The Swedish Invasion

Slept well in the room.  At first I thought the hotel was somewhat out of the way, but it turns out to be a little bit better location than our last hotel.  Nice breakfast buffet as well and A/C, so yes, I think I’ll book here again.

Last time we took public buses from Lublin, but that didn’t work out very well; the buses were small, people didn’t queue up, and we had to struggle to get on.  This time, I chartered a bus.  Our trip today to Kazimierz Dolny went far easier than last time.  He met us in the lobby, drove us to the town and dropped us off right next to the main rynek (square).

Kazimierz Dolny is a market town.  In its heyday, it controlled a fair amount of Poland’s grain trade with the Baltic, and the many of the older buildings in the city center date from the Renaissance.  In the years before the war, about half the town was Jewish. 

I gave the students a brief orientation tour:  the main rynek, the small rynek (which was the Jewish square), the church, the ruined castle (captured in the Swedish invasion of the 17^th century).  We took a short walk out of town to find the Jewish cemetery.  During the Holocaust, the Nazis created a ghetto in Kazimierz Dolny and destroyed the cemetery by taking the tombstones and using them for paving and construction materials.  In 1984, some of the broken tombstones were recovered and a memorial wall was formed out of them.

Despite the many flying bugs that pestered us, I led a short discussion about what we experienced yesterday at Majdanek.  I need to give the students a chance to talk together about it.

After that we walked back to town.  By now it was 11:30 and I gave the students the next 4 hours to shop for souvenirs, go to the church, walk through the hills or along the river, or climb up to the ruined castle.

I went to eat lunch at a “Jewish-style” restaurant I had visited once before in 2006.  I call it “Jewish style” because it’s not really Jewish.  For example, the appetizers consist of rye bread, sour dill pickles, and lard with fried onions. Some of the students came in and one ordered the roast pork knuckle.  The decorations were all wood paneling and early 20^th century chairs; the music was from the 1980s.

I got the stuffed cabbage and mizeria (cucumbers with dill in sour cream); it wasn’t bad.

Afterwards, I headed for a walk out of town and down the river to the ferry.  Initially, I had hoped to make it across to the castle, but there wasn’t time.  I saw some lovely houses and listened to the birds in the trees.

I take students to Kazimierz Dolny for three reasons:  1) it’s a mini mental health day between the very heavy days of visiting Majdanek (yesterday) and Belzec (tomorrow); 2) it’s important that they don’t only see the dark side of Poland; and 3) they need to understand why Jews loved Poland for nearly 1000 years. 

Because Jews did love Poland.  Kazimierz Dolny is exactly the sort of market town where most Jews lived.  Most of the Jews who lived here were very poor, but they loved the town, the river, and the countryside.  It’s important for the students to understand that the Holocaust was imposed on Poland by the German; it did not spring up from the soil.  Polish-Jewish history is more than six very bad years.

After I got back from my walk through the country side, I stopped by a famous bakery in town for a snack.  They had a strawberry menu, so I ordered the strawberry cheesecake and strawberry lemonade.  What I got tasted a lot more like strawberry mousse and strawberry smoothie.  The cake was good, but I would have appreciated something colder and more tart to drink.

Tonight when we got back, I took a nap for an hour.  When I woke up and went downstairs, I saw what seemed like thousands of Swedish fans heading to the stadium for tonight’s game.  At least two dozen were partying in the hotel’s restaurant. 

I joined some of the students in the Stare Miasto (old city) to watch the game.  We were all rooting for Poland, and at first, the game went Poland’s way.  Later, though, the Swedes recovered.  It looked pretty grim for Poland, but they managed to score a second goal late in the game to tie it up. 

I think this is the best possible scenario for us tonight here in the hotel.  Hopefully, the Swedes won’t be too riled up from either winning or losing to go on a noisy rampage. 

Tomorrow we leave at 9 am for our two hour drive to Belzec.  I’ve warned the students that there is no food for purchase in or near the memorial (nor may food be eaten inside the memorial) and I’ve urged them to pack a lunch.

Logistical Problems

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This has always been a hard day of the trip no matter how many changes I make how it’s done. It’s complicated logistically, and it hits hard emotionally.

