Day 13 – Vienna

Vienna

Of the six cities we have toured on the trip, for some reason Vienna seems like the biggest by far. It is in fact the biggest but 5 of the 6 cities are comparable, all between 1.2M and 1.7M.  Only Bratislava at 400K seems tiny in comparison. Vienna just seems more like a sprawling modern town with a large city center bounded by the Ringstrasse and the Danube (not blue here either). The city center doesn’t even have an “old town” feel, perhaps because a lot of it was rebuilt after WWII in a more modern urban style. There are still a lot of impressive buildings built by Habsburg (or Hapsburg, seen it spelled both ways) dynasty, but they are a more majestic style that seems far from Medieval.

Crown of the Holy Roman Emperor

Today and tomorrow we are using our City Passes along with the Hop On Hop Off tour bus. We shuffled the schedule around a little as rain is predicted for tomorrow and we are going to save the museums for then and do outdoor stuff today. We started with a trip to the Imperial Treasury to see the Habsburg "collectibles." They range from truly historical items like the crowns of several countries, kings' robes and the crown of the Holy Roman Emperor to questionable items such as a unicorn horn, the holy grail and a nail from the true cross.

Schönbrunn Palace

After that we rode the Yellow Line tour out to Schönbrunn Palace, which was the summer residence for the Habsburgs and the most popular tourist spot in Vienna. It is truly a magnificent palace with huge gardens behind. It would take all day to tour that stop properly.

We had a demonstration on how to make Apple Strudel, which convinced us that no amateur chef could do it. They spin the dough like pizza dough and work it until it is wafer thin. We finished the Yellow Line tour and Jeanne rested back at the hotel while I started out on the Blue Line tour.

Wiener Riesenrad

I wanted to ride the Wiener Riesenrad (aka Giant Ferris Wheel) which is a prominent feature of the Vienna skyline, but I mainly wanted to do it because it is featured in the movie, “The Third Man” with Orson Well which is set in post WWII in Vienna. We watched the film before we started the trip and we both highly recommend it. It was named best film of the 20th century by one poll. Jeanne had no interest in riding the Ferris Wheel.

Orson Wells, apparently not to happy with me

I also went to the Madame Tussauds Wax Museum and the Danube Tower, mainly because they were included on our City Pass. The wax museum was a little creepy as you can pose with the wax figures. You can see I continued the "Third Man" theme by posing with Orson Wells in a sceen from the movie. We topped the evening off with a nice Austrian dinner at the Stadtpark Bräu, a short walking distance from our hotel. I had Tafelspitz, which is a traditional boiled roast beef meal, and Jeanne had a nice chicken and mushroom dish.