Sorry for not updating until now, we have just been busy sightseeing and planning what to do next!
So--We both had downloaded a Rick Steves walking tour of Vienna, which we decided to do prior to our food tour. It was another really good overview of the city. I think it took us about 90 minutes or so to finish.
Our food tour involved tasting Viennese coffee and a pastry, a street food hot dog, some fresh bread from a local bakery, open face sandwiches and some chocolate. I wish these food tours would include samplings of the foods their culture is famous for, such as Sacher torte, Wiener schnitzel, etc. We ended up having those items on our own--I didn't care for either--too dry for me. :)
The day was very hot, especially for Vienna--92, and we stood during the entire food tour (3 hours), so we were exhausted, especially since we had done the walking tour, too. We went back to the apartment and enjoyed our ac.
The next morning, we packed most of our stuff, and then left to go visit the Hopsburg Palace and Sisi Museum. It was a beautiful day, all the hot air was gone and it was so refreshing! No photos allowed in the Palace again. I had read about the life of Sisi in a book called The Accidental Empress, so I was fascinated to see her museum and where she'd lived. What a tragic life she had! Makes me glad I'm just a low life peasant. :)
We got a message from our host in Coverack, England saying that we may have heard that their area had suffered severe storms, but she was okay. We were to tell the police at the top of the hill that we were staying with her and they would let us through! We googled Coverack and couldn't believe what we were seeing! It looked like the little village was being washed away from floodwaters! We wrote her back and she assured us all was good--they had electricity, etc. Since we had already paid for the place, we decided to go ahead and give it a try.
We caught a plane from Vienna to London, first time on Easy Jet. The flight was delayed by an hour, then we waited in the passport control line for an hour...by the time we got the rental car, it was 8:00 pm. We had gained an hour, so really it felt like 9:00. We were both starving and so tired. I was glad we had decided to stay at an airport hotel for the night instead of fighting London traffic. Turned out to be a wise decision!
The next morning, we headed out for Cornwall. Rich had a hard time getting used to sitting on the right (other) side of the car, with me on the left. He also tends to hug the left side of the road and these roads are incredibly narrow with enormous hedges...I constantly feel like we are going to scrape up the side of the car! And we were in a brand new Mercedes!
Anyway, the GPS said it was 280 miles and would take us 6 hours. We left at 7:45 and arrived around 3:00. Totally Worn Out! At least England has great signs, which helps with navigating.
They have the strangest, most confusing "services" off the highways--and unknown to us, school just ended for summer, so every place was PACKED with families traveling. All the exits take you to a roundabout, with all these other roads and it was so incredibly confusing. And then there's the damned hedges! You can't see anything for them. We did manage to stop and get a bite to eat, it was like being at a mall food court and buccees all in one, only enormous and full of people. I think that stop cost us an hour at least.
One very cool thing that happened on the way was we were driving along and I looked over and saw this pile of rocks, I told Rich it looked like what I'd imagined Stonehenge to look like, only smaller. And there were no people around it at all. Next thing you know, we are seeing signs for Stonehenge!! It was the real deal! I took several pictures and found out later that you can't get near the stones any longer. So we've marked that off our list of things to see!! What a letdown!! LOL
Our host is a nice older lady, she lives in the house next to us. We are in a small cottage but it's perfect for us, and it has a beautiful view of the sea. The weather has been on the chilly side, highs in the 60's, lows in the 50's. After the heat of Vienna, it's nice!
We walked down into the village for dinner the first night--shared fish and chips--and could see where the floods had washed away the road. However, the heavy equipment was there and it was almost finished being repaired!!
So this recaps Friday and Saturday. I'll have to wait to post pictures later, the upload speed is too slow here. Check back later to see the photos that will go with this entry.