Monday December 18, Day 8 - Part 2

 As we descended into the Catacombs, Bill and I were both excited as we've played video games that involve delving into dungeons and slaying skeletons and stuff.  Looking for treasures, killing zombies, you know, the FUN stuff.  So, imagine our...surprise when we get down the flight of stairs and find...a chapel.  The tour guide had us sit down, closed the door, and then proceeded to speak quietly about the catacombs.  So quietly, that we couldn't hear him over the 2 kids who were obnoxiously making a scene for everyone to witness.

We eventually left the chapel room, and walked through the "new" catacombs, which ultimately looked like your friends basement.  We saw a couple coffins ("ooh, ahh!") and then stepped into a room that had some statues and other memento type objects for us to see.  (Think, old gargoyles from the original church, or a life size statue of one of the cardinals...).  The interesting thing to me, which maybe it's cause it's the only thing I was able to hear, was that the life size Cardinal was about 4 feet tall.  No wonder the Vikings were so terrifying!

Anyway, we DID get to see a bit of the "old" catacombs, but in all honesty, I've seen some wine cellars that were more impressive.  It's not that these weren't neat, but because they'd been turned into a mass tour site, it was just a big room with a dirt floor and a cool rock/brick ceiling.  No photos allowed, so nothing to see...unless you're one of the obnoxious tourists who doesn't care and takes photos anyways.  (I'm not one of them, by the way!)

Outside of the Cathedral there was a Christmas market, which was finally open once we came back up topside.  Reading up on it, I knew it wasn't a big one, but it wrapped around the Cathedral and had quite a bit of variety.  As we meandered through, Bill and I were constantly reminded of why we live in the Desert.  It was achingly cold, and the wind that kept whipping around the Cathedral was straight out of the Arctic.  

At most all of the Markets we've seen so far, from London to Budapest to Vienna, we've seen a selection of neat things.  However, this was the first market we'd seen a Chocolate store, that had chocolates shaped like actual things.  Plenty of stalls had chocolate, sure.  This one, however, had them in the shape of hammers, nuts, screws, trains, etc.  It was neat to see, but looking at the chocolate you could almost taste the cocoa flavor instead of the delicious milk chocolate that us Americans are used to.  To answer the question, no - we didn't buy anything!

In order to fully wrap around the Cathedral, they had to spread out the stalls quite a bit.  You can see above that everyone is truly bundled up, and the stalls require a smidge of walking here.

Bill and I knew we were running out of time and would soon need to get an Uber back to the boat.  Oh - hm.  Interlude may be necessary, and then I'll continue on with another Vienna post.  I'll continue with the Vienna until we go back to the boat, then interlude, then finish up Vienna.

So, we left St. Stephen's Cathedral, and headed towards the Maria Theresian Platz Christmas Market.  This was where the main tour went this morning, so I figured it must be kind of neat to see.  

Unfortunately we never made it to the Maria Theresien Platz Market.  On the way we got side tracked by another smaller market, and we wandered through it.  Bill has been wanting a pretzel from one of these markets, so we keep stopping to look, but none of them have really jumped out at us as "need to buy" pretzels.

After sneaking through this market, we stepped off to the side, and I ordered us an Uber.  Given our last experience, I actually paid for the Uber Premium, thinking/hoping it would end up not smelling like a used baby wipe.  As we stood there waiting, I snapped a few pictures of the square that we were in.  It's amazing to see the buildings and how ornate they are.  I know we have stuff "like this" in America, but somehow it just doesn't feel the same.  

After my fingers had frozen solid, our driver showed up and got us back to the ship in short order.  Good thing too, as we were on a shortened time frame to get to lunch.

Why, you, ask?  Well, Bill has been hunting for a recipe/meal that is similar to something his mom used to make.  To the best of my ability to type this, it was "rajska omacka" with some accent thingies on the a, a, and c.  Bill pronounces it like "rice ko va oh mahchka" or something.  It's effectively a beef roast that's falling apart, in a tomato sauce, with "sinker" dumplings (bread dumplings).  Since we were going to be in the area, he asked the wait staff if any of them knew of it, as maybe it was just a "mom" recipe and not a real Czech recipe.  The wellness host, of all people, was familiar with it, and endeavored to make it for him.  

Today was the day that they were serving us a special serving of just the rajska omacka.  We made it back, and after some fanfaire at the dining room, we were served our special meal.  Mom and I, having never had Bill's mom's cooking, enjoyed the meal a great deal.  Bill, having had his mom's, was happy with the dish, but the sauce was different from his mom's.  He thinks maybe more pickling spices, but we're not sure.