Vienna – the city of opera, schnitzel and the famous Viennese coffee! This is how I pictured the Austrian capital before I visited the city for weekend back in May. While exploring Vienna and its compelling imperial palaces I couldn’t help feeling small and insignificant in comparison to the life royals were living back in the day. However, Vienna is so much more than that! The city has a variety of museums, art galleries, markets and restaurants and carries a certain vibe of its own.
Vienna is a quick bus ride from Bratislava but it is nearly four times bigger in terms of population. What really impressed me is that you can see the highlights in a short amount of time. We bought Vienna city travel card for 48 hours which turned out to be really good investment as it could take you anywhere around the city and the airport. It also saved us a couple of euros on entry to museums during our stay which is always pleasant.
It was extremely hard to navigate the city without knowing the language (at least for us!) so I strongly suggest to learn a few basic German words before your journey. Alas, none of us was really fluent in German so it took us a while to find a local schnitzel place for our dinner. After walking around Bratislava the whole day we were really happy to enjoy a massive Viennese schnitzel with a side of potatoes and a pint of cold Weiss bier. This was the best Schnitzel I ever had – probably that’s why we came back to the same place the next day 😀
On the next day we went straight to Schönbrunn Palace, the former summer residence of the Hapsburgs. The place itself has about 1400 rooms of which only up to 50 are open for tourists to explore. It took us about 1 hour to tour the rooms of where royalties such as princess Sisi, and Franz Joseph once lived. There are plenty of stories to learn about the history of this place which looks astonishingly beautiful!
Our ticket also included exploring some of the gardens around the palace as well as a maze. The palace also has its own zoo and there is plenty of space if you want to enjoy a nice picnic with a view towards the city. Make sure to check out the view from the highest point in the palace.
After about 3 hours in this place we decided to go to the city and see the gothic St. Stephen’s Cathedral. It was really fascinating to see the multi-coloured tiles on the roof of the cathedral.
A quick 5-minute walk from St Stephen is Mozart residence – which has a very good exhibition of his notes as well as stories about his time in Vienna. It was incredible to earn that Mozart actually was leading extremely expensive lifestyle and he spent most of his life being in debt to various beneficiaries. What a classical rockstar! 😀
On our last day which was also a half day we packed our backpacks and we went to Belvedere Museum where the famous Kiss painting by Gustav Klimpt is on display. It has two galleries with Austrian art and sculptures from all the ages. Before becoming a gallery, Belvedere was built in around 15 century as the summer residence of Prince Eugene Eugene of Savoy and has some of the most beautiful marble rooms and painted ceilings.
Vienna is one of the most romantic places in Europe which I have visited and it is definitely worth coming back to. The city seems to have it all – restaurants, shopping, art and museums and I even managed to spot a free growing weed shop from the street! 😀 I really hope to come back soon and explore more but perhaps this time I would take tour to Hallstatt. Just look at how tranquil this place has been painted (my favourite picture at Lower Belvedere!)!
Travelpie and jam 