Three days in Vienna

Vienna, Austria is the middle leg of our three-country European adventure. If you missed our four days in Budapest, check that out here. It’s a quick train ride (two hours and forty minutes) from Budapest to Vienna, and after we barely make our train, we are on our way.

Note: Keep your eye on Google maps as your cab driver heads to the train station, because he may not speak English, and as a result take you to the airport instead. To his credit, he may drive like the wind to get you to the train station on time, but you may have to run like you’ve never run before to hop on the train one minute before it leaves.

 

Day One in Vienna

It’s an easy metro ride from the train station to our apartment, and after we drop off our luggage we head into Old Town. Vienna is more compact than Budapest, and while that’s helpful in terms of navigation, we feel the throngs of tourists immediately. First things first: lunch. We find the wiener stand my daughter went to when she visited Vienna after graduation, get our food, and plop down at the base of a statue to eat and people watch.

Then we head to one of the main attractions, the Hofburg Palace. This Imperial Palace was home to the Habsburg rulers from the 13th century until 1913, with continuous new construction. We tour the Imperial Apartments, where photography is not permitted. The rooms are over-the-top lavish, and we learn all about the lives of Emperor Josef Franz I and his wife Empress Elizabeth, known as Sisi. The audio tour that comes with admission is engaging, and I enjoy the history lesson more than I expected I would.

As we venture back into the middle of Old Town, we visit another main attraction, St. Stephen’s Cathedral. It’s Gothic-style, enormous, and like most churches in Europe, under renovation.

While we could have had a more in-depth tour of the church, we are satisfied with a quick visit inside.

We head back to our apartment to figure out dinner. We’re a bit tired of eating meat at every meal, so we decide to dine at a neighborhood pizzeria that our AirBnB host recommended. It’s delicious, and I am so happy to have a salad I could cry.

Day two in Vienna

Public transportation is easy in Vienna, so we buy a 48-hour pass and take the ten-minute metro ride to Schönbrunn Palace. The palace was the summer residence for the Habsburgs. The guide books say it rivals the grandeur of Versailles, and I don’t doubt it.

No photography is allowed inside, but the audio tour takes us through forty of the three hundred rooms. I am astounded by the opulence, and cannot even imagine how much money this royal family spent on maintaining such a grand lifestyle. While the purpose of the tour is to get a glimpse into the life of royals, the extravagance doesn’t sit well with me. I do enjoy standing in the room where six-year-old Mozart gave a performance; I always find it amazing to be in the room where it happened.

We stroll the gardens next. Empress Maria Therese opened them to the public in 1779, and it is still free to enter and wander down the paths. After the oodles of tourists swarming the palace, the quiet of the gardens is welcome.

In the afternoon, we take a guided tour of the Vienna State Opera House. It is only an hour, but it’s the only way to get a glimpse of the building and theater without attending a performance. Completed in 1869, the building was reconstructed after it was bombed by American forces during World War II. The curtained windows in the photo below shield visitors from the Emperor’s Salon. According to our tour guide, the curtains were opened when the Emperor was in attendance, so people wanting a glimpse would know whether or not to spend the money on a ticket any given night.

Now called the Tea Salon, the interior of the room is set up for private gatherings. To the right are the windows, and to the left is the private balcony overlooking the stage.

We sit in the orchestra seats for a few minutes, while our guide talks about the nightly performances. The stage is being set for tonight’s opera, and you can see all the way through to the backstage area.

We spend the evening on our second food tour of the trip. I discovered Vienna Food Tours online, and booked after chatting a bit with owner Melinda. She and her husband Thomas are native Viennese, food lovers, and lovely people who have travelled extensively. Together with another family of six, we stroll the streets of Vienna with Melinda and Thomas.

Our first stop is for appetizers in a contemporary Austrian restaurant, and our second stop is at a wiener stand. We sample three different types of wieners, and these yummy drinks.

Stop three is dinner at a traditional Austrian restaurant, and stop four is at a café for desserts and coffee. I don’t take photos in most places for fear of embarrassing our hosts and myself, but I do snap a shot of the dessert platter.

I can’t recommend food tours highly enough; they are such a wonderful way to see a new city, chat with locals, and enjoy food that you probably would not try on your own. There is also the added bonus of not having to decide where to eat that evening!

Day three in Vienna

There are so many museums in Vienna, but today we decide to simply stroll the city. We walk down Mariahilfer Strausse, a predominantly pedestrian-only boulevard lined with stores and restaurants. While not particularly scenic, it’s bustling with locals on a workday, which is a welcome change from the crowds of tourists in the city center. Every time we cross a street, I smile at the “walk” sign.

We take the metro across the river, and walk along the Danube Canal. It’s not a particularly pretty arm of the Danube river, but it’s refreshing to walk along the quiet paths and look at what I assume is graffiti covering the concrete walls lining the canal.

The colorful paintings are actually street art, and it is perfectly legal. Note the sign that says “This graffiti is approved by the state.”

We continue our walk as we head back to our apartment by mid-afternoon. My daughter and I have a date at the opera while the boys watch the World Cup. Standing room only tickets for every opera performance go on sale eighty minutes before it starts, and we are ready with our scarves to hold our spots.

Tickets are three euros each, so for about $7.00 we can have a bucket list experience. We are standing in the very last row of the entire venue, and once we save our spots we wander around before the show.

My view is obstructed by a pole, but I can move my head from side to side to take it all in. Every seat in the place has a monitor with a choice of six languages for captions, so we are able to follow along. The opera is Lohengrin, it is sung in German, and it is three acts long. We stay for the seventy-minute first act, and then leave to meet the guys for dinner. We find we are not opera fans, but we are glad our first and likely only experience is in Vienna.

On day four, we board a train heading north, and enjoy the countryside of the Czech Republic.

Thoughts on Vienna

• Like Budapest, it is a clean city, and we felt safe walking around during the day and at night.
• Public transportation is quick and easy; we used the metro and the trams.
• The city felt crowded with tourists; every attraction was packed. If we had more time, we would have ventured to the outskirts and visited a heurige (wine tavern). There are also many day trips from the city; if we visit again, we will explore the surrounding areas to get a better feel for the non-touristy side of Vienna.
• One could spend days simply visiting museums. We didn’t give them a fair shake because we were toured out after visiting the two palaces.

Our final city awaits…next stop, Prague!