This year’s logistical problems started when we arrived in Lublin; up until then, everything had gone smoothly.  I had a lot of problems finding a hotel with available rooms, and I eventually found one about a 15-minute walk from the pedestrian mall.  Last night, I mapped it out and figured out which trams we could take from the central train station, including which bus stop it leaves from, the times of departure, and the number of stops to our hotel.  I figured I had everything covered.  I was wrong.

The bus comes to the right station at the right time and we all get on.  Looking at the chart on the bus, it appears that the bus is going in the opposite direction, so I order everyone in the group off the bus and we trudge across the street to find the bus going in the opposite direction.  Unfortunately, I can’t tell which time table is for Sunday and which is for holidays. Even worse, our stop isn’t listed on the schedule, but it is on a type written addendum posted to the sign.  Eventually I give up and say “we’re walking” (it’s only a 23-minute walk to the hotel).

Meanwhile, one student wants to know where the nearest bathroom is (we were in the middle of nowhere, with no business or shops or even houses around).  I told her that it was behind that tree.  I don’t think she appreciated that.  I suppose bad karma might explain why one of my wheels on my roll aboard suitcase split in half shortly thereafter.

After 10 minutes, we reach a bus stop whose name I recognized.  I looked on the chart and I realized that every bus that stopped there should stop close to our hotel, so we waited for a bus.  It dropped us off a block from our hotel. 

I noticed that there was a group of guys all dressed in Swedish soccer colors ahead of us to check in.  We soon discovered that Sweden played Portugal today in Lublin for the Under 21 UEFA tournament.  A lightbulb went off:  perhaps this is why I couldn’t find vacant hotel rooms?  Sure enough, Sweden is sticking around to play Poland here in Lublin tomorrow night. 

Everywhere we went in Lublin, we saw groups of Swedish fans dressed in yellow with blue accents.  People walked by singing Abba songs or leading chants.  I saw several very drunk fans staggering down the street tonight.

As it was late and hot, I figured I would buy the students lunch so we could get to our afternoon destination early.  That backfired spectacularly.  I picked a café with lots of shaded and enough empty tables to accommodate 11 people.  I told the students that I would cover the food but that they were responsible for their own drinks.  And then we waited.  And waited.  And waited.  Our food didn’t come until nearly an hour after we sat down.  It’s not that it was bad, it just took forever.

As a result, we didn’t reach Majdanek until nearly a quarter of 4 pm.  The main museum and barracks closes at 5 pm, so that meant we had to rush much faster than I would like.

I think the biggest shock of visiting Majdanek is how close it is to the city.  We took a bus, got off at a regular stop on a normal street, and you look across and see the concentration camp.  People live in apartment buildings that come up right to the fence (and they lived just a close, though not as densely, 70 years ago).  You can hear church bells, radios, and even a political rally being held nearby.  And prisoners in the camp could see and hear the town just as well.

Although Majdanek was a relatively small camp with a relatively small death toll (about 80,000 people murdered hear, 75% Jewish), because it was liberated by the Soviets in July 1944 (the first camp to be liberated), some of its structures survived intact (such as the gas chambers and the ovens), while others, such as the barracks, were partially or fully reconstructed. One can still see where the concrete in the gas chamber turned blue due to exposure to cyanide. 

Nearby is a one-story mound of human ash and bone exposed to the air.  I explained how, in my opinion, this is so disrespectful to the people murdered here.  They were brutally murdered, and their bodies desecrated through cremation.  Now there bones (and you can see individual bones in the pile) lie unburied on display and exposed to the air and the elements.

The camp closes at 6 pm, and the last thing I wanted was to be locked in to Majdanek (it’s very easy to get out over the symbolic fence, but I still preferred to leave through the open main gate), so we had to hurry to make it out in time. 

Back at the hotel, we formally checked into our rooms, and I headed up to the pedestrian mall for dinner.  

 I went back to Vanilla Café, where I knew I had a good meal last time.  I went very light with a mushroom soup followed by a crispy duck salad over lettuce, rocket (arugala), warm pear, and melon, topped with a raspberry vinaigrette.  It was very good.

I decided not to get dessert in the restaurant, but head over to Bosko, a Polish ice cream store with two 20+-minute lines out front.  

I was curious what made it so popular.  Among the unusual flavors they offered were:

Peanut halvah
Poppy seed
Kinder surprise
Nesquik
Kangus (sort of like Golden Grahams)
Stracciatella (chocolate chip)
Chocolate
Vege Oreo
Mascarpone with fruit

I got a single scoop of chocolate.  It was very good, but I’m not sure it really was worth that wait.

