London Calling (again)

Well, last week was a busy week! My parents came to visit, so, of course, we had to do some exploring.  Anyway, since we were so busy last week, I didn't get a chance to post, so it'll have to be this week instead!

Since London is just a quick train ride from Slough, that is where we started our week. We would have a car the rest of the week, and we definitely did not want to drive in London - there's really no point, the tube goes everywhere... Besides, traffic is crowded and unpredictable, drivers are impatient - not a good environment for a tourist used to driving on the OTHER side of the road!

Quick tip: if you are going to be traveling around London, get a travelcard or an oyster card (the contactless payment card for London transport) onto which you can load a travelcard. You get unlimited travel in London. If you are traveling from outside of London, for instance from Slough, you can get a combined return train ticket and travelcard. It is a great deal and costs only a few pounds more than the return ticket itself. One or two rides on the underground is DEFINITELY worth it, more than that and it's a total bargain. 

Trafalgar Square

Our first priority, thanks to my artist mom, was the National Portrait Gallery, which is behind the National Gallery at Trafalgar Square (http://www.npg.org.uk/). It's a pretty cool place to visit if you are interested in portraiture - there's so many different styles from across the centuries for you to absorb. It's also interesting if you are fascinated by the stories about people. There are a lot of portraits of celebrities, historical as well as contemporary, and each one includes a brief story about the subject of the painting. It's a smallish gallery - compared to the National Gallery - but there's a lot to see and read. We spent a couple hours there. If you're not so interested in portraiture or people, but you do like art, I recommend the National Gallery (http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/).

National Gallery - Unfortunately I didn't take a picture of the National Portrait Gallery, but it's right behind this one. Take the tube to Charing Cross and you will see this gallery on exiting. Walk down the street to the right of the National Gallery and you will find a door to the NPG.

We had planned on taking a boat to Kew Gardens, but once we had finished at the gallery and eaten, we had missed the last boat. So, instead of going to Kew, we headed on a boat tour down the Thames with a different company. The tour was probably about an hour and a half altogether, which seemed pretty short. However, there is an option to "hop-on, hop-off" which we didn't take, since we had already visited most of the sights on a previous trip to England, but I imagine it's a pretty good option. We did that with one of the City Tour buses last trip and it really is pretty convenient - especially if you don't know London very well. Of course, the advantage of the boat tour is that you don't run into traffic and you get great views! (Link for both the bus and boat tours:  http://www.citycruises.com/sightseeing.aspx)

One of the many wonderful views from the boat

Victoria and Albert Museum

Because we hadn't made it to Kew, we didn't have a plan for after the boat tour, so I suggested the Victoria and Albert Museum (http://www.vam.ac.uk/), which I had loved when I visited a few months ago. It was only open for another hour and a half but we decided to go for a quick visit. The V&A Museum was founded in 1852 and named after Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. It's a design and art based museum, showcasing all different types of design, from ceramics to ironwork, furniture, architecture, fashion and any other design-related subjects you can think of. Since the opening of the museum, it seems as if the collections have just grown like crazy. There are millions of objects and artifacts, spanning continents and millennia, all spread through about 145 different galleries. It is now the world's largest museum of its kind. Though it is huge and impossible to see everything in one full day, never mind a mere hour, it was definitely worth the short visit and my parents enjoyed what little they saw.

Quick tip: the wonderful thing about London is that all the galleries and museums are free. If you're not sure about one or you're running low on time, just pop in and check it out. If you leave after a couple minutes, there's really no loss to you... or you might find a new favourite to return to another day. 

After a pint and pub food, we headed home for the night.

