A beautiful city, with lots of different but equally as nice styles of architecture all together in one place. Definitely up on the list of nice looking cities, although Edinburgh still holds number one! Had a really nice time there, although we didn’t achieve a whole lot in terms of sightseeing. We got there a day early due to our spontaneous early abandonment of Budapest which gave us 3 full days there. The first night we got there late, and so went to an Irish pub we found around the corner for dinner. Gotta love Irish pubs - they’re everywhere and generally pretty reliable for a decent meal. The downside to the pub, and also just to Austria in general, is that its not illegal to smoke inside pubs and even restaurants. Which means when you come home from dinner you generally smell quite strongly of smoke :S
Anyway, we stayed at the Wombats im Naschmarkt in Vienna, which I would definitely recommend! Probably the best hostel I’ve stayed in to date. Also in a really good location, right near an S-bahn station and also not too far from the historical centre of Vienna. The next day we took it pretty slow - sleeping in after our bad night in Budapest, then going shopping for some jeans for Jo, among other things. We also had Wiener schnitzel for dinner at a place that is apparently famous for their Wiener schnitzel. They were huge! But also quite delicious :) See picture below:
The next day we went on a walking tour, which was free - provided by the hostel. That was quite interesting, particularly in terms of the history of all the beautiful buildings we had walked past. Things I particularly remember from the tour include the Memorial Against War and Fascism, the Habsburg Palace (most of which is now converted into libraries or the like) and the memorial that was erected during times of the plague (if it has a name I can’t remember it!). The last one is apparently the only one in Europe on which you will find a monarch in a kneeling position/not in a position of power. It was erected as a place where people could gather and pray not to get the plague. There was also a chapel in the Habsburg Palace where the Vienna Boys Choir sings and the Vienna Philharmonic play at mass on Sundays. Would have loved to have gone to that, but unfortunately we weren’t there on a Sunday, and also you have to get there and line up for at least 2 hours before the mass actually starts, which makes it quite early in the morning! I would have also loved to have seen a Mozart or Beethoven concert while we were there, but I guess because it was winter which is low season, there only seemed to be concerts on the weekend which weren’t much help to us.
After the walking tour we went and had a quick peek inside Stephansdom, which is a big church in the centre of Vienna. Like all the big churches in Europe, it was very ornate and beautiful inside. Had dinner at a little restaurant recommended by the tour guide as having traditional Austrian dishes, which was quite nice. I had my third goulash (first Prague then Salzburg) which was pretty good, although I think the tastiest was still the one in Prague. We also went and had our free drink from the Wombar (the bar in the hostel) before going to bed. Opted for the wine, which was a very bad choice! I’ve had goon that tasted better :S Can’t really complain though since it was free! And it was still definitely the best hostel!
Our last day was lovely as well. It was snowing, which luckily I still find magical rather than inconvenient so I was loving it. We were able to leave our bags at the hostel, and we headed to Schönbrunn Palace. Took lots of photos there, as well as a few videos of Grace’s snow antics.
We decided to just walk around outside rather than going in, because being winter as usual stuff was closed. But I have definitely resolved to go back in summer. And it was a nice, if not very slippery, walk around outside. After that and some morning tea we were pretty chilly, so decided to do something inside and warmer. So we found the English cinema in Vienna and went and saw The Hobbit in 3D. Then we stopped at a supermarket for supplies, grabbed our bags from the hostel and headed for the station to catch the sleeper train to Venice.
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