The Warsaw 'Rising

Our hotel here in Warsaw is conveniently located.  That’s about it when it comes to praises.  The students all commented on how small the shower and bathrooms are (one compared it to being on a submarine).  The good news is that we only have one more night here.

After the long, overnight train where so few students got restful sleep, I delayed the start of today’s class until 10 am.  Our goal this morning was the Museum of the Warsaw ‘Rising.  While very well known in Poland, few non-Poles have heard of it.  This is because for over 40 years, the Polish Community Party did everything it could to suppress the memory of it.  At 5 pm on 1 August 1944, the Home Army, the largest underground in Europe launched a rebellion against German rule in Warsaw.  In a matter of hours, the Germans were successfully driven out of much of the city.

The goal of the ‘Rising was to free the Polish capital before Soviet troops entered.  The Soviets had already created a communist-led provisional government in Lublin, and the Home Army and the Polish Government in exile in London wanted Warsaw to be independent and run by the Polish government.  As Soviet forces approached the east bank of the Visła River, the Home Army acted. 

The decision was controversial among the Home Army and Polish Government leaders because while the Home Army had enough weapons to drive the Germans away, they couldn’t hold the city against a sustained counter attack.  The Home Army’s plan depended on Stalin coming to their aid by continuing its advance across Poland.  This was a fatal mistake.

Stalin’s forces halted their advance and he, for a while, refused to allow American planes seeking to aid the Poles, to refuel in Soviet territory. Eventually, Stalin relented, but only after he realized that the air drops had limited effectiveness (most of the supplies fell in the river or the German zone).  As the Germans advanced through Warsaw, they destroyed the city.  When the Woła well, all 40,000 inhabitants were massacred.  First the historic renaissance-era city center burned, followed by the surrounding neighborhoods.  By October, Warsaw was forced to surrender to the Germans, for a second time.  Nearly 200,000 (out of 900,000) Varsovians were dead and the city was little more than a pile of rubble.  Almost all the remaining population was deported to internment camps, concentration camps, or to Germany for forced labor.  When Soviet forces finally cross the river in January, less than 1,000 people still lived in the ruins of the Polish capital.

Warsaw was so badly damaged that it wasn’t clear if it would be rebuilt.  If you search for images of the 1948 Monument to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, look for one that shows the area around the monument; you’ll see that there’s only rubble. 

The Museum of the Warsaw ‘Rising is not the world’s most coherent museum.  The numbered signs for museum sections, for example, no longer match the numbers in the official plan.  Still, one can get a pretty clear sense of the course of the ‘Rising and the massive losses endured by Warsaw despite their heroic struggle.  The end of the exhibit there’s a 3D computer recreation of the ruins of Warsaw a few months after Soviet forces retook it.  It’s devastating.

We headed over to the reconstructed Old Town, walking from the rebuilt Warsaw Castle 

to the rebuilt Old Town Square (they used Canaletto paintings to get the colors of the buildings right.  

I gave the students an hour and a half to get lunch and do some souvenir shopping, pointing out a few good places to buy amber.  I headed over to a milk bar I like just outside the Barbican.  A milk bar is a communist-era institution that’s really just an old-fashioned cafeteria.  You buy your food and the grandmothers pass it to you through a hole in the wall.

Afterwards, we walked down to the Umschlagplatz (deportation square), where we went over the fate of the 300,000 Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto who were sent here between July and September 1942, and from here sent to Treblinka Death Camp, where virtually all of them were gassed on arrival.  Nearby is the monument to ghetto fighters at Miła 18.  The bodies of the 100 fighters who died here, including their commander, the 23-year old Mordechai Anielewicz, and many civilians who had taken refuge in the largest of the bunkers in the ghetto, still lie under the one-story high pile of rubble.

Along the way, I noticed some anti-Semitic graffiti showing the Star of David on the gallows, had been drawn on a wall near the Old Town.

 

I took the students back to the hotel.  I think they are going out tonight to the free concert next door.  They went last night and had a very good time.  All evening, trams have been dropping off 100s of young Poles to go to tonight’s event. 

I went instead to Nowy Świat to Blikle Café, a very upscale café on a street closed to traffic on the weekends.  Instead of cars, it’s full of Poles strolling in the late afternoon sunshine.  I ordered a Kremowka (also known and a Napoleonka) and a cappuccino and read today’s paper, while watching the parade of Varsovians and tourists walking past. 

