Vienna

Recently voted the number one city to live in...in the world, Shea and I flew down to Vienna, Austria from April 2nd to the 4th for Easter to see what all the fuss was about.

To get our bearings, our first stop was St. Stephan's Cathedral (pictured here) founded in the 12th century in the center of the city. We took an elevator to the top of the north tower constructed in 1579, which offers a panoramic view of the city and the Danube River. We then set out for the Schönbrunn Palace (pictured above) just outside the heart of city. It was the seat of the Hapsburg dynasty, and is an enormous palace with over 1400 rooms. We opted for a tour of the Imperial apartments, and with their 24 carat gold ornamentation and porcelain, we were able to see how royal society lived. After our tour, we strolled through the amazing gardens and soaked up some of the warm Spring sun.

Vienna is known for its cafes, so we headed from there to a famous one known as Dommayer near the palace. This place is known to have some of the best sacher torte (sacher torte is a traditional cake made of chocolate with an apricot jam filling) in the world. After getting our caffeine and sugar buzz going, we headed back into the heart of the city for the afternoon. We headed over to the Spanish Riding School to see about tickets for Sunday. Unfortunately, we couldn't get in, but what we could do was walk over to the stables and see for ourselves all the white Lipizzaner horses. We then visited the opera house and Mozart park. This place lays claim to Mozart, even though he wasn't from here, but you find statues, stores, and buildings dedicated to him everywhere. We then walked through the Hofburg palace area, which houses the royal treasury, art museum, royal city apartments, and impressive courtyards. The size and beauty of these buildings were amazing, and you could see why the Prussian dynasty lasted for so long...they had all the money!

After a day on our feet we were ready for a nice heavy meal. We headed to a traditional Viennese tavern where we rewarded ourselves with some true wienerschnitzel. Though the German's adopted the wienerschnitzel, it is actually from Vienna, so we had to test ourselves to see if we could taste any differences. It's a taste test I could repeat daily...as I love the stuff (thats picture is me about to 'do work'). We capped off the meal with some apfelstrudel before heading back to the hotel.

Sunday was Easter, so we headed to an English mass at 10:30. After mass we went back into the heart of the city, where we strolled around city hall and the Hofburg theater. From there we visited the Votivkirche (Votiv Church) with its beautiful centuries old gothic towers. We made our way from there through an outdoor Easter market where we sampled local cuisine and checked out some artists at work. We then walked over the Danube and caught our bus back to the airport.

We had a lot to see in our short amount of time there. Their city was very beautiful, and both Shea and I felt it certainly rivaled Paris in terms of majesty. The only thing we wish we had gotten to check out was the Vienna's Boys choir, but I told Shea she could karaoke with BJ and hear the same high notes.