Thursday, December 9, 2010

Somewhere Over the North Atlantic

Our journey home has begun. We departed Vienna airport about 10:30 this morning, 4:30 AM Eastern time and we are approximately 5 hours from Washington DC as I type this. However it may not get posted until I get home.

Yesterday, Tuesday, our last full day in Vienna, started as another bright, sunny, blue-sky lovely day. Shirley ventured out on a shopping trip while Frank and I headed to the Academy of Fine Arts to see Hieronymus Bosch's somewhat disturbing trip-tych "The Seven Dearly Sins". Bosch uses a combination of humans and animals to show humanity's progress from the Garden of Eden through life and on to hell. There is a lot going on in a Bosch painting.

The rest of the afternoon we spent walking the pedestrian areas of the center city, with another look at St. Stephen's Cathedral, and the lovely tiled roof, this time not partially obscured by snow. We stopped for lunch at Demel, a famous Viennese bakery and cafe. While we ate, we could watch the bakers work in the kitchen. Great fun!

Dinner was at italic, the same restaurant where we had lunch on the first day. We enjoyed our lunch so much, we decided to cap off the trip with a wonderful dinner at the same restaurant. It was so worth it. We shared an appetizer of smoked salmon with seaweed salad. For our main course Shirley and I opted for the grilled prawns in butter and garlic. The prawns were large and perfectly cooked. Shirley had a side of parmesan risotto and I had roasted potatoes. Both were nice accompaniments to our meals. Frank enjoyed the branzino, a nice white fish which was sautéed and served with artichokes and sun dried tomatoes.

There was not a miss-step the whole evening, service, decor, and food were all 5-star. We all agree that this was our best dining experience of the trip and a great way to top off a wonderful Holiday journey to Vienna.

No comments: