Vienna: The Remarkable Capital of Austria

Day 8:

After getting a rough night of sleep due to the loudest, snoring, and rude roommates, we got a nice big breakfast at our hostel. Since we didn’t even have a full day in Vienna (just the way our trip worked out) we had to figure out the best way to see such a big city. Let me repeat… BIG! Vienna is a huge city and we thought what would work best to see it all was to do a bus tour!

The hostel we stayed in was very conveniently located close to the main city center. We took a quick walk to where the bus tour picked up and then hopped on!

The amount of things we got to see during this tour was incredible… we saw the State Opera House, Museum of Fine Arts and the Natural History Museum, Parliament, City Hall, Burgtheater, University, Stock Exchange, Prater, UNO City, St. Stephan's Cathedral,  Stadtpark, Beethovenplatz, St. Charles Square, Albertina, and several other things.

Albertina

                   City Hall

 

Danube River

                   Parliament

 

Hofburg Palace

St. Francis of Assisi Church

When the tour was done, we were pretty hungry. We heard during the tour of recommendations of places to get quality wiener schnitzel!! I had never had it before and expected it to be in the shape of a sausage. Well once we got to Gast Haus Poschl and got our plate of wiener schnitzel, I was quite surprised! It really is a thin piece of meat (usually veal) that is breaded and deep fried. It was served with a cold plate of well seasoned potatoes.

 We then walked back to a couple of the sites. We went back to St. Stephen's Cathedral to go inside. The inside was impressive, with high columns and arches, but I thought the best part was actually the design outside. One section of the roof was beautifully decorated with zig-zagging tiles and a massive bell tower.

 

Afterwards we took a stroll on the main pedestrian walkway, Kärntner Strasse. There are lots of high end shops mixed with little souvenir shops and an abundance of restaurants. It was wonderful weather outside, walking was quite enjoyable. 

We went back to the State Opera House and looked around there for a bit.  It was there we realized we had taken hardly any pictures of ourselves in Vienna. Since the State Opera House is a very famous sight, we took a quick pic here! And then with ourselves under the trees lining the main street! haha

At this point it was time to head back to our hostel to pick up our backpacks before going to the train station for our train to Salzburg! This train was only about 2 hours which was a nice short train for a change.

But before the train, we needed a little food of course! Conveniently right outside our hostel was a Chinatown market! I got amazing vegetable lo mein from one of the vendors! How funny I was eating Chinese food, but it was such a great change of pace.

I reflected on my day in Vienna while on the train. Even though I was only there for a day, we still got to see a good portion of the city. I had no idea how big this capital city would be, but I really loved it! The whole city was very clean and the buildings so grand. I guess since I'm use to being in DC back home, this kind of reminded me of it and I felt at ease. It's unfortunate I didn't get to spend more time here, but the time I did get here was truly great!