G & J away from home

Friday, 15 May

Vienna

Last day in Vienna and we walked around to the bakery to pick up some lunch before checking out of the hotel.  The lobby of the InterContinental Hotel is a nice enough place to wait four hours if you have a pile of good reading on the Kindle, but Gary opted to go for a last walk around the city.

And look what he found!  My favourite building, the Secession Building with its gold filigree dome.

The Secession Building

'Secession' is not-quite-but-almost synonymous with Art Nouveau and Mr Wikipedia says of the building:

The Secession Building is an exhibition hall built in 1897 by Joseph Maria Olbrich as an architectural manifesto for the Vienna Secession.... Secession refers to the seceding of a group of rebel artists from the long-established fine art institution.

As you can see Gary was not only good enough to take photos of that building but of the spectacular Karlsplatz station building.

Karlsplatz station building

This is another building by the group of architects and artists responsible for all my favourite bits in Vienna.  Let's face it, I'm an Art Nouveau junkie.  Again from Wikipedia:

Karlsplatz Stadtbahn Station is a former station of the Viennese Stadtbahn. The buildings above ground on Karlsplatz are a well-known example of Jugendstil [Art Nouveau] architecture. These buildings were included in The Vienna Secession, as they followed many of the artistic styles of that movement. They were designed by Otto Wagner, adviser to the Transport Commission in Vienna, and Joseph Maria Olbrich and are, unlike the other Stadtbahn stations, made of a steel framework with marble slabs mounted on the exterior.

The station was opened ... in 1899.

Karlsplatz station building - detail

Gary also managed to get some photos (on his way out and his way back) of the church that dominated our hotel room view over Vienna.

The church with two columns

Detail

To Amsterdam

A little after 4pm we headed out to the airport - all 43 of us former Avalon Vista passengers and Stefano, our replacement 'cruise director' (Istvan having gone on with the passengers who opted for the bus tour).  We made quite a crowd moving from the bus to the check-in counter with all our bags.

Although we managed to get checked in as a group they weren't able to (or gave up trying to) seat people travelling together, together.  Gary and I were one of the exceptions seated in row 25.  At the departure gate, before boarding, we were assigned new seats in row 6 as apparently the plane was a bit heavy and they wanted all the passengers as far forward as they could get them.  (Didn't apparently want them forward enough to use up the business class seats at the front, though, I notice.)

The extra weight onboard might just have been Avalon's contribution: With some of the passengers not having intended to fly anywhere they had packed somewhat heavier that suited flying, and with more bags.  Again the company came to party and told us there was no restriction on number or weight of bags we could check.  Even I went a little crazy and let my large carry-on be checked baggage for this flight!

Flying into Amsterdam

At the airport another Avalon representative was on-hand to help Stefano shepherd us onto the waiting bus and about 30 minutes later we puled into the Movenpick Hotel on the waterfront in Amsterdam.  It was always going to be a good hotel, having the same name as ice-cream, but in the lobby the loitering area is surrounded by bookshelves - with books - and also boasts a fireplace.  I was a little too disorganised to take a photo but I will do so tomorrow.

We headed off to the 17th floor, looking forward to getting to bed as it was nearly 11pm, but before Gary was allowed to unpack I wanted to take photos of the room all nice and neat and with the lovely view of the lights of Amsterdam out the window.

Photo-bombed

Oh well. :o)

Nighty-night from Amsterdam.
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