Vienna, Day 1
We took a weekend trip to Vienna with my aunt and uncle. We stayed at the A&O Hotel and Hostel, which is right by the main train station a little outside of town. We had stayed at an A&O when we were in Nuremberg, so we knew it would be basic but neat and clean. The kids loved the colorful building, and the fact that the room has bunk beds! We had forgotten that the hotel only puts sheets on one of the beds though, and you have to put the sheets and cover the duvet/pillows on the bunk beds, which is a pain.
We took the metro first to St. Stephen’s cathedral, where we met Merik, who was one of my aunt and uncle’s exchange students back in the late 90’s/early 2000’s. Merik is an attorney who lives in Paris, and if we are able to go to Paris later in the year we will make sure to visit her and her family. She flew in for the two days just to see us! Of course we invited her and her family to visit in Budapest, as the kids (especially Willow) took to her immediately. There are some people the kids just gravitate toward, and Willow wanted to hold her hand the whole time.
In the cathedral you can stand in the back of the chapel and look around, but the main part of the chapel is blocked with a big iron gate (you have to pay to go in closer). We took some pictures from behind the barrier, which was still pretty impressive.
Because everything in the church cost extra and was a separate fee, we asked the kids what they wanted to do. They wanted to climb up to the top of the tower. So we, along with Lori, climbed the tower while Tom and Merik paid to go further into the church. There were ‘only’ 343 steps up (and then back down of course) going around and around and around. A little room halfway up where the bell used to be gave us a little breather, and there was a little cutout with an iron bars that the kids used to pretend they were in jail.
The view from the top of the tower was great, although the ‘top’ was only about halfway up in reality. We didn’t get to go outside, but there were open windows on all sides of the inside. My favorite view was the one where we could see the pretty and vibrant green and yellow tiles on the top of the cathedral. There was a small gift shop at the top of the tower, and I thought it was a little funny that the worker (and all the supplies/merchandise) had to go up the stairs every day to go to work. I also don’t think there was a bathroom up there, so that poor worker would have to go down for anything he needed!
Once we came back down from the tower we walked by St. Peter’s cathedral and the pretty statue outside (I wish the pictures were better, but the blog likes to squish all my pictures so everything looks like an oompa loompa). We walked to the chocolate shop Demel, where we didn’t really want to wait for a table so got something to go from the shop. Everything was overpriced, and we got two chocolate-covered cake domes. I didn’t know that they had a fruity-flavored chocolate cake, which was pretty dry, so the kids (and JonPaul) wouldn’t eat them. Oh well, we tried it, and it just goes to show that not everything is best for us even if they are highly-rated by lots of other people.
The Hofburg palace was the main city home of the Habsburgs and is a huge beautiful building. This is right beside the Spanish Riding School, which we walked by. There was also a statue with weird guys with their mouths open, and the kids wanted to reenact the statue—they looked hilarious! Inside the palace are three exhibits—the Silver Collection, the Sisi Museum, and the Imperial Apartments. The silver collection had lots of cutlery, drawers and drawers of spoons, forks, and knives. There were also lots of dish collections, and we had the kids go around to find their favorite dish pattern. This one was Willows because pink with different colors and peacocks. There were also huge table centerpieces that stretched the length of a table that was as long as a hallway. We couldn’t take pictures in the other two exhibits. The Sisi museum talked about the life of Empress Elizabeth and had lots of memorabilia, including full outfits. Her hair was so long it reached the floor, and she had severe eating disorders. For someone whose waist was so tiny, she sure did have big feet though! The third exhibit was the apartments where we walked through almost 20 rooms decorated with (mostly) historical accuracy.
After the palace we took a walk through several gardens and squares. The big area of Heldenplatz and Volksgarten had lots of green areas, pretty flowers, and a big white Romanesque building with columns. Inside this was a strange art exhibit with fishing wire strung in a maze from the ceiling to the floor.
We continued our walk to go to Rathaus (the city hall) and the Parliament. Unfortunately, the Rathaus was covered in scaffolding and big banners, and you couldn’t see Parliament at all because of the huge barriers due to construction. The second picture is our view of the Parliament building. We continued our walk and saw some interesting things, including this juxtaposition between the busts of old important white guys behind a graffitied barrier. The museum quarter with old buildings sitting right next to new buildings, all holding museums or art exhibits, and a rooftop pathway to an area of older buildings covered with ivy, graffiti, and tiles. This gave us a little different view of Vienna other than the main paths.
For dinner we ate outside at a restaurant serving traditional Austrian food, including Weiner Schnitzel and good beer. I got the goulash, which I thought would be like Hungarian goulash, was completely different. Hungarian goulash is like a vegetable soup with meat, but this goulash was more like a brown gravy with pot roast. I must prefer the Hungarian version!
