Wien! Aka Vienna

Vienna is an incredible city! It is full of history but also full of life... the people are assertive yet polite - we had many locals come up to us and offer their help within about 10 seconds of not knowing where we were, they were extremely good at recognizing that confused tourist face. There is tons to see, lots of great shopping, awesome food, lots of English speakers and even some free bathrooms.

Over the past two days our wandering throughout the city was extremely productive. We became pros at the underground and also walked a ton. Although neither of us are big horse people we both made our mothers proud by attending the Spanish Riding School morning training session. It was well worth it... To start with, the Hofburg complex is an incredible building.... When I think of horse shows I think of an arena like the National Western Stock Show in Denver, dusty with florescent lighting and bleachers in a huge stadium type place. Well Hofburg was polar opposite of that; a beautiful stone structure with wooden chairs above the arena which was pristinely raked and 3 of the most stunning chandelier mounted into the most intricate crown molding ceiling. The setting itself was worth the entrance fee. That particular days training for the horses was not very elaborate but it was still amazing to see. Basically it was like horse ballet... They moved the horses in the most graceful way making it look completely effortless. The horses even grape-vined and hopped. After a while of watching it I had to remind myself that what they were doing was not easy or natural. I was impressed by the training so I am sure the actual performance would have been incredible.

After exploring the inside of St. Stephan's Cathedral, which was beautiful, we hiked the 340 spiral staircase stairs up to the south tower. Although we were very dizzy it was well worth it to have a view of the city. The shopping around Stephansplaza and the Old Town was awesome, and Jorie and I even made our first purchases and spent a lot of time window shopping.

The Belvedere Palace and Gardens were gorgeous and fun to walk around. We also walked through the Botanic Gardens which was lacking in comparison to the palace gardens. The most impressive of all the Palaces and Gardens was the Schonbrunn Palace. Everything within the palace grounds was decadent and on such a massive scale. We spent over two hours wandering through the gardens and probably only saw half of the garden. There were hundreds of little paths you could take in every direction which all led to small gardens with statue focal points. For once we subjected ourselves to getting lost willingly, and we got lost in 3 different mazes they had within the complex. It was rather fun. For our lunch we had the largest and the best pretzel ever while looking over the gardens and the palace. We only spent a few hours at Schonbrunn but we could have spent an entire day.

Hostel Wombat was right next to the Naschmarket, so we spent lots of time taking in the colorful market. During the day one side of the market is overflowing with all types of fresh fruits, vegetables, spices, flowers, bread, meat, etc... I had never even seen about half the fruits before. Then at night the other side of the market turns into a popping restaurant seen with loads of people out to enjoy the outdoor eating. Our last night in Vienna we decided to splurge on a dinner in the market, so we got dressed up and scoped out the best looking food. We ended up at a delicious place called TeWa with very fresh but light food (which is a nice change compared to the heavy Austrian food). We tried Sturm, which is a fall drink that is basically wine fermented for a long time, it is very fruity but very good. Our attentive and helpful Austrian waiter recommended that we go to Cafe Central to have the world famous Vienna Sacher Torte, chocolate cake. We took his advice but discovered that the chocolate cake must be more of an acquired taste, we preferred the Zanoni Ice Cream which is the best ice cream in Vienna.

We had very weird/ extremely talkative roommates in our hostel... The first night we had 3 Brazilian girls and an Australian girl (who had basically followed us from our Hostel in Bratislava). We saw a lot of Brazilian bums, let's just say we tend to be a lot more modest than the Brazilians. We then had a Latvian girl who had never left her country until now and was like a deer in the headlights. We also had a German roommate who was a know-it-all and asked more questions than even I do. We found ourselves trying to avoid them for fear they would cling to us and never shut up...

There is so much to see an do in Vienna... We didn't go to any of the famous museums but we enjoyed getting to know the city in our relaxed and wandering manor. Vienna was amazing and now we are off to Budapest on the train.

Other random things:
1. We have been mistaken as locals several times and also as sisters a lot...
2. Vienna has lots of really amazing street performers...
3. Gourmet is the best grocery store for meal deals followed by Billa...
4. The Vienna public transportation system is very efficient but they are not very good at monitoring if people actually purchase tickets.
5. Absolutely nothing is open on Sunday mornings in Vienna... Sunday store closers are strictly enforced.... This made finding breakfast a challenge.


Other things we have learned about traveling:
1. Eyewitness Pocket Map and Guide for the specific cities are the best tool... They provide little blurbs if info, some pictures to catch your interest and helpful hints.
2. The iPad and iPhone are so so helpful while traveling for a long time.... Thank goodness for apple.
3. The best way to find reliable hostels is hostelworld.com.