Taking the Kids: From Vienna to Lake Wolfgang
June 2008, Hemispheres
With sausages of every stripe, toy train rides and paddle-boats, and mountains reflected in crystal-clear lakes, Diane Mehta finds her toddler makes the most of their time in Austria.
Austria brings up visions of Habsburg-era imperial palaces, sausages and Sacher torte, Strauss’s waltzes, and the grassy peaks of the Alps jutting into expanses of blue, as seen in The Sound of Music. Friends wondered why my husband Tom and I were jetting halfway across the world to a place that surely would not captivate the imagination of our energetic, playground-obsessed toddler. But we signed up through Intervac (intervac.com) for a home exchange with a couple from Vienna, so our time there would cost nothing. And since they also had a toddler, our son Ivan would have a kid-size bed and plenty of toys to play with. It was a good start. We could cook at home, crucial for a picky eater.
We stayed in Währing, the 18th district and a quiet section of town a short tram ride away from the heart of Vienna, the 1st district, bounded by the Ringstrasse. Vienna is criss-crossed by trams, which Ivan loved. They swooshed around curves and veered into relief with clanging bells and flashing lights. It was almost as good as a firetruck. Since Ivan insisted on getting on and off, and sitting, by himself. He liked to air his independence, mimicking us—“Don’t walk too close to the train or it will squish you!”—and wagging his finger disapprovingly if I ventured too close to the street.
Vienna was everything we expected, with konditori—sweets shops—coffee houses, and würstelstände (sausage stands) on every corner. I had two goals: art and cake. I knew Ivan would only share one of them, so I set my sights on a single museum, the Leopold Museum (9 euros adult, kids <8 free) in the MuseumsQuartier (mqw.at). I was eager to see their fin-de-siècle paintings—many by Egon Schiele, along with a handful of Klimts and Kokoschkas. Tom and I kept Ivan semi-entranced for 15 minutes, calling attention to funny looking portraits or skies that didn’t look like skies. He asked a lot of questions and found everything silly. Then he realized the building had an echo, and decided to test it out. Minutes later Tom sped him out the door and left me alone with the artwork. I took my time. I stood for a long time in front of Kokoschka’s remarkable Tre Cochi, a green and blue mountainscape with pale, diffused sunlight after a storm, while a horse pauses below purple and black mountains that zigzag across the canvas, flanked by dozens of dark evergreens.
Tom and Ivan had head around the corner to the Zoom Kindermuseum, a hands-on playspace designed to look like an cartoonish underwater world (Zoom Ocean, EUR 4 kids, adult free, www.kindermuseum.at), no doubt created to entertain kids with one parent in tow while the other browses galleries. Ivan happily spent an hour at Zoom; when it was over, he insisted on remaining in the courtyard at the kids’ play area. They had miniature tractors to ride on in a “quarry” full of pebbles,” a industrial-size bubble-making table that works by moving a wooden lever, and an entire jungle gym that resembled a ropes course inside the information room, with timely, detailed advice on every kids-oriented activity in town.
In the pedestrian courtyard that connected many of the museums were several outdoor eateries. Café Leopold was our favorite, plunked down next to concrete benches shaped like modernist boats—which Ivan liked to jump off—and serving something I wasn’t getting a lot of: Salad. Tom seemed content with würstel, a hot dog with shredded horseradish and bitter olives on the vine, while Ivan dove into his foot-long hot dog with French fries.
Our next stop was the heart of the imperial city, the sprawling Schönbrunn Palace (schoenbrunn.at). Knowing how Ivan would fare if we toured the imperial apartments, we stuck with the gardens and fountains outside, lounging around but managing to avoid a crowd of skinheads gathering in one corner. We exited the palace into the world of horse-drawn carriages—the old Vienna of narrow cobblestone streets and sturdy Baroque buildings. We were looking for Café Sacher, to eat the hotel’s justifiably famous Sacher Torte, a dense, cakey wedge of chocolate. Amidst red velvet furnishings and dainty silver trays we ate our cakes before hastily moving on to a more contemporary dinner at Palmenhaus (palmenhaus.at). The place is styled like a greenhouse with cast-iron accents, and populated with dozens of palms and dripping vines studded with fat green leaves. It would be the first of our two grand meals in Vienna.
Most days we cooked at home or grabbed food on the go. In our neighborhood we sampled sandwiches from Trzesniewski (trzesniewski.at), a chain of open-face sandwich shops throughout Vienna. These were our favorite. Lined up in neat rows were open-faced finger sandwiches layered of pureed herring, eggs, pepperoni, sardines, tuna fish and tomato, topped with rings of raw onions, chives or paprika. Other days we took the tram to a nearby park in our district, where Ivan could get the necessary playground time and meet some playmates. There, in the park, we ate meals of buttery grilled cheese sandwiches and, you guessed it, hot dogs.
