Vienna and lots of Coffee

Vienna

Saturday, May 2nd

Flight from Copenhagen at 7:40 (where I got a free breakfast, coffee and water!) arrived at hotel in Vienna at 10:30. I walked from my hotel down the main street in Vienna, saw the Stephensdom and walked around the medieval part of the city, got Kebap, walked around part of the Ringstrasse, and got my first Viennese coffee at Café Mozart. Then I walked around the Hofburg Palace, went to one of the many art museums in Vienna, the Kunsthistorisches Museum, got an Eispanner (espresso with whipped cream) and an apple strudel at the museum café. Then I walked around more, got dinner of a sausage and roll and headed back to my hotel.

Sunday May 3rd

Went to the Belvedere and went to the Upper Belvedere art museum. Walked past the Secession Building went to Café Museum where I got another Mélange (the typical Viennese coffee drink, espresso with whipped milk) and a strudel and then I went over to Schönbrunn, the large Hapsburg Palace where I took a tour of the palace and walked around the gardens. Then I went back to the central part of Vienna, walked around, got an Eispanner and slice of cake at a bakery and then walked up to my hotel and through a large park near the hotel.

Monday, May 4th

After dropping my bag off at a train station where I could pick it up before heading to the airport, I went to Hotel Sacher (where the Sacher Torte was invented) and had a Mélange and a slice of sacher torte. Then I went to the Leopold Museum (19th and early 20th century art), walked down a major shopping street, got lunch at the Neumarkt (which is a series of stands and small restaurants, a lot of them ethnic). Then I went to another café, got my 2nd to last Mélange and a Kaiserschmarm (egg pancakes and sour cherry sauce.) Then I headed to the airport where I was really early (as usual) so I got another mélange at a good looking café at the airport.

Thoughts on Vienna

1. Feels more like turn of the century and they seem to emphasize that with the horses and buggies and with the drivers wearing bowler hats
2. People don’t seem to dress as girly as in Copenhagen, but I have mostly been around tourists and not Viennese
3. I like Austria a lot, it seems prettier and more laid back than Germany but not as much as Switzerland. Like a softer version of Germany and kind of a middle ground between Germany and Switzerland.
4. Catholic instead of Protestant – grander buildings.
5. Lots of good looking bakeries and coffee houses
6. They are really in strawberries for dessert.
7. Lots of Italian tourists here.
8. I kept accidentally getting cheese in things which was annoying and totally my fault since I kept forgetting to check if things had cheese in them.
9. Coffee was really good.
10. People kept getting really close to me when I was waiting in lines and it was very uncomfortable.
11. Groups of Chinese tourists are both really annoying and funny because they travel in huge packs, are mostly middle age kind of dorky looking couples, they also tend to get confused and then take forever and inevitably, you get stuck behind them. Also, since they travel in huge groups, they can really get in the way of pictures.
12. Restaurant service in Europe is generally not as good in America and it is getting really annoying always having to get the waiter’s attention to pay the bill.
13. Street food is very cheap in Vienna; I got 3 slices of pizza for 2.30 Euros and 3 scoops of ice cream in a big cone for 2.20 Euros.
14. There weren’t many bathroom stalls in large tourist places like museums or airports, which was kind of annoying.
15. Austrians have a certain look to them, blonde but sharper features than Germans.
16. Why doesn’t Austria have its own language? After all, almost every other small country in Europe has its only language.
17. I watched CNN a lot since it was one of the 3 channels in English at the hotel and I realized how terrible TV news is, most of the time, they didn’t say anything new or interesting and really harped on the same story for way too long.
18. There was lots of other food that I would have liked to try in Vienna.
19. I really like how Vienna was surrounded by hills, it gives the city more interest and it a nice break from the flatness of Denmark.
20. The Kunsthistoriche museum (art museum) had the best seating in the galleries of any musuem I have even been to. Many art museums have very limited seating in the galleries which is annoying becasue musuems are very tiring but this museum in Vienna had lots of seats in every room and the seats were very fancy, plush couches that were great to sit in!