In the lyrics of the great Billy Joel…we arrived in Vienna rather early in the day after a short, cosy train ride. Two and a half hours and 251 kms from station to station. It started to rain on the way and I knew it would be snowing in the mountains behind us. Ahead were lovely fields, starting to grow greener, even though it was still early spring in this area. The days ahead would be windy, rainy and much colder than we had experienced so far on this trip.
Our hotel room was an studio apartment within 1 km of the train station. Very central. It was one of those automated hotels, where there is no front reception and everything is communicated via email or chat. This is the second time we’ve tried this concept and we were generally very satisfied with the experience. A funny thing that happened was that while we went out to the grocery store across the street, someone thought it would be ok to take one of our 2 pillows off the bed. We finally sorted it out and got 4 pillows, but that was only the next day, after quite a few emails, and when the housestaff was on duty. So for the first night, Leon slept with the bag of dirty laundry under his head. Another funny thing happened the next day when we did the laundry. Again, the system is fully automated using apps to choose options and pay. For some reason, one load was taking over 2 hours to wash. Then the drying time went so long that I pulled everything out fearing it would catch fire. The clothes were steaming hot, likely very clean, but it took overnight to dry.
If it doesn’t sound like a very exciting time in Vienna, well it wasn’t at first. It was cold and windy, and wet. I caught a cold and I had a lot of work to complete before the end of the month. Staying in one place for 5 days was meant to let me work but I’ll admit I was starting to need to get out a bit. You’ll notice that we usually go out for a coffee and even a pastry, basically daily. That’s because we tend to drink tea in our room, as long as we have a kettle and a fridge. We drank a lot of tea in our room in Vienna.
By the 3rd day, we finally went out for a bit of touring. The military museum was within 3 kms of our hotel, via the train station (just to get out of the cold wind). We were happy to enjoy learning about Austrian history (I had been reading up on it a bit) and explore the beautiful building that housed the exhibits (my pictures did not capture the details of the upper hall now used for concerts). We took the time to enjoy a coffee to warm up from our brisk walk first. After a few hours, we walked back to the train station for an excellent bowl of pho. Perfect for handling my cold symptoms. An oddity in Vienna is that everything is closed on Sundays. I couldn’t even find a pharmacy to get something for my cold. The train station was at least one sure place to get a good meal, even if it was only a food court. The grocery stores inside the station were also closed. Unexpected!
After another day of diligent work, we emerged from our quarters to board the Hop on Hop off bus to visit the greater Vienna and its many sights. It was the perfect option for us as the city is rather spread out, so walking from place to place can be a bit difficult. The other reason was that we could always seek shelter in the bus when the rain started again.
We drove past a great many sights, stopping first at the back of the Opera House. The first thing I saw was the wiener shack, so we had to try a local snack. I wish I could have tried the pretzels, but I never did see any gluten free ones. Sustained with this modest meal, we headed towards St. Stephen’s Cathedral, one of the jewels of Austrian architecture, built in the 12th century. The area is surrounded by stores with goods to satisfy the most discerning tourist. Very busy and not to my taste. I am sad to see that American culture has taken such a foothold in European cities. Not just American, there were plenty of H&M stores during our trip. And Sephora, always a Sephora, filled with shoppers. I felt like I was at the local mall at times.
All those stores made me want to stop for my daily coffee. Time to try the Sacher Torte. Well, Leon had to try it, as it wasn’t gluten free. But there were plenty of options for me. And I will say that this was the best coffee I had during this trip. By the way, the original hotel where Sacher Torte was created was just around the corner from where we ate. The lineup to get in was extensive.
We switched to a different bus route and went towards the Danube. On the way, we saw many river cruise ships. Perhaps some day we will explore cruising. This would be a good place to start, I think.
The most obvious characteristic of Vienna is its architecture. Beautiful buildings compete for your attention. Unfortunately, there is quite a bit of graffiti in some areas, which really mar the buildings, but I guess they can’t keep up with it. This is not uncommon in Europe. The bus tour gave us some inspiration for our activities on the next day. We planned to see Schönbrunn Palace and stop for lunch at the large outdoor market.
So the next morning, we used the bus again and stopped to see the Palace and grounds. An Easter Market was on, similar to a Christmas Market. Unfortunately, the rain did not make for a pleasant stroll around the market stalls. We did enjoy a long walk on the Palace grounds where we found the original beautiful spring, the Schöner Brunn. That is what the palace is named for.
We walked along one of the many canals and found the light rail station and made our way to the large outdoor market, closer to the city center. This market has been in operation since the 16th century and is composed of over 130 stalls that are semi-covered. It spans about 1 km. We were told we could expect lots of free samples. Cheese, olives, nuts, dried fruit and candy were offered as we walked the length of the marketplace. On the outside areas, there are a number of restaurants and we stopped for a nice late lunch. I’m not sure why, because I was pretty full from all the samples. At any rate, we went back to some of the stalls to buy olives and nuts for our long train trip to Switzerland the next day. Some of the salesmen were rather enthusiastic and I ended up with 59 Euros worth of almonds and candy. My next planned stop was to buy my usual souvenir yarn but in light of this hefty expenditure, I decided to just keep walking. We ended up walking all the way back to the train station and ultimately to our hotel.
Fraser Valley Hygge 