It was a little late in the afternoon for such a rich dessert, so I knew it would affect my appetite for dinner.  In the end, all I ate later was a roll and some orange juice.

Now it’s time to start packing up before I go to bed.

New Things

Last time I took students to Vienna, several of the students became convinced the hotel was haunted.  I chalked that up to one student who believed any building older than 50 years was haunted, and a sociology student who decided to stoke their fears by telling them he was hearing moans and other noises.  This year, however, several other students told me they thought the hotel was haunted (without knowing anything about the prior class).  One told me she had heard a child running in the hall at 3 and 4 am, but never heard a door open. The other told me that someone or something had suddenly knocked the fan over.  Haunted or not, I like this hotel, its buffet, and its location, so we’re coming back in two years, ghost or no ghost.

Normally, when we finish in Vienna we head on to Budapest, but I’ve had so many logistical problems in Budapest the last two times, I decided to go right to Warsaw.  The problem is that the overnight train to Warsaw doesn’t leave until 10:50 pm, but we check out of the hotel in the morning.  How should we spend the rest of the day?

I put together a plan:  tour the Jewish Museum in Vienna and the Stadttempel, have lunch in the Naschmarkt, tour Schloß Schönbrunn, dinner in the Altstadt (perhaps at Trześniewskis), and then dessert and drinks at Café Landtmann before picking up our luggage in storage from the hotel and heading off to Wien Hauptbahnhof.  It would have all worked like a charm except for one thing:  Thursday was the Catholic feast of Corpus Christi.

My first clue should have been when the Jewish Museum told me that the synagogue would be closed for a holiday.  Holiday?  I thought.  What holiday?  I checked the Jewish calendar to see if I overlooked something, but nothing was there.  Maybe it’s something local.

I only found out Thursday morning when I discovered all the shops were closed, including the tobacconist, where I had intended to buy our metro day passes.  As I walked to the nearest station for a machine, I could see all stores were closed.  I had already confirmed the museum was open, so we went and toured what for me was a new presentation.  Gone were the cheesy holograms on the 3^rd floor, replaced by a good chronological history.

Eichmann’s office’s chart on their success in expropriating and expelling Austrian Jews was chilling.

Their temporary exhibition was on merchant culture in Austria and I met two cousins, one from Australia, the other from the U.S.  The woman from New York turned out to be a 94-year old survivor.  As a Mischling (only a mother was Jewish), she was spared from wearing the Jewish star, and could go out to buy food, but she couldn’t marry, or go to university.  All she would tell me of her experiences during the war is that the Austrians were worse than the Germans.  I asked her if she would be willing to talk to my students, but she declined, saying that she gets very emotional when she goes over this.

I met my students and we headed over to the Naschmarkt.  The day was getting hot and I figured I’d find a nice shady and cool place to eat in the market, but no, the entire market was closed for the holiday.  We ended up going to Hauptbahnhof just to find something decent to eat.  In the meantime, I bought Mozart Kugeln to surprise the students with later.

From there we headed out to Schloß Schönbrunn, Empress Maria Theresa’s out of town, but now in town palace.  I bought timed tickets, but we couldn’t enter until 4:28 and it was only 3:10.  I figured we would stroll through the gardens, which were lovely, but it was so, so hot.  Every time we passed a water fountain, I urged the students to drink and then top off their bottles.

The fountains and gardens really were lovely, and were even enjoyable in the shade.

Finally, our turn came to tour the house and we got our audio guides and made our way through the crowds.  Signs insisted that all photos, even with flash, were prohibited, but I did manage to sneak one shot of the small ballroom, and helped another student get a shot of the main ballroom.

By the time we finished it was after 5:30, so we made our way back to Stephensplatz for dinner.  I hoped to go to Trześniewskis, which I knew was open until 7:30 pm, except on holidays, it turns out, when they close at 5 pm.  Nothing was going my way, it seemed.  After 20 minutes of walking, I finally founded a bakery where I could get a sandwich.  Afterwards, I headed over to Aida for a coffee and to read the paper.

At 7:30 we met to go to Café Landtmann.  It took faster than I thought, and I didn’t want to show up really early for my 8 pm reservation, so I tried to stroll leisurely to the Ring.  As it happens, Vienna Pride opened their fair and booths virtually opposite the café, so we took a quick walk over.

