The city of Mozart: Vienna

Overlooking Schonbrunn Palace

Finally, the third leg of our trip last month was the city of Mozart... Vienna. To say the least everywhere you looked I felt like there was something touristy related to Mozart - every souvenir shop had some Mozart related product, every street corner had someone dressed up as Mozart to promote something, etc. Although I perhaps have more interest in his music than the average person, I was still glad to see that Vienna had a lot more to offer than just Mozart.

Upon arriving from Budapest we took the afternoon to simply relax and introduce ourselves to the city center. We quickly found the main pedestrian throroughfare, which it seemed no matter what time of day was extremely busy with both tourists and locals as not only did it lead to and from many main tourist attractions but it also offered some of the best shopping in Vienna. Between the train ride, getting to the hotel, and figuring out where we wanted to go for the rest of the day however we somehow missed lunch (we rarely let this happen), so we decided that we would have to try some famous Vienna chocolate cake instead! We ventured to the world famous Demel Bakery to sample what was supposed to be the moister version of chocolate cake than to be found at the other famous chocolatier, Cafe Sacher. It didn't disappoint Steve to say the least, and I was happy sampling one of their many other enticing desserts. And even though Emma didn't get her own piece of cake, she seemed just as happy entertaining all the other nearby guests with her smiles and giggles.

Feeling very European at this famous Viennese cafe!

From there we took a quick peak at the small but beautiful St. Peter's Church, which surprises you a bit with it's hidden location. And after that we made our way to the much larger, grander St. Stephen's Cathedral. Like everything else in Europe it seems part of the exterior was covered in scaffolding, but it was beautiful nonetheless and the inside did not disappoint. However, the highlight of our visit to the cathedral was most certainly the tour of the catacombs. For some reason I failed to think about the details of this tour ahead of time, like that we would actually see skeletal remains...

St. Stephen's Cathedral

The next day we decided to tour the Hofburg Palace, which I found to be one of the most beautiful and intriguing palaces we have visited to date in Europe. We could have spent an entire day just looking at their family's china, gold, and silver collections, which was enormous to say the least.

Neverending gold collection at the palace...

Family photo in front of Hofburg Palace

Two of my favorite people at the palace...

With the summer like weather we spent the rest of the afternoon on our own walking tour past some other important buildings throughout the city including the beautiful Rathaus (city hall). And although it has been more than 10 years since I have visited Paris I would agree with others that say Vienna reminds them of it, but I think it was even more beautiful and certainly cleaner than it's more famous counterpart.

Rathaus

Our second full day in Vienna led us to the other large palace on the outskirts of the city, the Schonbrunn Palace. We skipped the tour inside since it was supposed to be similar to the Hofburg in many ways (it was after all the emperor's "other" palace), and instead chose to simply enjoy the immense gardens surrounding the palace and take in the great views of the city of Vienna. Here is a look at the gardens...

Beautiful areas to stroll throughout the gardens

Interesting fountain

Impressive tree trimming

Views of the Schonbrunn Palace and the city of Vienna

In front of the beautiful flowers of the palace

And as seems to be typical of the end of our trips we spent the remainder of the afternoon soaking in the atmosphere and cuisine of the city. We sampled sturm, which supposedly marks the start of autumn in Austria, as it is a low in alcohol semi-fermented grape juice from the first harvest. It was sweet, semi-carbonated, and came in both red and white - it doesn't get much better than that. We also enjoyed a wine garden and ate a dinner of tafelspitz (the "national dish" of Austria), which is basically just a boiled cut of beef in broth. Not bad, but I'm not sure I would classify it as amazing either. Steve and I both concluded it tasted like pot roast.

Finally, our last day of vacation left us only with a short morning, but we made the most of it by making our way to the historic Vienna Opera House for a tour before heading out of town. It was perhaps better than even going for a performance as we got to tour some private areas of the building (which the nerd in me found especially interesting after my work experience back at the Peabody Opera House in St. Louis).

Private room for the emperor back in the day... now a very expensive rental area

Although we were sad to be leaving town and headed back to Zurich, it was one of the only really rainy and cold days of our trip, which made it easier to say good-bye. And to my delight we got to enjoy our first Pumpkin Spice Latte of the season at Starbucks on the way out of town (evidently they only sell them in Europe in the month of October, trust me I was jealous as I read the facebook posts about all of you enjoying these back in September). One of the little things I miss about home that I have learned to savor when I get the chance. And although I miss many of my old favorites, it certainly is fun developing so many new favorites all over Europe!


Family photo on the steps of the Schonbrunn Palace