WOW! Vienna was magnificent, that is all I have to say!
It is the kind of place where you are looking at something, and you think that is it, but then you turn a corner and there is so much more that you'd never expect.
We flew Easy Jet out of Berlin to Vienna. It was a quick 1 hr flight, that was delayed 45 mins on our take off day. Vienna was experiencing extremely bad weather Friday night, and they stopped all air traffic to and from the airport. We were supposed to be delayed for 4 hours, but somehow a spot opened up and we got it!
The Vienna International Airport is easy to navigate, and they make your public transportation options VERY obvious. We settled for the slightly more expensive option because it was a direct 16 min ride, vs a 1 hr ride with many stops. We purchased roundtrip tickets for the CAT (City Airport Transfer), as well as 48 hr city passes which would allow us to use all of Vienna's public transportation.
We stayed at the Rick Steve's recommended K&T Boardinghouse, which sat a minutes walk from the main street. The room was spacious, clean, comfortable and had a cool temperature despite the air being off (A/C is offered for an extra charge, we opted out). Friday night when we arrived it was fairly late, so we hit the hay for a full day of sight seeing on Saturday.
The start of the Museum Quartier.
This is one view of Hofburg Palace.
Hofburg Palace peeking through the trees.
There was a man making Lattes on the Palace grounds. He made this cute bear in my drink, so naturally I took a picture! :)
An entrance to Hofburg Palace.
The flowers make a clef. How neat. :)
The other side of Hofburg Palace.
Hofburg Palace.
It is kind of difficult to tell, but the bushery (I am declaring this a word) made a star!
Selfies in the garden!
Parliment.
Volksgarten, part of the Hofburg Palace. All around this garden there were hundreds of rose bushes. Each with a sign of dedication and a sweet love message. All in German, but I picked out a few Ich Liebe Dich's (I love you).
Rathaus. Vienna's City Hall. There was a film festival going on making it hard to get up there and take a good photo!
Votivkirche. A neo-Gothic Church.
It was under construction and full of scaffolding.
A few photos from the inside!
St. Stephen's Cathedral. Also under construction, but at least they painted the coverings!
St. Stephen's Cathedral.
After a quick bite to eat from food trucks, we headed to Prater. Which is an Amusement park, but also home to The Giant Ferris Wheel - Riesenrad. It was built in 1896 and offers a view of Vienna from almost 200 feet in the air!
This photo is from www.wien.info
Waiting to get on!
Amazing city views! I spied with my little eye a roller coaster at this Amusement Park, and I begged Blake to let us ride just one! He obliged. :) The neat thing about Prater is that you don't pay to get into the park, you only pay for the rides you wish to ride. Each ride has it's own ticket booth. So we bought tickets for the ferris wheel, and then tickets for the roller coaster. The coaster looked like a nice ride from afar, but that was not the case! We certainly felt every jerk. Our bodies were not happy, but our hearts were. :)
Next up was a visit to Demel. Demel is a famous pastry shop in Vienna that was established in 1786.
We just peeked around, but settled on not trying anything as the line was far too long!...Have no fear, the airport also had a Demel, and we bought a dessert there. :)
We went back to our hotel and rested a bit before heading to dinner at 1516 Brewing Company. We were bad and did not eat Schnitzel. But instead had delicious other food, all whilst enjoying delicious beer.
After dinner, we were walking back to the metro system, when we spotted a casino. We decided to pop inside and see what it was all about. Wellllll 5 hours, many free drinks and many euros won and lost later, we went home. All in all it was a win in our book.
:)
XOXO
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