EUROPE TRIP ‘19 - FINAL STOP - VIENNA
The last piece of our road-trip was between Graz and Vienna. At this point the weather has made a turn. We were now faced with a clear blue sky, and warmer temperatures. On this particular Sunday, with this particular route, we found not much to do as most places were closed. This reminded us a bit of when we were kids in South-Africa, and you would just go to church and visit you grandparents on a Sunday.
Comparing Austria with ice cream.
Both T and I have quite a sweet tooth. For me more specifically it would be ice cream (I think I got it from my mom).
Every part of Austria was like a different kind of ice cream flavor to me, all yummy and my kind of flavors. Vienna would be something like an “Almond Magnum”. I love the vanilla ice cream on the inside, and the milk chocolate coating, but not a big fan of the almond pieces.
The point I am trying to make here is that Vienna is amazing, but there are just a few “almond pieces” that made this our least favorite spot of the trip.
The Almonds of Vienna.
I always prefer to get the nasty out of the way first. So here goes our list of why Vienna was our least favorite.
The service in general suck. We once waited for a bill for almost 40 minutes.
Parking is few and extremely expensive. We do use public transport most of the time and would strongly recommend that. We, unfortunately, did not always have a choice and ended up paying 9 Euro for 2 hours.
The amount of tourist are astronomical. This leads to another problem. As a tourist, you can ride on a horse carriage (a well-known attraction). This means loads of horses, meaning a constant smell of horse poop and urine. Although they do try clean as much as possible, the smell is almost always lingering.
We did come across quite a few renovations, which I do understand is necessary though.
It can get warm, and they do not have the infrastructure to handle heat as well as the cold. The narrow streets leave no ventilation, and air-conditioning is not a big thing. Our best advise… Go lie under a tree in the park.
Although the almonds make the ice cream less favorable, I would still eat it any day. Vienna is exactly the same, as the good still trumps the bit of bad.
The Yummy parts.
Let’s start with the most obvious “yummy” part, the food. Like the rest of Austria, the food never let us down. I finally got to eat the Eisbein I’ve been craving for days and found the best bacon-wrapped cheese grillers. At this stage of our holiday, we are starting to feel like little piglets ourselves, with the amount of pork we consumed along with the ciders and other goodies.
After our search for Eisbein, we came across a theme park. Our tummies were sooooooo full, that riding on one of these rides was out of the question for us. I had no luck getting my light painting photos, as the sun would just not set. I did manage to capture a few pics to capture some of the fun.
The rest of Vienna is rich with history and architecture, with a dash of quirky personality. They have some of the most beautiful buildings I have ever seen (and if we were more into history, it would have been better). Their shops each has its own character, with stunning shop fittings & windows. Even their traffic lights and signs are less ordinary.
People & Graffiti.
Probably our biggest fascination was the people. They each have their own idea of uniqueness that added to the overall eccentricity of Vienna. With colored hair, bold tattoos, or even some adventurous clothing. Since the sun was out and temperatures rising, the parks were full (felt as though nobody had jobs to be at in the middle of the week). They would ride bikes, have a yoga session, do some knitting, enjoy a tan, or even just have a quick nap.
This eccentricity leads to another big part. Although in some places I did feel as though it’s unwanted (mostly historic buildings). I did enjoy the amount of graffiti they had to offer and felt like a kid in a candy store with my camera. Bright colors, and big contrasts made for some cool pics.
Schönbrunn Palace.
I think the phrase we used as we stepped into the gardens of Schönbrunn Palace, was an Afrikaans one, “Goeie Tier!”. If directly translated it would be “good tiger”, but it’s our version of ” oh my word” (but a bit more powerful). This I found while planning, but in no way could we have been prepared for this moment. It was one of the most spectacular things I have ever seen. For reason, it is a big tourist attraction, but if you jump out of bed early, you would have the gardens mostly to yourself, with perhaps a jogger and a few birds.
The palace with it’s expansive gardens, is about 176 hectares. It’s home to the Neptune Fountain, Gloriette, and Tiergarten (oldest zoo in the world).
Tiergarten was opened in 1752, at that time only for royalty. In 1779 it opened for the public on Sundays but required a certain dress code.
In Schölnbrunn’s prime, the palace could easily have had a 1000 people living there with its 1441 rooms and halls. Today you can take a tour to see 40 of these rooms. Although the tour inside was something to be seen, we still preferred the gardens.
Just outside of the park, we came across a fabulous Lindt store, and left with way too many chocolates for the two of us. At least this meant we had some snacks on our flight back home.
With the use of public transport, we still managed to walk more than 50km in three days. Vienna is huge with loads to see, do, eat, and learn. Still, on our bucket list, go see a show in the Opera house. We managed to pick up some German words (mostly food, of course) since Vienna is the second largest German-speaking city.
I did mention that it was not our favorite spot but would go back in a heartbeat.
The End.
Sadly all good things must come to an end. This was one freaking AWESOME vacation, better than I could have dreamt, and unable to forget.
T, my hubby, friend, travel partner and photo assistant made it even better as always.
Thank you.
Next we hit some very good times and bad luck in the UK.
Wandering off now…
T & Me