When we got to the café, our table was waiting in the climate controlled outdoor area.  I bought the students one dessert and one non-alcoholic drink.  Unfortunately, on such a hot day, the café had sold out of strawberry ice cream.  In the end, though, everyone was very happy with what they ordered.

I ended up with the nuß krokant becher, somewhat similar to what I got on the boat in Dresden.  It had vanilla and walnut ice cream, along with chocolate sauce, nuts, crocant (a kind of nut brittle), whipped cream, and waffle tubes.  It was very good.

Everything went well with picking up our luggage and getting to the train.  With only one other male passenger in the group, I had no choice but to share a sleeping compartment with a student; the only time I ever do.  The nine female students were split between three compartments. 

Several of the students are suffering from bad colds and congestion, and as the train began to move, a few of them started to develop motion sickness.  I went from cabin to cabin urging any who felt sick to lie flat on their backs and close their eyes.  That seems to have worked.  Only about a third of the students (plus me) slept well on the train.  The others had difficulty getting used to the train’s movements. 

I wasn’t able to get our usual hotel in Warsaw, but I booked one in the same building.  I was kind of wondering how that would work, but it turns out that this building is shared by three hotels, each with their own staff, accommodations, and breakfast.  The one we’re in seems definitely down market from the other. That explains why it was so cheap. 

After a so-so breakfast, we headed out to tour the fragments of the ghetto.  After some difficulty we found the last remaining pieces of the ghetto wall, and I talked about the effort to save them from the Polish communist government.  I also brought photos of the wall’s construction.

From there we toured the Nozyk Synagogue, which provided an opportunity to explain aspects of Jewish religious culture.

I treated the students to lunch at Zapiecek, a chain restaurant specializing in pierogis.  In the past, pierogis quickly become the students’ favorite food in Poland.

Last time, we toured the Polin Museum as individuals, but the museum is simply to jam packed to see that way, particularly for students with no background in Jewish history or culture, so this year I hired a guide.  This was the right decision; she really helped by highlighting the most important aspects of the museum’s collection.

The museum is really well designed and covers a rich and complex topic very well.  The guide spent a fair amount of time on the Holocaust section, but that worked well with the topic of our class.  I was really surprised how much she managed to cover in just two hours.

Before we left the area, I showed them the two monuments to the ghetto uprising (the first, from 1946, and the more famous, from 1948).  I also talked about Jan Karski and recounted, while fighting back tears, what he witnessed in the ghetto and his efforts to get the western powers to intervene on behalf of Polish Jewry.

We barely made it back to the hotel before pouring rain hit.  Luckily, it lifted before we left for Ec Chaim (in English spelling Etz Chaim), a reform synagogue in Warsaw, very close to our hotel. The students (only one of whom is Jewish) weren’t sure what to expect and since I had never been there, I didn’t know what to expect either.  As it happens, there was another smaller group of English speakers there, so the rabbi did his sermon in English.

I was surprised by how Orthodox the prayerbook (in Hebrew and Polish) was; it was not even conservative, let alone reform.  The melodies, on the other hand, were exactly the melodies they sing at American Jewish summer camps.  A rather strange mixture.

I forced the students to sit and talk with the Poles over dinner, but it was rather hard; in part, a few of the Poles told me, because they too were nervous about talking to the Americans (not sure why).  I had a long chat with the rabbi, who is from Tashkent (though of Polish heritage).  His family moved to Central Asia to escape the Nazis.

That’s about all for now.  Time to do laundry and go to bed.

The Mental Health Day - Salzburg

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Wednesday was our mental health day for the trip (at least the official one – there are two other unofficial ones).  There were no assignments or scheduled events for the students.  They could sleep in, do nothing, or anything they liked.

In the past, I’ve gone to tour the Belvedere Palace, but this time I decided to go to Salzburg for the day.  Three other students decided to come with me, so we went to the train station and bought a combination ticket for Salzburg for 99 Euros. This included round trip tickets (normally 103 Euros), plus all ground transportation in Salzburg (5.70 Euros), plus various museum entry fees.  I think we figured out that altogether, each of us saved over 60 Euros).

It’s a somewhat long trip to Salzburg from Vienna; even at 150 – 225 km/h it took nearly three hours to get there (coming back was quicker – just 2.5 hours).  On arrival, we hit the supermarket and bakery for lunch materials and then headed out to the Mirabell Gardens and Palace for our picnic lunch.  One of the students was a very big Sound of Music fan, so I suggested the gardens, since that’s where they sang the “Do-Re-Mi” song. 

