First impressions of Vienna...it is probably the cleanest city we have ever been in, it is very walkable (as judged by my now aching feet), it has a very nice transit system, there seem to be an awful lot of palaces and it has no shortage of good desserts.
Of course we didn't just eat, so I'll get to that in a minute...
We visited two palaces - the Hofburg was first.
Unfortunately no pictures were allowed inside so you'll have to look at the link below.
http://www.hofburg-wien.at/en/things-to-know/vienna-hofburg.html
First
you see the "silver collection" which is an insane amount of dishes,
cutlery and table centre pieces. My personal favourite are the faux
gold plates - apparently heads of state only eat off gold, so what do
you do when you've melted them down for the war effort? You make fake
ones!
Lastly you go through the
Sisi Museum and the Imperial Apartments. Sisi (Elizabeth) was married to the longest serving european
monarch (Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria). For reference Queen
Elizabeth II still has to rule for about 6 more years to beat him, though
technically she's outlived him. Anyway, Sisi was very pretty but hated
being an empress and hated the limelight so naturally, after she was
murdered, she became a media sensation. Statues, commemorative coins,
movies and of course a complete museum dedicated just to her! I'm sure
she would be genuinely mortified.
Of
course no royal family can live entirely in their winter residence so off to the summer digs...this is Schonbrunn Palace
As you can see it has a quaint little garden to go with it. This tiny little backyard also hosts the
oldest zoo in Europe complete with pandas
and polar bears.
View from the bottom of the garden...or the top depending on how you look at it...
We saw a few churches - this one is St Stephens
It has a cool roof which you will see in all sorts of pictures of Vienna, unfortunately for us the ancient lift that gets you to that roof was broken - but thankfully it broke before we got in it!
This one is called University Church and is Jesuit Based, as you can see they prefer a more ornate level of decor but I wonder if they ran out of money because they couldn't afford a real dome...
Now you see it...
Now you don't...
Now, on to FOOD!
Our first impression of food in Vienna was the Naschmarkt, we didn't actually eat there but easily could have. It is quite a long row of stalls and restaurants that seem to terminate with a flea market.
There are many stereotypical Viennese dishes so we tried our best to try as many as possible in our short time here.
Here we have schnitzel and potato salad
Goulash
Bratwurst and Beer
Tafelspitz
Cheese dumplings (these were cold so i'm not sure if they are truly in the Viennese style, they are also missing their breadcrumbs)
Topfenknodel (official cheese dumplings swimming in sauce with strawberries. Delish!)
Gelato (you may think this is not a Vienna thing, but after walking past numerous Gelato places with packed patios I assure you it is!)
Pancakes filled with Apricot Jam
and of course no trip to Vienna would be complete without a stop at a coffee shop to have from Sacher Torte
