The Winchester Mystery House

Posted by admine in California, Cool Trips on 04 28th, 2005 | No comments yet - be the first one!

Actually I have to plan my sightseeing program for San Jose. In august Christoph will visit a conference and I will be hanging out during the four conference days.
Now I found some info about the Winchester Mystery House that sounds interesting: This 160-room Victorian mansion was designed and built by the widow Sarah Winchester. 38 years – from 1884 to 1922 – she was working on her construction project, even at night and on holidays. The result is a house of 2,500 square meters with 10,000 windows, 2,000 doors, 47 fireplaces, 40 stairs, 40 bedrooms, 6 kitchens and 3 elevators.
The reason for this strange behavior of Sarah Winchester was her believe in ghosts. She thought, the ghosts could be exorcized by building on her house and designing bizarre features, for example doors to nowhere or stairs that lead to the ceiling.
Today the house is open for visitors and they offer different tours. Check out details, rates and schedules here.

Blossoming lilacs on St. Marx Cemetery

Posted by admine in City Trips, Vienna on 04 21st, 2005 | No comments yet - be the first one!

St. Marx cemetery in Vienna is the only Biedermeier cemetery worldwide still existing today. The whole area stands under monument protection. For visitors the cemetery ist freely accessible and on a walk you can protect many motives for photo and wondrous inscriptions on the tombstones. St. Marx is also the final resting place of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart who was buried there in 1791.
Now, in spring, it’s the best time for a visit: Angels and tombstones are sourrounded by blossoming lilacs – there’s no other place in Vienna, you can find as much lilacs as here.

St. Marx Cemetery, Leberstraße 6-8, 3rd District, reached with 71 tram or Bus 74A.
Some more infos

click the pics to enlarge

One day in Bratislava

Posted by admine in Bratislava, City Trips on 04 18th, 2005 | No comments yet - be the first one!

Last Saturday we enjoyed ourselves on a trip to Bratislava (Slovakia). We went there by train (one hour travel time from Vienna) and went for a city walk through the historical center of Bratislava and up to the Castle.
There is little to none automotive traffic in the city and the whole historical center is additionally pedestrian precinct. Lunch and drinks where inexpensive – actually we spent not more than 20 Euro the whole day long – food and drinking for both of us of course. So we had a nice day with really nice and marvelous weather there. Enjoy some impressions from our trip here (click the pics to enlarge):

Some info-links:
Hotels & Rooms in Bratislava
Official Website of Bratislava

Ghost Towns in California

Posted by admine in California, Cool Trips on 04 11th, 2005 | No comments yet - be the first one!

Some more great tip for our California trip: A journey through ghost towns, expecially through Bodie, which is located in the Yosemite National Park, close to the Nevada border. In 1877 a gold rush transformed Bodie to a boomtown. In 1880, there where about 10,000 residents. The boom days lasted not long: The last residents left at 1942. Today Bodie is one of the largest and best preserved ghost towns in California. Over 170 buildings remain and what the California Department of Parks and Recreations calls a state of “arrested decay.” And it is a photographer’s paradise, as we can see in much internet-gallery’s, for example here.

Bodega Bay

Posted by admin in California, Cool Trips on 04 8th, 2005 | No comments yet - be the first one!

Great idea for our trip to California next summer: We will visit Bodega Bay, located on the Pacific Coast about 70 miles North of San Francisco. In 1963 Bodega Bay become known as the setting for Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds”. Check out some stills from the movie on this site.

London Tower Bridge

Posted by admin in London on 04 6th, 2005 | No comments yet - be the first one!

It was a great time in London last year, when we visited Tower Bridge, Buckingham Palace, Tate Modern Gallery, Millennium Bridge, St. Pauls Cathedral, Madame Tussaud’s…. In May we’ll be back – not for sightseeing but especially for shopping, for example at Carnaby Street:

Music, theatre and arts for free

Posted by admine in Events, Vienna on 04 6th, 2005 | No comments yet - be the first one!

On April 30th, in Vienna/Austria the yearly “Stadtfest” is going to be celebrated: Visitors will enjoy music, arts and theatre in the streets all over the city the whole day long. And all attractions are for free! On stage – for example – the german group “Titanick”:

© Theater Titanick

Check this out.

Count the cars on the Golden Gate Bridge San Francisco with Google Satellite Maps

Posted by admine in California, Cool Trips on 04 6th, 2005 | No comments yet - be the first one!

Another great feature are the satellite maps Google integrated now…

see for yourself

go here

enter “san francisco golden gate bridge”

zoom in as you like

count the cars on the shot

Even more interesting in the GPS like feature “directions” for driver routing information online…

Beware: that applet crahes Opera 8 beta after the first click…

Note: still need to find out if my T-Mobile UMTS/3G works in California for the next trip – we can checkout our driving routes right from the wireless internet without using a car map anymore