Back in August, Zack and I took a week-long trip to Vienna. Since he’s working from home anyway, we decided to spend some of that time…not at home. (Once we got back, Zack was informed that Amazon’s policy is now officially to work from your actual home for tax purposes, so…oops). But we had a great time!
Where we stayed
I mentioned in my Paris post that we’re pretty avid Airbnb users, and this trip was no exception. We stayed in a studio in the 9th district. Vienna’s city center is dense and really accessible, and the apartment was a half a block from a metro station. We spent a lot of time on the U4 that week!
Day 1 – Saturday
We trained to Vienna from Berlin and arrived at the main train station around 3:30pm. We took the streetcar to the apartment. Our host met us there, enthusiastically offered us an Austrian beer, and whipped out a map to talk us through all the sights we needed to see during our stay.
Once we were settled in, we went around the corner to a restaurant called Plain (https://www.plainvienna.at/). Zack had a grain bowl, I had a burger, and we each had a lovely cocktail.
Keeping with our no-plans-on-travel-day tradition, we took a walk through the city before bed.
St. Joseph’s Church at night
Day 2 – Sunday
We slept in on Sunday, stopped by Plain again for brunch, then took off to see the city by the light of day. We peeked into St Stephan’s Church (didn’t pay to wander it – it was a bit crowded) and then made our way to the Austrian National Library.
Hole. Lee. Cats. That library was incredible – I had a major Belle moment. They had an exhibit about Beethoven in honor of his 250th birthday. Turns out, he was snarky and usually broke. I’m not surprised by these things – but I’m glad to have a clearer picture of the legend.
After the library, we stopped at Café Central for some Sachertorte. Sachertorte is a Viennese specialty – it’s chocolate cake with apricot jam between the layers and a chocolate ganache on top.
After lunch, we took a nap and then ventured out for dinner. We went to Restaurant D’Landsknecht and had Austrian food – Weiner Schnitzel for me and Knödel for Zack.
Then, back to the apartment and to bed.
Day 3 – Monday
Zack worked Monday and Tuesday, so I was on my own. Which meant it was walking tour day! I swear by Rick Steves’ walking tours – he’s great at giving a historic overview of a place through the lens of seeing notable sights.
First, I did his historic city walk, which took me past the opera house and over to St Stephan’s Church again. Turns out, Vienna was a historically key spot on the Roman’s north-south trade route through the Alps, and its location on the Danube River made it important for east-west trade. St Stephan’s Church was built on the site of the original Roman fort. Then, when Charlemagne became Holy Roman Emperor, he annexed Austria and it became the eastern edge of the empire (in German, Austria is Österreich, which literally means eastern reign). After the Habsburg family took over the Holy Roman Empire, the Viennese built St Stephan’s Church, and the Habsburgs were like, “Ooh, Vienna looks nice,” and then moved there and built it into the cultural center that it was in the 19th century.
The rest of the tour took me through the tourist core of the city and to the Hofburg palace – a sprawling complex of a palace. Each successive generation of the Habsburgs built a new wing onto it. It covers like 5 solid blocks. It’s huge.
A memorial column built in honor of victims of the plague.
The second tour I took was of the Ringstrasse, which is a streetcar line that runs along the street that replaced the old city wall. It was a great tour to get your bearings in the city. Unfortunately, it was hot as blazes and the streetcars don’t have great ventilation, so I was sweaty and distracted.
That evening, we went to an Australian Pub to meet up with a friend of a friend and do trivia! We were terrible, but the company was delightful.
Day 4 – Tuesday
Slow start for me this morning, but when I made it out of the apartment, I went straight to the Albertina, a wing of the Hofburg Palace. I swear, that museum was custom-made for me. A great Impressionist exhibit, some preserved fancy rooms, and just enough modern art to round it out. The special exhibit was cool – there was an artist who did large-scale wood prints – we’re talking 6 feet by 24 feet – made up of lots of skinny little parallel lines that made up photorealistic images once you step back. Excellent.
For dinner, Zack and I ate at Naschmarkt, Vienna’s outdoor market. Then, we met up with one of Zack’s college friends for drinks.
Day 5 – Wednesday
Zack was back on tourist duty on Wednesday! We started by getting a tour of the imperial apartments at the Hofburg palace. This included a look at the imperial china (rooms and rooms and rooms of silver, dishes, and centerpieces).
Then, we went on a Stadtwanderweg. Vienna has a number of hikes through the surrounding hills (Stadtwanderweg translates to “city hike way”), so we wanted to see what they were all about. We found ourselves climbing one of the steepest hills I’ve ever been on, then took the shallower way back down.
On the way down the hill, we stopped at a Heuriger, which is a small local vineyard that has a special license to serve young wine during harvest months. We had dinner and a couple glasses of wine overlooking the vineyard and the Danube as the sun went down. A truly wonderful evening.
Day 6 – Thursday
With the ridiculously hot week we had been having (pushing 90 degrees all week), we wanted to cool off a little, so we spent the day lounging by the Danube.
For dinner, we stopped by a Greek restaurant and had been planning on going to a bar and speakeasy for the evening, but we got a call that another one of Zack’s college acquaintances was free for the evening, so we got drinks with a handful of people.
Day 7 – Friday
Friday morning we got up and got brunch, then went over to Schönbrunn Palace. Turns out the Habsburg’s summer residence is a mere 3 miles from their rest-of-the-year residence (do you think they had a winter palace 3 miles in the other direction?).
We didn’t go into the palace, but the gardens had plenty to offer. The hedge mazes were especially fun!
After wearing ourselves out taking in the views, we stopped by a bookstore to peruse and then had Chinese for dinner.
Day 8 – Saturday
We grabbed coffee and then our host came back for checkout (and brought us chocolates! Seriously the sweetest host ever). Then off to the train station and back home!
