We just got back from a week’s skiing in one of the highest resorts in Austria. Driving home and seeing where all the snow had melted made this altitude a good choice. The resort exists purely for skiing, so there isn’t much to do there when you are not skiing. Which was a problem when you have a small injury and have to sit out two days of skiing. The hotel was a four star, but compared to other Austrian four stars we have stayed in, it was not up to scratch. Which makes me wonder how the Austrian hotel rating system works. The food was fine but the rooms and general decor of the hotel definitely fell below the standard of other hotels we have stayed in. Being able to drive to the ski resort is so great. Under four hours to get there. It makes me wonder why we didn’t go more often.
I currently live in Wien. I think I had started to take just how easy life is here for granted, child in a buggy wise until my recent trip to New York. New York and Manhattan specifically is not a buggy friendly place. Much and all as I found it difficult, I could only imagine how difficult life would be there if you were in a wheelchair. I can carry a buggy in and out of a subway station and people generally volunteer to help you do just that, but a person in a wheelchair is bunched.
Waiting at the steps of St. Patrick’s to meet my father so he could lift the pram up the steps and we could go in.
Compare and contrast
~ in Wien, the trams come every couple of minutes, if one is an old style step up into, you know that there will be a wheelchair accessible one along in a minute. In New York, it is a total pain in the ass trying to find the subway entrance that has a lift.
~ in Wien, in my experience ALL the U-Bahn stations have lifts, so no line or section of line is precluded from a trip. In New York, whole sections of down town Manhattan have subway stations with no lifts.
~ in Wien, at pedestrian crossings, the entire pedestrian walkway slopes down gently, not some wheelchair wide really steep, really tiny section like in Manhattan.
~ in Wien, most of the shops only have one or maybe two steps up into them, not like an area such as SoHo where the beautiful cast-irons have several steps at a minimum
~ in Wien, all the trains have specific seats and areas allocated to parking prams, seats for pregnant women/parents with a child/the elderly/the physically handicapped/disadvantaged. In New York, there are no sections for prams/buggies and safety straps to hold onto them.
~ in Wien, despite a similar climate to New Yorks, all the shops do not seem to have double sets of HEAVY pull out/push in doors. I got so pissed off trying to open heavy doors that I stopped going into shops and department stores. Instead I fled to the tranquility of Central Park and various museums.
The MoMA cafe on 2, where we got into trouble for leaving our pram in the side aisle as it was a fire escape (fair enough) and the manager suggested moving the pram around the corner while the baby was sleeping in it. Seriously, where was his brain. Two people eating lunch sans baby, avec pram, and he thinks the child might be elsewhere than in the pram??
I love Manhattan, but struggling around there with a buggy really opened my eyes to the fact that it is a very difficult city to raise a child in and also that it must be a nightmare for anyone in a wheelchair. The American, car dependent culture really needs to wake up to the fact that life isn’t all about taxi cabs and cars. Some people have to use subways. They should be accessible to everyone AT EVERY STOP. The weird thing is, Manhattan specifically is a place where car ownership is far less than the American average, mostly, I suppose because people take taxis everywhere. But a taxi is only accessible if you clip your car seat into your buggy/stroller and a small infant cannot be kept in a car seat for a whole day in Manhattan. It is just bad for them. Infants need to sleep, reclined in their prams, or in a sling, not with their head tilted over in a carseat.
The new production at the Met.
My new take on Manhattan is that it is a place for shopping mini-breaks only, with my husband but not our child. At least not until she no longer requires a buggy or she is old enough to sit in her buggy most of the time but capable of getting out when I need to ascend or descend steps down into the burrows that make the city smaller than having to walk twenty or thirty blocks searching for a subway stop you won’t have to bounce your pram down into whilst holding your child in your arms. A risky activity for someone who has regular visions of dropping her child and the terrible trauma/tragedy that would ensue. So maybe when she is three I will take her back there, but not before. The jetlag is a whole other post. The cacophony of Manhattan is also a whole other post and one that requires ear muffs for a baby and really, under normal circumstances, there is no way I would take an infant to New York, but my brother lives there and he wanted to meet his niece, and for reasons of his own, was unable to travel to Vienna to meet her.
Sunset over Long Island sound.
I heart Vienna, it is a dream city to live in with a small baby. I won’t be taking it for granted again any time soon.
Life in Vienna has passed in a blur these past few months, and I couldn’t even begin to post about it all, though maybe I will do a monthly summary at some stage.
Today though, I am posting about the Naschmarkt. The Nashmarkt is where you HAVE to go in Vienna if you want decent meat or fish. Austrians have a love affair with all things schnitzel and if you want a cut of beef or lamb that you can do something with other than make schnitzel, then it’s the U2 to Karlsplatz or the U4 to Kettenbruckengasse.
I got out at Kettenbruckengasse today because that is where we usually go on the weekends. I later discovered that Karlsplatz would have served me just as well because on a weekday, the Naschmarkt is a shortened, quieter affair with the flea market end turned back into a car park.
Here is some of what I saw:
This building and this building:
are famous Viennese buildings. The DK guidebook says so. I just think they are nice to look at. They are
In the Naschmarkt itself, autumn was in the air with lots of pumpkin on display. I was there to get aubergine and celery and carrots, simple things. I couldn’t see celery at any of the stalls and the problem with the Naschmarkt is that if you stop to pause to look at anything, the stall holders are all over you like a rash trying the hard sell. The hardsell plus the fact that a young boy ripped us off during the summer in what he charged us for strawberries has soured the place for me. I try to find the stalls where the holders aren’t shouting at you and offering you stuff to taste (even on a weekday). Some things in life are far more pleasurable, the English Market in Cork being one, where no one hassles you, EVER. I must admit to being slightly put off the Naschmarkt, but maybe if I force myself to go there more often, I will become more accustomed to it and derive more pleasure from it. I must learn the German for “I’m just looking, deciding, please stop hassling me.” I know it is part of the colour and experience, but I loathe it. Stallholders practically fall out over their stalls trying to entice you. Partly because the Naschmarkt repeats itself. A lot.
There was other exotic fare to be had, these, beautiful colour.
