austria: vienna

Vienna was only part of my original plan for this 5 day trip. Originally I wanted to go to Vienna and Paris, but that didn't happen. I was able to find cheap flights to and from each city, but I wasn't able to find a cheap way to one city, transit to the other, then a cheap way home. No matter which way I looked, one of those bits was much more than I wanted to pay. Argh. As I searched around, it occured to me to use Flixbus, and that it would take me to Brno, a city not far from Vienna that seemed worth exploring a bit.

I think I've already posted about getting to Vienna, lets just say I was completely jet lagged, and very tired of airplanes and airports. I was completely confused about when to eat, and when to sleep.

The first morning I woke up super early, and rationally knew I hadn't gotten nearly enough sleep. I dozed on and off for a few hours before getting dressed and race walking to the train station. Bo's train arrived a few minutes late, much to my surprise. This is Austria after all, where trains and such usually run on time, to the minute. Fortunately, it didn't take long for us to find each other and we immediately started walking back toward the hotel. On the way back we stopped in a mini market to get drinks, as it was much warmer than either of us had expected.

We dropped Bo's bags in the hotel, and started to figure out where we wanted to go for the day. I'd been to Vienna once before, but it was so long ago that I didn't remember anything useful for this trip. We picked out a couple sights and figured we'd take it from there.

Vienna is a grand city. It used to be one of the capital cities of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and still feels like a capital city, if that makes sense. It's full of big, grand buildings, statues, parks, etc... It felt like every other building was worth a photo, but I quickly realized I couldn't take every single photo I wanted.

Our first stop was a church. (This should come as no surprise to anyone who knows me.) Votivkirche isn't high on tourist lists, but I loved it. As we walked in, we could hear and see a philharmonic orchestra practicing in the middle for what I presume was an upcoming concert. The accoustics were fantastic, it was fun to listen. This church has a lot of stained glass, and while we were in there the light from outside was pouring in, through the windows, creating visible light, if that makes sense. Absolutely beautiful.

The ceiling itself was very 'arch-y' and very tall. I think we might've stayed inside longer, but since it was a stone church, it was rather chilly.

The front of the church outside was covered with a large banner, which I presume was covering up renovation work. I think I'd rather have seen the renovations, as the banner was an advert. Argh.

Across the street from the church was a park, but it was nothing to get excited about, so we didn't take any time to wander around it, we just walked through.

From there we walked our way through the pedestrian area of the city center. I'm not exactly sure of everything we saw, as I got completely turned around while we walked. I loved watching all the other people out walking, and taking in the general atmosphere. We saw more grand buildings, and when we saw apartment buildings I kept wondering how much it would cost to live in those places. (Definitely not a number I can afford.)

One of the grand buildings we passed had a fountain in front, it seemed a gathering point for people. This building was grand in terms of architecture and size.

We walked around the corner and I realized we were looking at another section of the same building. Somewhere in this area I saw a poster with a photo of an old library, and after reading the poster I realized it was something we could see!

It was a picture of the State Hall in the Austrian National Library. We figured out the door we'd need to get to this place, and at the ticket office I asked Bo to ask the lady if we would be allowed to take photos inside the library. (The previous two libraries I've seen like this did not allow photos, much to my disappointment.)

The lady said yes, I was really happy to hear her answer. I immediately told Bo we would be coming back the next morning to visit. At that point both of us were starting to get hungry and tired, so visiting right then wasn't going to happen.

We continued walking along more pedestrian streets. I finally broke down and stepped into one of the many chocolate shops we passed while walking. While everything looked really good, I ended up buying just two pieces of chocolate. Tasty, but it was hot and I just didn't crave chocolate.

We continued walking on another pedestrian street, a main street for tourists. This one was lined with international brand stores, there was nothing to distinguish this street from any other street in any other city in the world.

We ended up in front of St Stephen's basilica, which is on the top of the tourist lists. The tiles on the roof of the church are colourful, and beautiful. The way the buildings around the church were built, there was no way to back up enough to get a photo of the full church. Argh.

We stepped inside, and were very underwhelmed. Due to the late afternoon hour, the light wasn't super strong anymore, so parts of the interior had been lit with spotlights. Howeva, instead of the lighting being consistent across the entire church, it was spotty, and only hit certain areas. Neither one of us liked the look this created. The main aisle of the sanctuary was blocked off, so we couldn't get close to very much. Plus there was a sheet or curtain hung in the front, blocking the view of the normal altar area. We decided to come back the next day, earlier in the day and hope it looked better inside.

Walking back to our hotel was supposed to take us through the Botanical Gardens, but by that point they were closed. We had to walk around the long way. Thankfully, that didn't add that much time to our walk, as both of us were getting hangry.

We picked a restaurant in our neighborhood, but passed several others along the way. When we got to the restaurant we'd chosen, we decided the menu didn't look all that great. Instead, we walked back to one of the others we'd seen. It was heaps cheaper, and the food was more than decent.

After dinner we walked a bit along another major street, just to walk off some of what we'd eaten. I like walking at night when I have someone with me. When I'm by myself, I'm not a fan of being outside after dark.

The next morning our first sight was a church across the street from our hotel. This church wasn't a stand alone building, it was smushed between the other buidings on the street. As it turned out, the front door was open, but the inner door wasn't. In other words, we were able to look into the sanctuary area, but not actually go in that area. Argh.