The weather was somewhat nice.  Not too hot, but a little humid if we were not getting the breeze.  The gardens were lovely and some of the roses even had scents.  Tons of tours groups coming through like swarms of bees every few minutes, with the guides recounting the Sound of Music scene in English or German.

We took a bus over to the main town side of the river and visited Mozart’s birth house.  It was about what you would expect.  The story of his life illustrated with portraits and a few family items.  I enjoyed seeing his violin.  No photos allowed, but if one’s phone is on mute and no guards visible …

By now it was around 2:30, so I suggested we go up to the top of the alp (the Untersberg) before it gets any later.  We arrived at the cable car just after 3:00 pm, missing that tram up as it turned out.  For reasons I don’t understand, the bus to the cable car station arrives five minutes after the cable car leaves.  Since the cable car runs every 30 minutes, you end up wasting all this time at the bottom just waiting.  Same problem on the way down, by the way.  The bus leaves five minutes before the cable car arrives at the bottom (though since the buses run every 20 minutes, the wait to leave isn’t so bad).

Once we were on, the car climbs 1300 meters in 9 minutes, with spectacular views on the way.  From the top, you can see all of Salzburg and Alps that lie to its south.  I love being in the mountains, probably more than the beach or anywhere else.

Last time I was here, I had Kaiserschmarrn in the lodge, but they told me that they couldn’t make it for me today.  Instead, we had to settle for hot apple strudel with whipped cream.  I know it’s kind of snobby of me, but I could tell the whipped cream was from a can, not fresh.  The strudel was good, though.

I glanced at my watch and saw that it was now 4:20.  The last cable car leaves for the bottom at 5:00 pm, and if we missed it, it was a 3-hour walk down.  We took a few last photos and ran for the 4:30 car.  It turns out that they add an extra car at 4:45 to make sure that everyone can get down, but I didn’t know that.  We shared our cable car down with a cute dog that seemed somewhat scared (though I don't think he was tall enough to see the view)

Back on the bottom, we took the bus back but stopped at Schloß Hellbrunn, a 400 year-old pleasure palace of the archbishop who ruled Salzburg. They filmed the gazebo scene here, but as we entered, we went to the Wasserspiele entrance.  They asked for our ticket and we showed them our Salzburg cards.  “But you need this ticket” he insisted, but I kept showing our cards and he said “alright, you can enter.”  We were able to catch the last tour of the “water tricks” section of the palace.

The archbishop appears to have had rather secular tastes, and liked to play tricks on his guests when they came to have wine parties at his palace.  In each area, the guide can flip a switch and spray everyone with water.  I found this out when she asked for volunteers at the first grotto, where the archbishop and guests would sit around a fountain drinking wine.  No one would do it, so I volunteered. As I sat, water shot up from all the other seats around me.  However, I was sitting in the archbishop’s seat, so I remained (nervous but) dry.  This was the only time, however, where we didn’t get sprayed.

Further on, there were a variety of grottos where the guide flipped a switch and a fountain squirted water on us.  In one, I saw she was standing behind a low metal barrier, so I scooted in right beside her. “Do you think this will protect you?” she asked me.  “Oh, I’m just trying to hear you better,” I answered.  It did shield me, though.

The water-driven mechanical orchestra and birds were a lot of fun, and everyone got a laugh out of being sprayed with water.  We dried pretty quick and no one was soaked through.

Afterwards, we headed into the garden where we found the gazebo and took many, many pictures.

By now it was nearly 6 pm, so we headed back in town so the students could buy some souvenirs. Along the way, we found a fountain by the cathedral where Julie Andrews shot one scene. 

Eventually, we found a decent place for dinner.  We all ordered the Spinatknödel, which were two dumplings made with spinach and nuts and served with butter and cheese.  They were light but filling and came with a side salad.

For dessert, I was finally able to order Kaiserschmarrn. I was so excited that I forgot to take a photo until after I had eaten a third of it.

By the time we finished dinner we had about 45 minutes to make the 9:08 pm train back to Vienna.  We walked to the river and found a bus in no time at all.  

 I think we all were pretty tired when we made it back to the hotel a little after midnight, but emotionally and psychically, we were rested.