Krems, Durnstien, and Carnuntum

Okay, in the last two days we’ve been all over taking small trips but I haven’t had the time to blog about them right after we got back, so this blog post will be recapping those two days of trips.

On July 31st we took a trip to Krems and Durnstien. The train left from the Hieligenstadt train station and took an hour to get from Wien to Krems. The train was nice and comfortable, it was one of the new Weasel double-decker trains. Once we arrived in Krems we walked across the town to the Character Museum, a museum where they had an exhibit on the creator/ creation of Donald Duck. On the way to the museum Eric stopped at two different stores to look for a new hat, but never found one he liked or was cheap enough. The exhibit was quite large and really well put together I think. It had old originals and a projector showing the new cartoons. There were many models and even some examples of consumer products based on Donald Duck. After we left the museum we walked for about half an hour to an hour until we got to another train station at the end of Krems where we were at that time. We actually would have missed the station entirely if it weren’t for the fact that I glanced up and saw a train driving past. So we climbed the steep hillside up to the platform and waited until the next train came, about 5 minutes. We stayed on that train for about 15 minutes until it arrived in Durnstien.

Once we got off the train we looked for a place to eat lunch since Nathaniel especially was getting hungry. We ended up eating at a very fancy restaurant that was right next to the Danube. After we ate we started our 30 minute climb up to the ruins of the castle. Along the way we stopped to eat some fruit and rest before completing the journey up the rocky stair-like path to the ruins. Once we got there we sat down on part of the inner wall to admire the surrounding land below. We could see the Danube and the place where we ate lunch. We could also see the train station and tracks that led back towards Krems. We then climbed higher into the ruins and Nathaniel took to sitting in a hole in part of the upper wall. This made Mary quite freaked out and scared. On the walk back down from the ruins to the town Nathaniel went far ahead and by the time the rest of us had gotten to the town he had been waiting there for 5 minutes. Before we headed back to the train station Eric stopped at a bakery to get some breads that Oma had asked us to bring back for her. We then walked back to the platform and waited about an hour before the train turned up. We took the train back to Krems, then switched trains and got back on the inter-city train for our hour long journey back to Wien.

Then, yesterday, August 1st, we decided to go to Carnuntum. To get there we took the S7 for an hour until we got to the town. Once we got there we walked for about 20 minutes until we got to the archeological dig that was the first part of the Carnuntum exhibit-like stops. They had half of the dig still active, but the other half of it was open for public viewing. We walked right alongside the ruins and could read about what each section was on information stands they had next to each section. They also had a rebuilt roman home that we could (and did) walk though. To get to the second part of the exhibits (a museum) we had to take the S7 one more stop. It was then a 30 minute walk from the platform to the entrance of the museum. We spent about an hour in the museum looking at the exhibits that were quite neat and cool to look at. On the way back to the train from the museum we stopped to get some ice cream. We then waited about 20 minutes on the platform before the S7 turned up. It was then an hour before we arrived in Wien.

There’s my quick recap of the last two days of three trips. I’m quite sorry that I didn’t get around to writing one post per trip and instead had to compile it all into a single, large, blog post. Enjoy, Alex.