We're waltzing, we're waltzing... Vienna.
After our Budapest stop and a cursory tour of a pleasant-but-not-incredibly-memorable Bratislava, Slovakia, our ship cruised on to Austria's capital city of Vienna.
I'd visited Austria before in the mid-1990s during a high school spring break trip, but my tolerance and appreciation for art, architecture, and history thankfully improved since my teenage years. The Viking ship was docked at a remote location away from the main city center, so we were bussed and taxi-ed into and out of the Ringstrasse, a main boulevard loop of the city.
For fans of classical music, art, Baroque buildings, cafe culture, and royal history, Vienna is your place. The Hapsburg monarchy was based here, and the Hofburg Palace and surrounding complex of related residences, museums, monuments, and gardens could take days to see. My mom and I did a cursory walking tour with our group and then once that was over, we unintentionally toured a good bit more of Vienna by foot on a gray day.
Traveling with Scott for more than 15 years, I've grown used to visiting new places on foot, walking miles or kilometers for hours to admire buildings, neighborhoods, and other nerdy urban planning features. My mom, however, has not. Thus a few blocks for me was a challenge for her. I pushed it pretty far, since my iPhone clocked us at 5.4 miles total on the day we visited Vienna.
I loved walking! Being bound to a ship and limited to group tours was NOT my cup oftea espresso, so I tried to take advantage of free time to get out and move around. We tried to visit the famed cafe that invented the ultimate Viennese cafe confection, the chocolate sacher torte, and while we made it to the one adjacent to the Opera House that we thought our tour director identified, it turned out it was the wrong cafe. Ah well. We enjoyed the espresso drinks, while we learned why it's recommended to ask for the torte "mit schlag" ("with whipped cream") - the cake was very dry. I just had fun using my rusty high school and college German language vocabulary to order during our cafe visit.
Fueled by caffeine and sugar, we walked on to find the art complex Museumsquartier to check out an exhibit or a gift shop, but I got us a little turned around, so we added more steps to our total by walking the perimeter of the Ringstrasse. We finally found the Museumsquartier but there wasn't much time to tour and the exhibits of Egon Schiele didn't appeal to us. If you visit, plan to see a lot of Schiele and Gustav Klimt (and so many souvenirs of "The Kiss"), as both were Austrian artists. At the Leopold museum, we took a brief rest to snap some silly selfies. Mom was a good sport at posing for pictures.
We tried to eat a quick meal in a museum cafe in the quartier, but upon being seated we were ignored for much longer than we had patience for, so we left without ordering. That was disappointing, but I know most servers in big tourist zones probably put up with so much bad behavior. I am sure they didn't miss the tired Americans who just wanted to split a panini and 6-euro Coke.
Feeling a little put out and worn out, we hailed a taxi back to the ship and had a snack and a rest before our early 5:30 dinner time (yes, I was definitely with the senior crowd!). Our evening optional tour took us to the Palais Auersperg for a Vienna Residence Orchestra concert of Mozart & Strauss compositions. The music was nice but the seats were so tightly packed (check out this photo for an example) that it was hard to sit for even just an hour. Luckily the concert included an intermission for a leg stretch and complimentary glass of wine!
Speaking of wine, our next stop was in Austria's Wachau Valley. It tied with Budapest for my favorite day on the cruise - find out why in my next post!
I'd visited Austria before in the mid-1990s during a high school spring break trip, but my tolerance and appreciation for art, architecture, and history thankfully improved since my teenage years. The Viking ship was docked at a remote location away from the main city center, so we were bussed and taxi-ed into and out of the Ringstrasse, a main boulevard loop of the city.
For fans of classical music, art, Baroque buildings, cafe culture, and royal history, Vienna is your place. The Hapsburg monarchy was based here, and the Hofburg Palace and surrounding complex of related residences, museums, monuments, and gardens could take days to see. My mom and I did a cursory walking tour with our group and then once that was over, we unintentionally toured a good bit more of Vienna by foot on a gray day.
Traveling with Scott for more than 15 years, I've grown used to visiting new places on foot, walking miles or kilometers for hours to admire buildings, neighborhoods, and other nerdy urban planning features. My mom, however, has not. Thus a few blocks for me was a challenge for her. I pushed it pretty far, since my iPhone clocked us at 5.4 miles total on the day we visited Vienna.
I loved walking! Being bound to a ship and limited to group tours was NOT my cup of
Fueled by caffeine and sugar, we walked on to find the art complex Museumsquartier to check out an exhibit or a gift shop, but I got us a little turned around, so we added more steps to our total by walking the perimeter of the Ringstrasse. We finally found the Museumsquartier but there wasn't much time to tour and the exhibits of Egon Schiele didn't appeal to us. If you visit, plan to see a lot of Schiele and Gustav Klimt (and so many souvenirs of "The Kiss"), as both were Austrian artists. At the Leopold museum, we took a brief rest to snap some silly selfies. Mom was a good sport at posing for pictures.
We tried to eat a quick meal in a museum cafe in the quartier, but upon being seated we were ignored for much longer than we had patience for, so we left without ordering. That was disappointing, but I know most servers in big tourist zones probably put up with so much bad behavior. I am sure they didn't miss the tired Americans who just wanted to split a panini and 6-euro Coke.
Feeling a little put out and worn out, we hailed a taxi back to the ship and had a snack and a rest before our early 5:30 dinner time (yes, I was definitely with the senior crowd!). Our evening optional tour took us to the Palais Auersperg for a Vienna Residence Orchestra concert of Mozart & Strauss compositions. The music was nice but the seats were so tightly packed (check out this photo for an example) that it was hard to sit for even just an hour. Luckily the concert included an intermission for a leg stretch and complimentary glass of wine!
Speaking of wine, our next stop was in Austria's Wachau Valley. It tied with Budapest for my favorite day on the cruise - find out why in my next post!
Love the travelogue.....
ReplyDelete