Vienna 2010: First Full Day

Me In Vienna.

By 7 AM I was already awake, having not slept too well I woke up around six and just laid in bed for an hour. After figuring out how to use the coffee maker, which was nothing more than a water boiler that boiled water in about one minute and instant coffee, I got dressed for a cold day in Vienna. I was down in the lobby before our meeting time of 8 and was happy to see my brother and his wife made it to Vienna. Once my sister arrived we walked to the café down the street. I wish I would have written the name of this café down, but I didn’t, so for now on it is just “the café”.

Today was the day we had tickets for the hop-on-hop off bus tour. This is a great way to see all of a city in one day and spend more time some of sites along the way. There were a total of three lines, red, green and blue, which stopped at 15 different locations, and each location had for to eight sites to see. The first bus arrived at 10 AM at the Schönbrunn Palace, so we had time to visit the palace before the bus arrived. So we walked back to the palace and bought tickets for a self-guided audio tour. The tour took you through about 40 of the 400 rooms of the palace, and in each room you could listen to a description of the room and learn about the history of Austria and the palace in general. Unfortunately, the audio recording could not be fast-forwarded, so you were forced to hear the whole speech before proceeding to the next room. This leads to information overload. The most interesting fact I learned was that at one time Elisabeth of Bavaria, the Empress of Austria lived there. Her nickname was Sisi, and she had a reputation for always complaining, and that is where the term “sissy” comes from.

Buildings in Vienna.

After the tour we walked to the bus stop. The bus arrived on time and I handed the voucher to the man by the door that was smoking a cigarette. He looked at it and let us on the bus, which was almost empty. Some of the seats had headphones, so we (my sister) grabbed one each, assuming they weren’t going to had out any more - which they didn't. Between stops you can listen to the audio, which describes the significant buildings and sites we passed by. We decided to make our first stop at Heroes’ Square, where we visited the Treasury. First a disclaimer, I’m trying to remember what we saw each day using my memory, maps and the Internet. I may sometimes not have the correct name or place due to poor memory from the long trip there, lack of sleep and the nine hour time difference (or old age). So anyways, this museum contains “a unique panorama covering over a millennium of European history. This is the home of the most important collection of medieval royal objects: the insignia and jewels of the Holy Roman Empire, including the Imperial Crown and the Holy Lance.” Like most museums, no photos were allowed, but you can see the jewels on the site’s web page.

After seeing all we wanted to see, we ventured back outside and wandered around some more. Our next stop was the stables, where they keep the horses that pull the carriages. There wasn’t much to see here except some nice white horses sticking their heads out of the stable, but my sister wanted to get some photos for a friend who really likes horses. Continuing our walking, we found some Roman ruins, including a city wall! It is important to always find the Roman city wall in any European city.

White Horses in Vienna.

We were going to get back on the bus to go to St. Stephen’s Cathedral, but looking at the map we realized it was just a short walk away, and we were in the city center where there is lots to see. As we got closer to the Cathedral, we entered a very busy pedestrian shopping zone that was decorated with all sorts of lights above the street, but since it was day the lights were not off. At this point I knew I needed to come back after dark to see the lights turned on. That would have to wait until Thursday. Once we got to the Cathedral we walked in. Like most Cathedrals, it is open and free, but also an active church, so you need to be quiet and respect the people who are there to do whatever one does in a church during the day. I snapped a few photos, without a flash, but it was dark inside and they didn’t turn out too well. I did get a good photo of the pipes (not pictured) from the pipe organ and unfortunately the organ was not playing. In fact, in all the cathedrals we visited there was no music playing.

The "Golden Cabbage".

Our goal was to climb the tower, as every major cathedral has a tower to climb. We found the entrance outside and paid our three Euros for the privilege to climb 350 stairs up a narrow passageway with sticky walls. Well, the climb is always worth is because at the top, or in this case the middle, since the stairs to the very top (500+ steps) were not open, the view of the city is spectacular. Unfortunately, it was very cloudy and hazy outside, but there was still a great 360 degree view of Vienna, and you could see other churches and other sites all over the city.

Cathedral in Vienna.

We then walked back down, washed our hands with handy-wipes, and then set out for some lunch. We ended up at a pizza place and each had a large slice of pizza. This provided energy for the rest of the day. We walked around some more and then went back to catch the bus. Since the next bus wasn’t due for 15 more minutes, we decided to walk back to where we got off the bus earlier so we could see the other stop along the tour. Once the bus showed up we walked on and this time when I gave the drive my voucher he actually took the time to look at it and give us four tickets. Also, this bus was larger and had a second deck where we sat and put on our headphone.

We were on the red line once again, and when we arrived at the Opera House stop, which was the main stop of the tour, the bus “turned into” the blue line, which was the bus we wanted to see the rest of the stops. The blue line tour took one hour, returning to the Opera House. It was starting to get dark outside, and as we drove around I did my best to take photos of significant sites, such as the building with the “golden cabbage”. The history behind this building was that it was built sometime in the early 20^th century, but the locals thought it was ugly, and called it the golden cabbage. Then in World War II the building was mostly destroyed by bombs. But then after the war, the occupying America ambassador had the building reconstructed, which the locals were not too happy about. I guess you just can’t win.

Dome from Dome in Vienna.

Once back at the Opera House, we had to switch to the green line bus which took us back to our original stop, the Schönbrunn Palace. My sister and I were eager to show our brother and his wife the wonderful Christmas market we had discovered the night before. However, for some reason there were a lot fewer people and there was no band playing. We did have time to shop and I actually bought a souvenir, a porcelain cat with a candle, which is now sitting in my guest bathroom. My sister and I once again drank two Glühweins each, which helped warm us up. Each day of the trip the temperature got colder and the chance of rain or snow increased.

After about an hour in the square, we were starting to get tired. Since we needed to get up early the next day for our trip to Budapest, we went to the café to buy our breakfast for the next morning to save time. We needed to be ready to go by 6:30 the next morning. Also, we skipped dinner, except I bought a sandwich at a store on the way back to the hotel.

Lights in the daytime in Vienna.

Back to my room on the third floor, I got ready for bed and was asleep by 9 PM. I tried to stay awake longer, but with only three English-speaking channels, all news stations, I got board and turned the TV off. Tuesday was going to be a very long and busy day, so I needed all the sleep I could get.