Sunday, November 23
MB and I flew out of JFK around 7:00 pm on Saturday night. Austrian Air was very nice. The flight took 8 hours, plus the six hour difference put us in Vienna at 9:00 am local time on Sunday. A little dazed we went straight to the hotel, checked in and had breakfast. A few hours later we met up with Mike and Linda and Alex who had arrived a bit after us.
We did a little exploring around the city. Our hotel, the Karntnerhof, was in the first district which is the most central location. Vienna has a nice subway, as well as trollies, plus it's not too big so you can cover a lot of ground on foot without much trouble.
But we didn't have much steam the first day having not slept the night before. MB and I got in a few hours in the late afternoon, and then around 6:00 we went to our first winery. Fritz Wieninger was the man in charge. The wines bear his name, and surprisingly to me, the grapes come from vineyards inside the city limits.
More interestingly, the winery is also a rustic restaurant known as a heuriger. These are very popular around Vienna. A heuriger can only serve their own wines, and a limited selection of foods prescribed by the government. These are served buffet style. We had heard not to expect too much from the quality, but this turned out to be untrue, as the food was very good. Not fancy, but excellent. The winning dish was a nut crusted turkey over rucolla with a yogurt sauce.
Here are a just a few pictures of Fritz, Mike, and some of the wines we tasted. Very casual, completely non tourist start to the trip.
|
MB and I flew out of JFK around 7:00 pm on Saturday night. Austrian Air was very nice. The flight took 8 hours, plus the six hour difference put us in Vienna at 9:00 am local time on Sunday. A little dazed we went straight to the hotel, checked in and had breakfast. A few hours later we met up with Mike and Linda and Alex who had arrived a bit after us.
We did a little exploring around the city. Our hotel, the Karntnerhof, was in the first district which is the most central location. Vienna has a nice subway, as well as trollies, plus it's not too big so you can cover a lot of ground on foot without much trouble.
But we didn't have much steam the first day having not slept the night before. MB and I got in a few hours in the late afternoon, and then around 6:00 we went to our first winery. Fritz Wieninger was the man in charge. The wines bear his name, and surprisingly to me, the grapes come from vineyards inside the city limits.
More interestingly, the winery is also a rustic restaurant known as a heuriger. These are very popular around Vienna. A heuriger can only serve their own wines, and a limited selection of foods prescribed by the government. These are served buffet style. We had heard not to expect too much from the quality, but this turned out to be untrue, as the food was very good. Not fancy, but excellent. The winning dish was a nut crusted turkey over rucolla with a yogurt sauce.
Here are a just a few pictures of Fritz, Mike, and some of the wines we tasted. Very casual, completely non tourist start to the trip.
- jim 12-03-2002 1:57 am