Our hostel was right next to the Naschmarket, a long strip of vendors and little cafes made to look like a farmers market.
So we walked through that on the way back to the hostel. We were pretty tired that night, even though we hadn't done much, so we went to bed early after a brief chat with our Australian roommates (none of whom were doing a trip shorter than 6 months).
The next morning we woke up and paid for the hostel breakfast that wasn't included but was only €3.90. It was awesome. Lots of fruit, cereal, yogurt, ham and cheese, all kinds of bread, real orange juice, hard boiled eggs, the works. We filled up. We also decided we couldn't spend nearly €8 each on breakfast the following 2 days and that we would hit a supermarket later.
I still wasn't feeling well, so we sat around for a while. I had a nice long talk with my mom on the phone- needed that. The wifi at this place wasn't really good, but in the middle of the day no one is using it so I could at least get through.
When I started to feel ok we thought about a walking tour but decided to do our own walk instead.
The result of this is that I have almost no history for you, but I do have some beautiful sights.
The first thing we saw was the opera house. Not as pretty as Paris, but still beautiful.
We picked up some Subway because I knew my stomach would be ok with it and we walked to St. Stephen's Church.
Love these roof tiles. We learned about them in Hungary- they are flame resistant, acid resistant, rust resistant, etc. Hungary exports them all over, apparently including to Vienna!
The Plague memorial statue was hard to identify because it wasn't marked obviously and was really all angels and religious figures. It was very pretty.
Continuing around the Old Town, we came across the Hofburg Palace- former royalty residence turned into museum city. The Sisi Museum, Natural History Museum, Albertina, and many others are housed here. The building itself is huge, taking up several blocks. It's also beautiful, full of courtyards and statues.
There's also a little spot where they left the foundation of the original castle.
South of the Hofburg is the Museum Quarter, an area where even more museums are located. The courtyard is really nice, with huge chairs to relax in, little cafes, and free open wifi.
Mumok- museum of modern art.
Leopold art museum
There is not a SINGLE free museum in Vienna. :(
This whole walk took a couple hours, and we were still pretty tired so we headed back to the hostel. On our way we stopped by a grocery store for snacks, breakfast food, and something easy to make for dinner in the hostel kitchen. It was still early to be thinking about dinner but the supermarkets close at 7:30 every day so we got there early.
LOVE when the hostels have a kitchen!
We discovered that Red Bull is so expensive in the US because its imported from Austria.
We got the ingredients for pasta with chicken nuggets and mozzarella cheese. It was awesome.
After dinner we still had energy and I was feeling MUCH better. So we decided to go check out this film festival that was happening at City Hall. On the way there we passed by the Parliament building.
It had these really cool statues on the roof.
When we got to city hall the movie had just ended, but the place was HOPPIN! They basically set up a huge screen right in front of the "Rathaus" (city hall)...
...With hundreds of chairs set up. Behind the chairs there were pop-up restaurants and bars, and the place was packed. It was just a huge party.
We just sat for a while and looked at the gorgeous building.
We headed back to the hostel after that and I researched and booked our hostel in Munich. Jeremy will be in a 40- that's right FORTY- bed room. I will be in 6 bed female dorm. :) that's after Salzburg.
So yesterday we met Jeremy's mom's friend Barbara, who has lived in Vienna for 27 years. I guess that makes her a real "wiener"- someone from Wien (Vienna- again with the name changes). She married an Austrian guy and works in a school here. She has 2 kids a few years younger than us.
She was SO kind and generous, and offered to take us around Vienna all day and take us out to dinner. We graciously accepted and met her at 12:30, after cereal and bananas for breakfast and some chill time.
Our day with Barbara was great. It was so nice not to have to look at a map, tram route, or menu in another language. I could really turn my brain off a bit and enjoy the city.
For the first 2 hours, we stayed in the old town that we had seen the previous day. She walked us through tons of medieval-feeling streets and alleys, and showed us some of the coolest little places.
Oldest church in Vienna
Greek Orthodox Church
Restaurant Mark Twain visited. It's a secret celebrity place. We couldn't tell if this lower signature was Mark Twain's but we could tell this middle one, which was pretty cool...
I had "Ring of Fire" stuck in my head all day.
Typical Vienna road
Danube canal
We stopped for lunch in a Billa- local grocery chain. We ordered some leberkesa at the deli counter. I so wish I had taken a picture but I totally forgot. It was basically a big square bologna loaf, and our particular variety had melted cheese (kesa) in the bologna. They cut us each a huge 1/2 inch slice and slapped it on a roll with a ton if sweet mustard.
It was so. Good.
After that we kept walking for a bit.
She would take us all around these old, cobble, winding streets and then we would pop out in a square with a beautiful old church. We could go inside most of them.
This one had been restore by a friend of Barbara's, so she knew a lot about it. These beautiful marble columns are supposedly fake. They are just painted convincingly to look like real marble. Interesting.