Being a rather food-obsessed family, we were curious about Naschmarkt (4th district, between Linke and Rechte, near Karlsplatz, Mon-Sat, 6:30am-6:30pm), Vienna’s bustling outdoor food market, which gets packed with locals and chefs looking for top-tier produce, cheeses, and meats. We pretty much ate our way through the place and piled our groceries into the stroller: exotic fruits, cheeses, grainy breads, and plenty of ham. After gooey, inedible crepes at one of the smoky sit-down cafes mid-market, we head to the ubiquitous würstelstände in a dark corner, where Ivan happily chowed down yet another hot dog. We were all pleased make a stop at Oberlaa (oberlaa-wien.at), a chain of high-end dessert shops that proved to be a much tastier, and more kid-friendly alternative to the famous, if not service-oriented, Demel (demet.at), known for its gorgeous displays and super-sweet, extra-creamy cakes. Oberlaa’s hand-made chocolate mousse cake and macaroons were more refined, and simply stellar. We frequented the cheery, elegant shop near our home at least once daily for their fresh ice-cream, chocolates and cakes, or for a rich espresso. Unlike our last vacation (India), Ivan would not be losing weight here.
We knew we had to make a stop at the old-fashioned amusement park in the Prater (prater.at), a sprawling park that was once an imperial hunting ground. It reminded me of Brooklyn’s Coney Island, where my sister and I made our way through every ride, trailed by our grandparents, as a kid. Ivan was out of his skin when we let him man his own little convertible car and race along the tracks. But most of all he loved going on the bumper cars with Tom. Contrary to everything we had taught him about being aggressive, here he was allowed—encouraged!—to bump into others head-on. And although in our eyes the spin around the park on the miniature Liliputbahn train became tedious, Ivan was steadfast, settling his gaze on every new ride we passed and hooking his arm around me, delighted but slightly nervous to be riding an “actual” red train.
After a week in Vienna we all longed for the country. We unwound for the next four days in the Salzkammergut Lake District (salzkammergut.at) near Salzburg in the western part of Austria, at a cozy lakefront inn recommended by our Viennese house-swapping friends. Landhaus zu Appesbach (http://www.schlosshotels.co.at or appesbach.com), in the town of St. Wolfgang, has ivy-draped walls, a second-floor patio overlooking the purple mountains that rim the lake, and gorgeous enamelwork wood stoves in the guest rooms. They couldn’t have been nicer or more kid-friendly—despite the fact that dinner was formal, and women showed up for meals in dirndls. They happily cooked pasta and sausage for Ivan, and filled up his sippy cup with milk at night. A trampoline was installed in the yard next to a swing set, a few yards away from the lake. Anchored at a small pier that juts out into the lake was an antiquated wooden rowboat, where several times a day we’d hop in for a quick spin, with Tom manning the oars.
When we wanted to explore more of the lake, we walked into town—a tiny, slightly touristy resort town with embellished old-style architecture, and rented a paddle boat or motor boat to putter over to nearby towns around the lake. On the final evening of our trip, after peaceful days of icy dips in Lake Wolfgang and afternoons looking for slugs in the grass or fish below the dock, we discovered our room was infested with wasps. We had been so thrilled with being in the mountains, at a lake so clean you can drink the water (really), that we didn’t stop to consider how much nature there was. A young woman at the hotel desk gave us a can of insecticide and suggested we spray it directly on them. Ivan and I watched through a glass door while Tom lunged at the group of wasps with the spray can. Tom raced back while the wasps angrily ricocheted about the room. Ivan and I ran back downstairs in our pajamas to ask for help, right through the salon, where several couples were having drinks. This time they sent up the gardener. Armed with only a hand towel, he marched into the room and whacked each wasp out of existence. The next day, stories about the wasp episode were slung about the salon and dining room, with guests laughing about how Ivan, in his pajamas, came trundling down the stairs, yelling, “We got so many wasps! So many wasps!”
SIDEBAR:
Julius Meinl (Graben 19, 01/532-3334, meinlamgraben.at), which started as a coffee house in 1862 and now houses a gorgeously vibrant food arcade of Willie Wonka-style scale—thousands of delicacies, hundreds of cheeses, and three eating destinations: a terrace café with doors swung open to the street, a restaurant with soft orange banquettes rimming pictures windows over the pedestrian-only Graben, and a cool basement wine bar.
At Meinl Restaurant, we had one of the most extraordinary meals of our lives. The trick: keeping Ivan entertained and encouraging the servers to bring our courses quickly. The last thing we wanted to do with an attention-challenged toddler was linger. Tom ordered lamb chops; I had roasted calamari and stuffed quail with earthy mushrooms. Ivan rebelled at his oxtail ravioli, which was covered in a network of pea-green foam. No amount of explaining could convince him it was edible. Sighing, we scraped every inch of foam from the raviolis (and ate it) while the servers looked on curiously. Then Ivan devoured the oxtail. Instead of ordering dessert, we turned the corner into Meinl’s pastry section and bought a plum cake sprinkled with powdered sugar (Zwetschken Kuchen, E 2.15), a delicious combination of tart-sweet plums and spongy, fruit-softened pastry.
