stoned streets and many, many churches. It was bombed some toward the end of the Second World War, but nothing like Berlin or Munich, so you can get a sense of what this place looked like 100 or 200 years ago. Our time here has been impacted some by the oppressive heatwave sitting on top of most of western and central Europe the past couple weeks. The good news is that, unlike in Prague, the air conditioning in our flat here is wunderbar, so much so that our nights here have felt like home, three of us sleeping in comfort while Keri goes in search of additional blankets.

Vienna proved on arrival to be the hardest city we have experienced in getting to our flat. Between not finding a single taxi at the train station (how is that possible?) to waiting 25 minutes for an Uber van to load our comically-large luggage, to rush hour traffic to our driver navigating the byzantine driving rules set up to reduce congestion in the city center, it took us more than an hour from arrival in town to get to our flat. The flat is great. Beyond the a/c, it's roominess, location -- steps away from St. Stephen's Cathedral -- and a kitchen counter backlight that changes color have all been big hits. Renting flats is always a gamble, but the advantages of a kitchen and common area when you are traveling with kids cannot be overstated. It's easy. All you need to do is marry Keri and let her do all the research and reservations. (Heat alert: Pictured here are Lauren and Owen in the Prague train station, with "Fanny," Lauren's omnipresent hand-held fan and self-proclaimed best friend.)

Sorry About That, Kids. Some months ago, we booked an all-day trip to Salzburg, an old university town in central Austria, best known as the location for The Sound of Music. Long story short, our tour was leaving at 730, so we put into action the school-day measures necessary to get the entire clan out the door by 715. Mission accomplished, with little complaining from the kids, likely resulting from the knowledge that they could sleep in the next two days. A nice quiet walk through town to the meeting spot -- as no one was up -- where we see a van already filled with people. We ask the driver the name of his tour company. It is the one we used. He begins to apologize and say he hopes they did not overbook the tour, as I take a closer look at the electronic ticket on my phone, clearly stating that the reservation was for Saturday. Which is fine, except it was Friday. This is why I cannot be trusted with anything important. I blame Keri, who really should know better. Whoops?

It is Free if You Don't Pay Anything. As we were already up, and knowing we had one day here with good weather, we signed up for a free walking tour. We ended up in a group of 20, and our guide started the tour on the grounds of the Hofburg, long-time residence of the Habsburg rulers and current residence and workplace of the Austrian president. The Hofburg dates back to the 13th Century, but most of the palace was built in the 19th Century. It contains a number of residences and apartments, the imperial library, and the training facilities for the world famous lipizzanner horses.

As we walked through the city center, our guide talked about the changing nature of this city. At it's peak, in the late 1800's, Vienna boasted a population of more than 2 million people, several hundred thousand more than it does today. It was the capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire which, although in decline, was still a global power, and it had no rival for influence in music, having been the long-term residences for Mozart, Beethoven and Strauss, among others. Vienna's importance diminished significantly after the First World War, when the 53 million person empire was broken apart and it became the capital of a newly formed republic of just over 6 million.

Our tour was about as you would expect with that many people -- slow moving with lots of bad questions (yes, there is such a thing) and unsolicited comments. The guide took it all in stride, and we were happy to pay a handsome tip, in part noting some number of tour goers who thought that "free" meant free.

Schoenbrunn Palace. Trying to fit as much as we could into our narrow window, we signed up for a paid-tour of the Schoenbrunn Palace, the Habsburg's almost out-of-town summer residence. This palace is, for many reasons, compared to Versailles. It started as a hunting lodge and its main builders -- Maria Theresa and Franz II -- explicitly tried to make it look like Versailles. It was several miles outside the city when built. It is neither as large nor as opulent as Versailles, but it is certainly impressive in its own right, in particular the gardens, large parts of which have been open to the public for 250 years. Photos are not allowed inside the apartments, so we could only capture images of the gardens. As for the interior, it looks much as you would expect for 18th Century monarchs, public spaces designed to impress and show the outside world the power and influence of the Habsburgs, with the private apartments reflecting their personal tastes. Interestingly, Maria Theresa and her husband favored Asian motifs.

Let's Try This Once Again. After having Keri double check my math, it was agreed we should show up again Saturday morning and give the Salzburg tour another run. The best part about getting up before the city is that you pretty much have the run of the place. It is remarkable what a difference there is between a plaza-filled with sweaty and intermittently-bathed Europeans and one that is empty and eerily quiet. In Vienna, you can assure yourself the latter pretty much anytime before 7am. In addition, you can get some of that excellent morning light, that makes for great photos (St. Stephen's church pictured here.) The downside here is that you are hard-pressed to find a cup of coffee, as none of the coffee shops open before 8 (9 on weekends) and the reliable subway station take away bakery/coffee places close for the weekends. In my case, that led to a Yelp-aided walk down to the river where one bakery was open and there were a surprising number of young people up, milling about, up to no good. I have no idea what was going on, and was happy to get my coffee and get back to the flat in time to see that we made it to the tour.