Good food in London:

Waiting in line at Leon

• Poppies Fish and Chips - delicious, though a bit on the greasy side. Portions were huge and we ate two regular size Haddock & Chips between the three of us. We visited the Spitalfields location, but there is another one in Camden. http://poppiesfishandchips.co.uk/
• Leon - Before visiting a Leon restaurant, my mom and I owned 3 of their cookbooks between the two of us. Their cookbooks are sold at Homesense in Canada, but, as far as I know, there aren't any Leon restaurants in Canada. The recipes in their cookbooks always turn out well, so we thought we should probably give the restaurant itself a try. It's a chain of restaurants with the logo "Naturally Fast Food." There are about 20 locations throughout London, so chances are you can find one nearby, especially in Central London. It was excellent and healthy, but some of the recipes I had tried at home tasted very different. Both tasted delicious just... different. It is worth giving Leon a try if you would like a quick, delicious lunch or dinner in London http://leonrestaurants.co.uk/

Until next time,

xx from London

Wien

I know it's been awhile, but let me continue from where I left off - Austria. Vienna, City of Music.

Vienna is so rich in a history and culture I had never really considered before. I didn't know much about Austria before going there; I hadn't realised that so many types of food, art and music had originated there - food, art and music that I'm actually really familiar with.

Viennese sausage

For instance, while I was in Austria, I learned at some point that Wien is the German name for Vienna (which is pronounce Vi-en). And that the German word for Viennese is Wiener. I had never thought about it before, but back in Canada we called those special rolls of meat reserved for hot dogs wieners. Well actually, it's just a Viennese sausage - found sold by street vendors all over the cities in Austria. 

Sachertorte

Sachertorte is another Viennese specialty. It is a dense, rich chocolate cake created by Franz Sacher in 1832. I had seen this cake in cookbooks and menus before, but didn't realise it originated in Austria. Cindy and I tried the sachertorte from the world famous Sacher Hotel. I had to make a journey specifically for the cake the morning we were leaving. It was about half an hour from our hostel, but it was definitely worth it. If you are in Vienna, don't miss out on it. In fact, the baked goods and pastries all over Austria were to die for. 

Death and Life, Gustav Klimt

Setting Sun, Egon Schiele

Another thing I didn't know about Austria was that one of my favourite artists, Gustav Klimt, was Austrian! I had seen his paintings in an exhibit at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto and fell in love with them. But I didn't really look into his background much further than admiring his paintings. Much to my delight, there were a few galleries strongly featuring Klimt paintings in Vienna. One is called Leopold Museum. This one features a collection by Rudolf Leopold, who had focused on Egon Schiele, who was heavily influenced by Klimt. When Leopold began collecting Schiele paintings, they were unknown and inexpensive. In fact, I believe Leopold may have had a hand in bringing Schiele to recognition. The museum features the largest collection of Schiele paintings in the world, as well as many Klimt and a few other artists. I absolutely loved it. 

The Leopold Museum is in an area called the MuseumsQuartier. It is full of museums, each showcasing a distinct genre or artist. There were options to buy tickets to visit a single museum, or multiple ones. Unfortunately, we didn't get there until the evening so we only had time to visit one museum. Cindy went off to the MUMOK (Museum of Modern Art) while I was at the Leopold Museum. If you have a full afternoon, definitely invest in the combined ticket and see as much as you can!

If you like Klimt, another must-see is the Oberes Belvedere. This gallery is part of a Baroque palace called Schloss Belvedere and features art from the late 19th- and early 20th-centuries. Klimt's most famous painting, The Kiss, is showcased at this gallery, which was the highlight for me. There's also a garden outside of the palace, which is probably really nice in the summer, but was pretty bare at the end of October. 

Oberes Belvedere

The Kunsthistorisches Museum has a wide range of art from various eras and areas. These art pieces were collected by the Habsburgs (an important royal family that ruled the Holy Roman Empire between 1438 and 1740 - thank you Wikipedia). Some of my favourite artists presented there were Rubens and Caravaggio, but the collection is so large there is definitely something for everyone. Besides which, the architecture, both on the outside and in, was stunning.

Kunsthistorisches Museum

There are SO many museums, galleries, palaces and gardens to choose from in Vienna. It was hard to choose what to prioritise in only 3 days, but I think we did a pretty decent job. Aside from the museums I mentioned above, we also went to the Hofburg (Imperial Palace - home the Habsburgs from 1273-1918) and Stephansdom (a Cathedral).

View from the Stephansdom

I would like to tell you about the hostel I stayed in, because it was fantastic, but I will leave that for my next post. For now, I hope you enjoyed reading a bit about Vienna!