We arrived in Vienna and were able to walk with our luggage to our hotel. We stayed in the European hotel chain “NH hotel” on the busy shopping street Mariahilfer.
Our room was huge! We joked that it was our condo. It had a seating area, a desk area, a kitchen, and a large bedroom. The TV was on a rotating piece of furniture so it could be in the bed room or the sitting area.
The hotel “continental” breakfast involved one croissant that was NOT a typical European croissant, it was bad. So I basically ran across the street and got an egg McMuffin at the most stylish McDonald’s I have ever been in. I also must say that out of all the European cities I have been in, I have seen more McDonald’s and Starbucks per area than any other city!
We went out right away to start exploring, but of course grabbed some gelato right away! The ice cream people kind of mocked our American accents though so that was not fun.
First, we went to the Vienna State Opera House to see if we could get in to see it, but they offered no tours.
I had originally planned to do a museum next, but the weather was gorgeous so we switched our plans around and headed towards the area of “Belvedere” which has lots of gardens and palaces that our now filled with art. On the way to Belvedere we stopped at Karlskirche church. It was very unique due to two columns outside of it modeled after Trajan’s Column in Rome.
The interior of the church was pretty similar to all the other church’s we had seen EXCEPT they had decided to erect an elevator in the middle of the sanctuary to a platform in the dome so that visitors could view the frescos better. It was very unique and scary. I became really nervous on the elevator and when other Americans asked me if I was afraid of heights I told them, “no, I am just afraid of metal structures suspended in mid-air” haha. After the platform, we could even climb some stairs through the dome for some nice views of Vienna.
After the church we walked up to the Belvedere palaces but didn’t go inside to the museums. We just enjoyed the sun and walked around the gardens. We saw several statues, fountains, and individual gardens. The gardens of Belvedere were filled with statues of children fighting with each other and animals, it was very weird.
That night we asked our hotel for recommendations for Italian food and they suggested a place right away the corner operated by an Italian family called Il Mare. The food was delicious and we had the best tiramisu we’ve ever had, even in Italy!
We left MTV on in the background when we were in the hotel and often saw my favorite show, The Hills! It was hilarious to watch because they had it dubbed in German! Other shows just had captions, but the Hills was popular enough to dub I guess.
Wednesday, April 29 we headed to the Kunsthistorisches Museum. The building itself was overwhelmingly, I think it was an old palace. It had a lot of European paintings and sculptures from Egypt, Rome and Greece. I saw the original painting “Peasants Wedding” by XX that my family has a print of in our TV room!
Then we headed out to Schonbrunn Palace, the summer home of the Hapsburgs, particularly Maria Theresa who made it into what it is today. The palace was my favorite palace so far in Europe, except for Versailles.
It had a great audio guide that took us through ornate and lavish rooms. After a tour of the palace we went out to the gardens. The property has extensive gardens and we climbed up a big hill to the Gloriette.
The palace had a palm house, a zoo, and maze, but the tickets to see all of them were quite expensive so we just stuck to the normal gardens. We had lunch at the palace café and I had a traditional pancake dish and we shared an apple strudel, a dessert Austria is famous for.
After the palace we went down to see St. Steven's Cathedral, very Gothic and pretty.
That night we went out to a local café for some gnocchi. It is interesting and unpleasant that people can still smoke in cafes here. Then we met up with Carly for a drink. Carly is traveling with her godmother all around Europe and was in Vienna at the same time we were! We went down to an area known as the “Bermuda Triangle” which has a lot of young people and nightlife. We met her at a bar called Excess to have a drink and catch up.
Thursday, April 30 We went to see the Imperial State Apartments. The first exhibit showed the extensive gold/silver/porcelain flatware of the Hapsburgs. It was pretty interesting until the 6th room of it. The gold table center pieces were amazing though.
Then we went through the Sissy Museum. Sissy, of Empress Elizabeth, was the wife of Franz Joseph. She was very distant from court life and felt trapped in her duties. She also had a 20 inch waist and hair down to her ankles.
We wandered around for a bit just talking in the architecture. However, we had a little break on playground! I don't think I had been on a swing set in 10 years...hah
Then we had an amazing pizza lunch and walked around till our guided tour of the Bergtheater. The two entrances were beautiful, but the theater itself was lackluster compared to the Budapest Opera House.
That night we went out for Asian food right near our hotel. It was so good! We each got a GIANT spring roll and shared these peanut pouches for appetizers. I had fried rice for dinner. The restaurant gave us free dessert of fried bananas with ice cream!
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