Vienna

Travels

The next stop on our tour was Vienna. That’s Austria. More than one person has made the mistake of thinking Venice when Vienna was mentioned. I was even one of them. While in a bookstore in Rome, I was looking for a book on Vienna and almost bought one for Venice.

This was a middle of the week trip, which means we had to go without Chizzy. So the folks and I hopped the one hour flight with our only plan being that we had a hotel room waiting for us. They have a great underground system there and we quickly made it to the heart of the city where we were staying only a couple blocks from the Stephandsdom cathedral. It’s an amazing Gothic-style spectacle. Again, I have made a photoblog post of Vienna that you can check out with the post below. The hotel was nice, but has gained the distinction of having the smallest bathroom any of us had ever seen. They come pretty small in general, but this one was comical.

I am not sure what caused me to think Vienna would feel so much older than it did. Some maps include Austria as part of Eastern Europe and Vienna is situated in the East of the country. It is kind of a gateway city between east and west and for some reason I associate Eastern Europe with images I have seen from the Soviet Union. Don’t get me wrong. Vienna has a long history and some amazing sights, but the ‘old city’ wasn’t the car-less, narrow cobblestone maze I had pictured in my head. However, the more I came to terms with the city not being what I expected it to be, the more appreciation I had for what the city actually was.

We arrived before noon on the first day there and we decided to make an excursion out to the Schloss Schönbrunn on the underground. It was the residence of Austrian (and Roman?) royalty of the 18th century. Didn’t mean much to us either except that we had at least heard of the name Maria Theresa. It is now a 1441 room historical monument that beats Versailles in terms of over the top opulence but they don’t allow photos in this one so I can’t prove it. You are only allowed to visit 40 or so of the rooms but one of them was where Mozart played as a child for the first time in front of royalty. Like Versailles, the gardens behind the palace were just as impressive as the building itself.

It was during our walk through these gardens (and oldest zoo in the world) that we collectively hit the wall of exhaustion. I had gotten sick sometime towards the end of the Rome trip and we really hadn’t had a good rest in over a week. We returned to our room to lie down for a while before heading out to dinner later that night. I think it was around 8 or so that we ventured out in search of some wiener schnitzel. This search for a restaurant was our first good introduction to the city since we had spent all day in the suburbs. It was a fantastic, lively city with a diverse crowd and tons of outdoor dining options. We ended up at a place called George and the Dragon that I will admit I was partially drawn to because it shares a name similar to a pub in Fremont that I like. My mom and I ordered the schnitzel we were searching for and my dad got some ribs. The biggest drawback to my cold was that I couldn’t taste anything. It felt like a tasty meal and my mom thought it was good.

The next day we set out to see the sights of the city. Our first stop was the Spanish Riding School where we got to watch the famous Lipizzaner Stallions get some exercise. The shows themselves sell out months in advance, but they sell cheap tickets daily to watch the horses prance around a bit. Didn’t see any jumps or anything, but they sure were amazingly graceful from what we did see. No pictures allowed again.

The grounds of the Imperial Palace are called the Hofburg and we saw more old buildings, statues, and fountains. We then caught one of the tour bus thingies and got to see a lot more the sights. We got off the bus at Prater to ride on the famous Riesenrad Ferris Wheel. It was built in 1897 and offered good views of the city from the large 10 person compartments.

The Prater amusement park itself was pretty cool and it was there I saw the scariest ride I have ever laid eyes on. It was a Yo-Yo ride that was on a very tall vertical pole. I think it is called the Yo-Yo… the one where you just sit in a little metal chair and then it spins around. I love them, but they always just seem so rickety and unsafe with the four metal chains connecting each corner of the chair and a dumb little metal bar across your lap. Well this version carries you way up in the air as you are spinning around. I met my fear head on and rode the thing. My mom came with me. It was really fun. Here we are.

We spent the rest of the day riding the tour bus and seeing more sights. We found a really cool restaurant that served these hot pot pancake things. Hard to describe so I submit a photo of my partially eaten plate.

We ate fairly early this time because we planned on going for desert at one of very popular ice cream shops they had around. Europeans love ice cream. There is no debating it. It’s amazing.

Although our flight was the next day, it wasn’t until the evening so we still had a lot of time to fill. We visited the aforementioned Stephansdom cathedral and took a tour of the catacombs underneath. The Gothic style is certainly unique and I can see how it was a passing fad, but we thought it was really cool. Of course, the main tower was under construction and covered with scaffolding, but we got the idea.

We checked out the city park after the cathedral and also walked down one of the main shopping strip streets, Karntner Strasse. It was a really cool street where no cars were allowed and tons of interesting shops. It was a great street.

That’s about it. Check out the photoblog below for more sights of Vienna.