One of Mozart's many residences. This one now houses the museum.
More cute old streets.
We stopped at a Viennese coffee house. They both got coffee and I, of course, got chocolate. Truffle cake, to be exact. Amazing.
There was oddly a huge event going on that involved 22 buses of college kids driving through the old town. Each one was blasting awful pop or techno music and it was literally the loudest music I've ever heard. Louder than any concert or club I've ever attended. So it ruined coffee a bit, but at least we got a snack. Here is a good place, I think, to remark on the weird clash of worlds going on in some of these cities. These cities are old, beautiful works of art but they are also modern cultural hubs. You walk down the street almost expecting a royal coach to come by and instead a gorgeous fashionista comes by rocking her high heels texting on her iPhone. It's weird. And cool!
After our break we got on a tram and went out to Schonbrunn palace, a huge old royal palace with amazing free gardens. It is the former summer residence of the Habsburgs (royal family). There's even a zoo on the property!
We walked up that hill to the big arch, called the Gloriette, to see the view.
It was very beautiful. And the sun was just starting to set, so the lighting was really nice.
We spent a little over an hour there just walking around feeling like royalty. Barbara then took us by her beautiful home just so we could see a house in Vienna.
It was so cute.
We hopped on another tram, this time to the outskirts of Vienna. We ended up in a little town called Grinzing, which feels like you're in the Austrian countryside.
We ate a very traditional meal at a heuringer- a restaurant that serves traditional Austrian food and their own wine.
This is where I tried schnitzel. It wasn't technically weiner schnitzel because it wasn't veal. Not my thing. It was chicken, and it was awesome. So lightly breaded, and the lemon squeezed on it made it feel light. We also had bread with 3 kinds of dip, including a Gorgonzola dip that was awesome. We had a whole plate of sides including veggies, potato salad (YUM), and black root salad (but the root was white).
It was TRULY a feast. And of course there was wine.
It was one of those nights that I will always remember. We ate in a garden just after sunset. They brought out candles. We got tipsy on wine and good conversation. I was never chilly or hot. We laughed for a good 2 hours. And the food was amazing. Such a peaceful, nice night. Almost makes you feel at home.
We didn't get back from our day with Barbara until about 11:30 pm, at which point we went straight to bed.
Today we had to be checked out by 10, so we showered and packed up. After check-out, we finished off our cereal and relaxed for about an hour. Jeremy talked to some new friends we made and I checked all my bank accounts.
There was still one thing I wanted to see in Vienna, so we locked up our stuff in the hostel luggage room and left around 11.
Jeremy needs another t-shirt, so we set out to H&M to find something for him. They were closed, but on our way we did see an awesome sign.
Sooooo true.
On a more serious note, I keep meaning to write about these but I keep forgetting to take a picture.
These little gold tiles are all over European sidewalks. They have the names of the Jewish people that lived on the street and never came home after WW2.
I love that there is history everywhere. I hate that some of it is so sad.
So the last thing I wanted to see in Vienna was the Zentralfriedhof- the city cemetery. I also would have paid to see the Vienna city museum but we never have time for everything.
So we took the tram for about 30 minutes to the southeast side of the city and wandered around this gorgeous cemetery for a while.
We also walked into the church in the middle.
And then I found what I was looking for.
Yep. Beethoven's grave. I almost cried. It was so cool. And he wasn't the only one.
It was AMAZING. The greats. The composers I have been studying my whole life- the people who changed the world- right here. I mean, statues are cool but this is THEM. Except Mozart. Apparently this is only a piece of him.
Jeremy said I should have brought flowers. :)
It was so awesome.
So we left the cemetery and got another traditional Viennese meal- bratwurst.
They literally hole out the bread, put 4 huge squirts of mustard inside, and stuff it with a huge sausage. It was AWESOME. Jeremy ate it; I just had a bite to try it.
We walked back past Karlskirche, a huge Byzantine-style church.
After all that we felt like we had done pretty well with only a half day in Vienna. We got back to the hostel and got our stuff and headed for the train station.
And now we are on the train on our way to Salzburg for 2 nights.
Sorry my posts have been more spread out recently. The train is just such a nice time to write!
My overall impression of Vienna is that it is perhaps the most elegant, classical looking city we've seen. It was obviously the hub of music and art and therefore has a lot of great stuff to see and do. We kept hearing "it's a sleepy town, it's so boring" but I disagree! Sure the night life isn't anything to write home about if you're looking for a wild night. But if you're looking for wine, an outdoor film festival and party, a heuringer and late night wine in the garden, and some awesome food and things to see, it is wonderful.
I really enjoyed Vienna.
So today is Sunday. Our next train is Tuesday so I will write about Salzburg then. Can't wait to see where Sound of Music was filmed!!!
Talk to you then.
<3
Hi. Curious. Can you also post video?
ReplyDeleteU Win. Love the photos.