From there we walked to the train station and stowed Bo's second pack in a storage locker. We knew we'd be back to Vienna, and Bo didn't want to carry everything he had around on his back. (He had more than I did because he was going on an extended trip after Vienna and Brno.)

We walked until we got to Mozartplatz, which was a lot smaller than I thought it would be. A statue and a small fountain, with benches around for people to hang out.

We didn't hang out, we kept walking. We walked past a building which I only noticed because it had a GIANT gold crab climbing up the side.

We walked past the world renowned opera house on our way to the national library. It looks like an opera house, as if it knows it's own importance. Maybe, if I come back to Vienna, I'll take a tour of the place. Opera houses like this one are majestic.

When we got back to the library we paid for our tickets and walked up a flight of stairs. The stairs were pretty grand themselves, which made me even more excited about what I was going to see inside.

The library was take your breath away beautiful. The walls were covered in shelves and books, and numerous really big globes. The shelves were wood, and everything was gorgeous. In the middle was a statue, it was pretty big. The ceilings were painted, there were wooden arches in the ceiling, etc... The only downside was that visitors couldn't touch anything. There were cases displaying various books, we weren't really supposed to touch those either. There were a couple security folks walking around, keeping an eye on people to make sure we all followed the rules. It was amazing in there.

I'd like to go back and see it again, even though I wouldn't be seeing anything new.

After leaving the library we walked through interior gates, which led us to other areas of the building. Remember how I mentioned how this building was really really big yesterday? I loved the decoration of these gates. Eventually we ended up in a big platz, with a huge memorial in the middle. There were several statues on this memorial, it was big enough for bunches of people to sit on it and hang out. The photo I took of young folks hanging out on the statues seemed perfect to me, though I don't know why.

We made our way back to St Stephen's basilica, and it was much better this time around. Since we were there in the middle of the day there was no extra lighting in the church, everything looked a lot better. The organ in the back was pretty too.

At that point we decided to walk to the bus station. We didn't know how long it would take us to get there, and we weren't sure exactly where it was, and (obviously,) we didn't want to miss our bus.

We found the station and the exact bus stop. We had time to go inside the nearby mall to grab food, which turned out to be not so good. Our bus left on time, and 2 hours later we arrived in Brno, Czech Republic.

We arrived back in Vienna nearly 48 hours later. We arrived two hours later than we wanted, but at least we'd arrived. We never figured out why the delay happened. While on the bus we made a list of the places we wanted to walk to on the way to our accomodation. 

First up was a place called Hundertwasserhaus. In English that name is 100 Water House. It's a block of apartments, decorated in a very modern fashion. I've never seen anything like it. The building has been painted a variety of colours, without straight lines. There are mosaic tiles in various places too. It's such a unique building that tourist infrastructure has developed all around. Souvenir shops, cafes, etc...

From there we walked all the way back to the train station to pick up Bo's bag from the storage locker.

Then we walked to the place Bo had booked for the end of this trip. While we were in the train station we picked up dinner food, and carried it with us to the hotel. The walk ended up being longer than we expected, and both of us were rather hangry at the end. It felt sooooo good to take off our backpacks and eat.

After eating we went for a 20 minute walk, which felt like flying since we weren't carrying backpacks at that point!

The next morning we had a continental breakfast buffet at the hotel, which was nice.

When we walked outside we realized it was even warmer than it had been in the days previously, which was both good and bad. It felt good, but neither one of us were ready for the heat and sun. Oh well.

We walked all the way to Schloss Belvedere, which is actually two palaces, not one. The entry gate is near the ticket office, in which we paid our entry fees of 20 euros each. That's a pretty expensive entrance fee, especially for people traveling on a backpacker budget. When I asked, the ticket lady said we could take photos in places that weren't full of art.

The first palace we visited was the so-called Upper Palace, which is the bigger and fancier of the two. The entry room had art, which didn't really interest either one of us much. The next set of rooms had more art, which also didn't interest us much.

I wanted to see the rooms where we were allowed to take photos, which were amazing. One had frescoes everywhere, including a beautiful ceiling. Another had a fantastic ceiling, and beautiful mirrors. The windows in both rooms both looked out over the grounds in between the two palaces which were very landscaped.

After walking through all the open rooms in the upper palace, we walked down the hill, through the gardens, to the lower palace. This one was a lot smaller, with only a few rooms open to visitors. I'm not sure if the same photo restrictions applied in this palace, but I had no interest in taking photos of the art on display. There were two stunning rooms here, I felt underdressed by their fanciness.

Back out on the street we started searching for a supermarket, as the sun had dehydrated both of us.

Unfortunately, it was Sunday, which meant nearly everything was closed. Argh. The place we finally found was packed with tourists, all of whom were in the same situation we were: hungry and thirsty. It's amazing how much worse hunger and thirst feel when you keep walking by closed markets. You can see the food and drink but not have it. 

From that supermarket we walked back to our hotel, where I finished packing up my bag. After a few minutes, we walked again, this time to another train station.

I bought bakery goods to take with me, as I love Austrian baked goods, and I didn't know when I'd have the chance to have them again. With my baked goods I boarded the train to the airport, it was on time and fast.

My flights back to Kyiv were easy and on time. I'd love to explore more of Austria, and I hope I get the chance!