Vienna is definitely a big city and you get that sense right when you arrive. Thankfully the city has a great transit system that gets you wherever you want to go with relative ease. The U-Bahn is fabulous; the stations are clean and bright; the trains run on time and are quite modern. The stations are also all well signed. My favourite line was U2. We bought a 72-hour transit pass, for about $14 Euro each, which allowed unlimited travel on the U-Bahn lines, buses and trams. Vienna’s transit system goes on the honour system, but if you get caught without a valid ticket, it’s a $70 Euro on the spot fine.
We felt safe walking around the city and in the underground and while it’s always important to be mindful of your surroundings, we never in the least bit felt we had to be overly cautious. Even a taxi driver, who immigrated from the Philippines 20 years ago, said he moved here because he felt it is the safest city in Europe. The city is generally pretty clean as well. There are plenty of public toilets around the city, including in the U stations, which are clean and stocked with required supplies; some required payment of 50 cent Euro while others were free. It’s definitely a different culture here with what I would describe as more respectful values in place. You were promptly greeted when entering a store and service in general was just better. We also noticed that alcohol can be consumed openly on the streets and you didn’t see a bunch of people walking around drunk. It’s quite the contrast from home.
We stayed at Hotel Imlauer, which is a contemporary, modern hotel. It’s located a short train ride from the central Vienna core and the U station was about two blocks away. The hotel even gave us a nice welcome note and small gift for our honeymoon. It was a great hotel for the end of our European tour.
Again, we chose not to visit many museums because of limited time and we wanted to see the city, not artifacts and artwork. We took the train to Schloss Schonbrunn, the former summer house of the Imperial family. When we arrived there were children’s choirs from several Asian countries performing in front of the palace. They were there for the World Peace Choral Festival. The surrounding gardens were immaculately sculptured. There are Roman ruins and sculptures all around the grounds. The grounds appear to be a popular running spot for locals. You get some really good city views when you walk to the end of the gardens where you find the Gloriette structure.
St. Stephen’s Cathedral is an impressive, gothic church built in the 1100’s. This gigantic church was undergoing some restoration, but the “wrapping” was a picture of the part of the church it was covering, so you really did get to see the whole building. Inside the church was beautiful with dramatic high ceilings and lovely artwork.
We walked along the main pedestrian street in the core of the city. This street was filled with buskers performing their various talents. This street had plenty of shops where you could spend all your money or restaurants and cafes in case you were hungry. One thing about Vienna, you’ll never go hungry in this city. You could even get take away seafood chain called Nordsee, but Z said his box of shrimp wasn’t that good.
We had a lot of other great tasting food, including a meal at a restaurant called 3 Hacken Magazin. We read about this place on another traveller’s blog who raved about the traditional Austrian food. So we tried it out and agreed that the food was great as well as the ambience. We arrived just before the evening dinner crowd, so we managed to get a table without a reservation, but apparently it is recommended to make a reservation for this place.
On the recommendation of a friend, we went to an ice cream store called Tischy. Now, had we not gone to Italy before Vienna, I’d definitely say this was the best ice cream I’ve ever tasted. It’s a very close second in my books. The ice cream is rich in flavour which just explodes in your mouth. I had hazelnut and vanilla one time and hazelnut and strawberry another. The strawberry tasted like I was eating real strawberries and the hazelnut was to die for. I could have lived on this if I was allowed. Z will attest to that and I think he could have too. The flavours he had were absolutely fabulous as well.
No comments:
Post a Comment