Getting to Salzburg via the Scenic Route. Our Dutch driver/guide, Tom, took us to Salzburg by way of the Lake District, starting with Lake Attersee, the longest lake in the country, filled with glacial water, just below the foothills that run off the east end of the Alps. We are fortunate enough to have seen some great alpine lakes on our trips to Switzerland, and this lake compares with those. The grayish-blue water, filled with minerals and glacial sediment, reflecting the bright June sun, while the wind blows across it, serving as nature's air conditioner. There were a number of locals sun bathing and even a couple hearty souls swimming in what must have been really cold waters. It would have been a nice place to spend a day, but we had places to go -- several more lakes and the lakeside town of St. Gilgen, birthplace of Mozart's mother. The final lake before Salzburg, Lake Fuschl, is the international headquarters of Red Bull, a unique set of buildings that the Salzburg-native owner wanted to resemble two volcanoes with a set of bulls running out of one of them. They are certainly different. As has been said by wiser men than me, don't get high on your own supply, Red Bull guy.

Salzburg: Was is Das Sound of Music? Salzburg is known by the world as birth-place and long-time residence of Mozart, who often wrote of his bad feelings for the place and its inhabitants, calling it parochial and filled with small-minded people. In the English-speaking world, it is known as the location for the 1965 cinematic classic, The Sound of Music. As various Austrians explained to us, the locals, like most non-English speakers had little to no knowledge of the film, which is surprising, given the film is kind of a love letter to the place. Our local guide, Gabi, walked us around the town, pointing out various spots where iconic moments were filmed, including the gardens where much of Do-Re-Mi was filmed.

We then walked across the bridge and into old Salzburg, which was swarming with tourists and other visitors. We eventually made our way up to Hohensalzburg Fortress, a castle-fortress just behind the town on top of a large hill. The fortress was first built in the 11th Century, and has protected well whoever was inside it, as its walls have never been breached. It now houses a museum paying tribute to the famed Rainer Regiment as well as the fortress's own history. Many of the Tripadvisor reviews said view alone made it worthwhile. It even got a smile out of Owen. Maybe that's a sun-induced squint. Hard to tell.

On the long drive back to Vienna, Keri, Lauren and I each watched the movie. I had not seen it in its entirety in some time. It holds up, as Julie Andrews is really just perfect for her role, and her part is the one that carries the rest of them.

The Austrian Military Museum: No, We are Not Good at War. With the temperature approaching 100 on Sunday we knew two things: (1) we would be down a Lauren, and (2) we needed to find some place cool. The first was easy, as Lauren pulled herself from active duty before the day started. I thought I had solved the second, suggesting we go to the Heeresgeschichtliiches Museum (HGM), a well-regarded museum on Austria's military history that, according to at least a couple reviews I saw, was air cooled. Turned out, not so much with the a/c, but the building, housed in Vienna's Arsenal, is constructed in such a way to keep the heat somewhat in check.

The content in the museum is, at times, great. The historical artifacts -- weapons, armor, maps, written documents -- go back to the 14th Century, and they are extensive. There are also a lot of paintings, many contemporaneous, that add some flavor to the cold hard historical facts. The museum is at its best in the time periods between 1848 and 1914 and the First World War, as those exhibits include detailed, thoughtful, and refreshingly honest descriptions of the events, not to mention assessments of the shortcomings of the Austrian armed forces. Among other things, the museum quite plainly noted that the empire's army stuck with bad tactics and poor leadership in its many, many losses to Napoleon and later, the Prussians and Italians. The World War I section is similarly excellent, and kicks off with the actual car in which Archduke Ferdinand and his wife, Sohpie, were assassinated in Sarajevo in June 1914. This exhibit alone is worth a visit.

Owen Has Found a Reason to Smile. After our late return from Salzburg on Saturday, we ate at Le Burger, a questionably-named burger place a couple blocks from our flat. The on-line reviews were pretty favorable so, against my better judgment, we decided to give it a try. And good that we did. The burgers are decent. Not great by any kind of American standard, but better than any other piece of meat I have seen Europeans throw in a bun and try to call it a hamburger. Owen not only enjoyed his burger, he was excited to see on the menu some kind of brownie/ice cream thing. He was almost giddy after he ordered it. As is seen in this photo, he tried to eat as much as he could in one bite. He got about half down. We ended up going back again on Sunday, and Owen got a little over his skis, foregoing a burger for the nachos, only to get a bowl with tortilla chips with some strange seasoning on them, sitting on a bed of greens. He is now 0-2 in ordering nachos in Europe, so perhaps he will have learned. Perhaps.

Does Vienna Wait for You? Vienna, and Austria more broadly, are interesting places. Vienna was for hundreds of years the seat of power for one of the three great kingdoms of Europe. No nation's trajectory was changed more in 1919 than it's was, leading to an unholy alliance with Nazi Germany in 1938 that I don't think the Austrians have ever really grappled with, certainly not in the commendable way the Germans have. Beyond the important history, there is remarkable music, art and architecture to enjoy here -- not to mention cakes.

As I wrote on the beginning of this post, the weather impacted our time. It was simply too hot to see and experience as much of the city as we wanted to. It was crowded, as well. I suspect coming back in October or in May, and maybe without children, would help reveal Vienna's charms in a way that we did not fully experience in our brief visit.