Roads Less Traveled

• How dog-friendly they are-Vienna gets bonus points on this score.  I have seen dogs everywhere.  They are allowed in the city parks, on the trains, and even in the hotel lobbies.  Big dogs, little yappers, doesn’t matter.  They sit at restaurants with their owners.  Without begging.  Compare that with Melbourne, Florida, where they made a big deal out of devoting about a 100 foot section of beach to our furry friends.  Uh, yeah, that’s really worth getting your Explorer trashed over.  “Yes, we will be vacuuming up sugar sand from our carpet for weeks, but Fido got to run for a full 15 seconds before he hit the “No Dog” Zone!”  But maybe Vienna is so dog friendly because the owners are different somehow.  They have this certain quality, this je ne sais quoi, but there’s an English word for it.  Ah!  I remember now!  It’s called being responsible adults.  You know, they do things like muzzle their dogs on trains, and pick up after them, and make sure they’re on a leash, and they even (gasp!) train them so that they don’t shit in the club car, bark at the Invisible Man, or eat people when they get bored of chewing on their chains.

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I am riding down an ancient byway in the medieval jewel of a town known as Krems in the Wachau Valley of Austria, and life just doesn’t get much better than this.  Occasionally, a view of the Danube River flirts with me through gaps in the buildings lining the narrow cobblestone streets.  We are heading for a wine tasting.  Or two.  Or three…LOL Continue reading →

• Opera

La Traviata is nearing its climax, and Violetta is singing her final aria.  No, she isn’t a fat lady at all, in fact she’s kind of hot, and I don’t want her to die, even though it’s taken her the best part of an hour to do it.  In fact, I am so deeply moved that she’s brung a tear to my eye. Continue reading →